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At Last, Some Decency on Wall Street
By the time you read this, the PR hacks of Goldman Sachs will be vigorously pressing their efforts to destroy the reputation of whistle-blower Greg Smith, a former Goldman executive director whose exposé in Wednesday’s New York Times Op-Ed page was so devastating that the 143-year-old firm might actually, finally, be held accountable.
People walk to work outside the Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York in 2010. (AP/Mark Lennihan)
Smith, a wunderkind who spent the 12 years after he graduated from Stanford University rising through the ranks at Goldman, has revealed the firm’s culture to be so fundamentally venal that were financial industry shenanigans not generally exempt from effective legal regulation, Goldman’s executives could have been rounded up Wednesday morning on organized-crime charges.
The law that exempted what would have been illegal trading in the murky derivatives that the Smith article denounced was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, enthusiastically signed by Bill Clinton in the waning months of his administration. The legislation shielded from any regulatory law the very activities that led to the financial meltdown from which Americans are still reeling.
Back in the Clinton era, it fell to the president’s last press secretary, Jake Siewert, to justify the freeing of Wall Street investment houses to do their worst, and in one of those delicious ironies Siewert was appointed as a managing director and the global head of corporate communications for Goldman Sachs the day before the devastating Smith exposé broke.
Who better to hastily concoct a strategy of explaining away Goldman’s deceit in the sale of those derivatives? Predictably there was the quickly leaked memo by Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein shooting Smith, the previously highly valued young messenger, as a “disgruntled” employee for daring to describe the culture within Goldman “as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.”
Smith’s charge about Goldman “routinely ripping their clients off” resonated widely on the Internet because of prior exposures of suspect derivatives deals in which Goldman explicitly bet against the products it was selling. Slightly less than two years ago the Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges against Goldman that resulted in a $550 million fine over such double-dealing.
But what is so damning in Wednesday’s article is Smith’s insistence that the culture of Goldman has only gotten worse since then: “Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.”
In addition to heading Goldman’s equity derivatives trading in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Smith was involved in recruiting new talent for the company. It was his supervision over recruits being exposed to the increasingly corrupt Goldman culture—amid routine reference to clients as “muppets” and chortling about “ripping eyeballs out”—that finally turned him off.
At the heart of the rot were those derivatives, the collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and credit default swaps (CDS) that were made legal by the legislation Clinton signed and Siewert defended. In his piece, Smith referred to the selling of those designed-to-be-toxic products as the essential avenue of Goldman’s greed, saying you “find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.”
Contrast Smith, who announced his resignation from Goldman in the Op-Ed article, and Siewert, who has just joined up with the greed merchants after working in the administration that made that greed legal. Clearly, people like Siewert, comfortable in the Washington-Wall Street axis, have no sense of shame. They know all too well what Goldman and the other financial swindlers have been up to, causing so much misery for tens of millions throughout the world.
After a stint with Alcoa in the private sector, Siewert returned to government as a top aide to President Barack Obama’s treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who worked in the Clinton Treasury Department before becoming head of the New York Fed. Former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs executive Robert Rubin recommended Geithner for that position. In his Fed job, Geithner choreographed the bailout of AIG, which compensated Goldman Sachs for its toxic derivatives.
Because Siewert is obviously without a moral compass, he can, as have so many in the elite from both parties, move easily without any hesitation through the platinum revolving door between Washington and Wall Street, becoming filthy rich in the process while betraying the public trust. Hail Greg Smith, and thank The New York Times, for his cri de coeur, a rare example that decency is not always for sale.
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64 Comments so far
Show AllThere is no "revolving door" separating Wall Street and Washington.
Any separation was removed when Washington was purchased decades ago.
Also, Ax murderers are too obvious, today's corporate murderers prefer to use the latest military innovations, like drones, to increase their "influence".
Goldman and the other banksters are "causing misery for tens of millions" WITHIN the US ALONE, not "throughout the world" as Scheer alleges. "Throughout the world" bankster swindles are continue to cause misery for BILLIONS of people.
Goldman and the other banksters are not just "betraying the public trust". They and the politicians they own are rapidly transferring all wealth from the 99% to the 1%.
These people believe they are divinely commissioned to administer "justice" to the "immoral riffraff", and that their wealth is their "just due", or "God's work", as Blankfein put it. It's nothing less than the old doctrine of "the divine right of kings" over the "unworthy masses". They believe the masses are poor because they are "sinful", and deserve poverty. In effect, they seek to repeal human progress since the 1700's, and roll us back to the feudal system. Most of Washington appears to agree with them, and the bulk of the people don't know how to stop it. It is a desperate situation because the ruling class has lost all fear since they succeeded in forcing the bank bailouts on their terms in 2008, and the people are disorganized, and have no champions. The few champions they did have were all assassinated decades ago. That's how long this coup has been in play ...
Hail Greg Smith, and thank The New York Times, for his cri de coeur, a rare example that decency is not always for sale.
~ ~ ~
not sure what "cri de couer" means, but YES(!) thank you smith and nyt!
i hope mr. smith is prepared for the character assassination sure to come
cri de couer=cry from the heart
:O) Thanks.
Hail Greg Smith is right. Maybe he'll inspire others to blow the whistle.
Since the culture of corruption in the Obama/Clinton administrations mirrors the culture of corruption on Wall Street, it is no wonder Siewert fits like a glove in both environments. Clinton set the table, and Bush/Obama opened the diningroom door for all the pigs to come in and endlessly gorge. May they all know what it is to be hungry and broke and trapped in a jail cell for the rest of their lives.
"They" own ranches in Paraguay (no extradition policy, there) where they will flee in the unlikely event that things ever start turning around.
Speaking of jail cells; the thought occurred to me that perhaps the ship is getting ready to hit the sand and Mr. Smith bailed before that happened? I don't mean to minimize the "whistleblowing" aspect of his move...just sayin.
"...financial industry shenanigans ..."
'Shenanigans' is when the boy's dorm at band camp performs a panty raid on the girl's dorm.
The mafia (a.k.a. the financial industry) should not appear in the same sentence with the word 'shenanigans'.
Cosa Nostra is the mafia not sanctioned by the US Government.
Wall Street is the mafia enabled and aided by the US Government.
I think you have it backwards. Cosa Nostra means "our thing," which is more appropriate when Wall Streeters think about the government.
Mr. Scheer appears to be somewhat of a Clintophobe. Any undocumented statements this little pr*ck makes about Bill Clinton must be taken as a lie.
There is no shortage of documentation of Clinton's zealous enabling of NAFTA, media monopolization, New Deal dismantling, and perjury that enabled Dubya to move in to the White House.
So what did Scheer say about Clinton that was a lie? Or even misleading? It's well documented that Clinton was a huge propenent of both the CFMA and the Gramm Leach Bliley acts.
.
Bubba Clinton is a colossal neo-liberal a-hole who deserves a big share of blame for the economic disaster that has occurred in this country over the last 5 years.
I'm not a big fan of Scheer, but let's face it-- to a Clintophiliac, everybody who's not one appears to be a Clintophobe.
Let's not get carried away. Smith is put off, not by the social and institutional purpose and role of the giant trading and investment firms like Goldman Sachs (not a peep about, say, land grabs in Africa and India), but only by the way in which a small subset of the 1% has betrayed its holy allegiance to the rest of its class (its 'clients' with their multitrillion-dollar 'asset base'); insatiable greed and money-worship are fine just so long as the mania for profit stays well short of the threshold of class treason. When Smith concludes with his hyper-moralistic admonition to GS to 'make the client the focal point of your business again', this is nothing more than a desperate plea to the superrich to respect the necessity for unity and cohesion. The fact that so-called progressives are making such a stink about this man's letter is highly disappointing to say the least.
I thought the same thing.
Thank You.
An excellent class analysis of Smith's resignation and his plea for a slightly more inclusive capitalist gang bang.
I disagree with you about the stink. Progressives should be all over this. It's great propaganda. Even the capitalist running dog thinks things have gone too far!
Is the guy a hero? Not yet, but he has bolted out of the gate. Unfortunately, I don't think he's in this for the long haul, and I wonder what part of the backstory remains hidden here.
But his letter is a nice flash point.
Destroy The Vampire Squid!!!
What's sad is that when you are TOO BIG TO FAIL, then a little blip like this insider exposé will change nothing, not even people's minds. In a little over a week, it will be like it never happened. It's good to be king!
"Predictably there was the quickly leaked memo by Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein shooting Smith, the previously highly valued young messenger, as a “disgruntled” employee for daring to describe the culture within Goldman “as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.” "
Well, after all, if Blankfein is doing "God's work" then he must be believed, right?
We need whistleblowers like Greg Smith, Julian Assange et al. to reveal the truth behind the PR.
"At Last, Some Decency on Wall Street" -- true, this is unprecedented. But don't expect this "decency" disease to spread and cure the rotten and dark cabal that is Wall Street, the Federal Reserve System, and all 536 legislators of government (give or take a few), and this doesn't include the absolutely corrupt Supreme Court five, and the incredibly corrupt and criminal "regulators" within the USA financial architecture..
Nothing will cure this disease until we have our own Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the majority of these THIEVES are rounded up, removed from their cushy position, tried and jailed. And perhaps, times are a changin'...
Web search White Dragon Society. Web search Bank Leader Dismissals, Firings, or Resignations...it's quite fascinating how many there have been in the last six months (including Robert Zoelick's leaving his post at World Bank). It appears there has been an intense international financial war going on...you won't hear or read about it here, and just forget MSM. The world is sick and tired of this warmonger and financial pariah state, fueled by the illicit and outright criminal wheeling and dealings of the Federal Reserve System (26 Trillion to bail out its fellow pack of THIEVES since 2008, with our and our kids' and grandkids' money), and they are moving quite earnestly at taking away its CRACK COCAINE.
9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, this phony War of Terror, Fukushima and the missing 2.3 Trillion from Pentagon coffers years ago which funded Blackwater, and the latest attempts to foment WWIII connected to Syria and Iran...the world is fed up with this MONSTER, who plays with money it doesn't have to visit misery on the world, as much as they want, because ultimately it is ours. It's all connected. Just follow the money. Big law suit against it all has been filed in NYC - a mega Trillion dollar law suit to get the financial order revamped, and the power of the Federal Reserve System, with its favored role of being the world's currency for all commodities finally wrenched away....which by the way they were supposed to relinquish in 1994 (as part of a 50-year arrangement agreed to at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference)... but of course they welched on the deal and wouldn't relinquish the role. The world is fed up and they are organizing to take it away.
It should be a wild 2012, with lots of folks in the streets...unfortunately a lot of heads will get cracked by NWO/DHS types.
Obama is working overtime to revise laws to make everything those "folks in the streets" do illegal.
The crimes of the predators are codified and the lawful protesting and the seeking a redress of grievances is Outlawed.
Let's just admit it The USA is a rogue lawless nation.
The column describes an operation in which laws and regulations requiring financial institutions to deal honestly with their clients and protect their interests are routinely violated. The insider’s indictment of Goldman Sachs highlights a broader process—the criminalization of American capitalism as a whole.
It confirms from the inside that three-and-a-half years after Wall Street’s manic pursuit of super-profits triggered a global financial meltdown and the deepest slump since the Great Depression, nothing has changed in the boardrooms of corporate America. The same fraudulent and often illegal practices that enriched the financial aristocracy and plundered the rest of society continue unabated. The criminals at the top, having been bailed out with trillions of taxpayer funds, are making more money than ever, while millions of ordinary people are being driven into poverty and homelessness.
This is an indictment not simply of Goldman Sachs, or even Wall Street alone, but rather the entire economic and political system. Every official institution—the White House, Congress, the courts, the media, the Democratic and Republican parties—is complicit...
Not only does the Obama administration protect the Wall Street criminals, it includes their representatives among its top personnel. To cite some examples:
* Mark Patterson, a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, is the chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
* Dianna Farrell, former financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, is deputy director of the National Economic Council.
* Jacob Lew, Obama’s chief of staff, was a top executive at Citigroup. He follows two other bankers chosen by Obama to head his White House operations—former JPMorgan executive William Daley and former Chicago investment banker Rahm Emanuel.
The criminalization of the American corporate-financial elite cannot be separated from the capitalist system itself. It is the product of a decades-long process of crisis and decay, in which the ruling elite has increasingly separated its wealth-making from the production of real value.
Manufacturing and the productive infrastructure have been decimated, while financial manipulation and speculation have come to dominate economic life. The working class has suffered a catastrophic decline in its social position at the same time that a parasitic financial aristocracy has come to exercise a de facto dictatorship over the political system...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/pers-m15.shtml
A welcomed whistle blower. But Smith said, "I don’t know of any illegal behavior."
This is very hard to believe. He should be working with prosecutors (if there are any willing to enforce the law) rather than simply saying Goldman Sachs has a predatory and unethical "culture".
Indeed. If rip-offs, duplicity and complete contempt for the client don't describe illegal behavior, then there is either something very wrong with the law or with Mr Smith's perception.
A $550 million fine sounds like a lot, but it's just another cost of doing business for these guys. A whole bunch of the top dogs need to be stripped of their wealth and go to jail.
"Indeed. If rip-offs, duplicity and complete contempt for the client don't describe illegal behavior, then there is either something very wrong with the law or with Mr Smith's perception. "
Contempt for a client is not illegal, nor is duplicity in most cases. Rip-offs probably are illegal, but only a lawyer can specify when.
Remember the joke about the guy who begged a friend not to tell his mother he was a lawyer, saying "she thinks I play piano in a whore-house."?
On the other hand, fraud is illegal, and it is difficult for this non-lawyer not to think that fraud was involved when Goldman's guys were selling CDOs they knew were going to default.
"On the other hand, fraud is illegal, and it is difficult for this non-lawyer not to think that fraud was involved when Goldman's guys were selling CDOs they knew were going to default."
sheepherder: Add to that "high frequency trading" and we're talking about $billions being stolen every year from ALL market investors. In a split second we can lose everything to these dirtbags. And yet, the government allows it to go on and on.
I commented on this yesterday also lauding Mr. Smith for his courage and willingness to walk away.
We need Eliot Spitzer back in the game. Whatever happened in his personal life is his business, not to mention if one watches Client #9 it becomes glaringly obvious he was set up. But he was tireless in his efforts to expose the Wall Street parasites and bring the phony hot shots to justice. But, as we're seeing in all venues where one or a few take on the big moneyed interests, our corrupt military industrial complex and our prositute politicians, you're toast. And in some cases "toast" is preferable for we're hearing with ever more frequency that there are the less fortunate whistleblowers who get whisked away and incarcerated in some far off land where torture, cockroaches and mold serve as their cell companions.
We used to pay tribute to those who came forward. Soon they'll need a form of Witness Protection, though preferably with the assistance of someone outside the Fed. The Fed is just as corrupt as the rest of our high powered and over paid bullies.
I am not seeing any courage in this. More like cowardice and deception.
He is not "coming forward." He is re-positioning himself and making a career move. He knows which way the wind is blowing.
TA,
I agree. The guy is simply moving on.
Thomas Gilbert-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge311sFhC8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
When some of these Wall Streeters do what that video says THEN I'll believe they have a sliver of decency.
Until then I'll stick with these people are predators and vampires sucking the blood of the innocent.
Even giving Greg Smith credit and the benefit of the doubt, and accepting that he had a genuine epiphany or Pauline conversion that caused him to renounce the error of his ways, so far his "whistleblowing" still amounts to a modified limited hangout.
Exactly how is Greg Smith a "whistle-blower"?
With eyes open, he dove into the Gold(man)-plated sewer 12 years ago. He profited greatly from his swim as a Goldman derivatives trader and high level executive.
He reports absolutley nothing that hasn't been reported before -- with stronger documentation and stronger analysis.
He claims that he never saw any illegality in his 12 years at GS, but all-of-a-sudden Goldman lost its moral and ethical compass.
He resigned after the most recent Wall Street bonus season adding to an already lucrative early retirement.
To call Smith a "whistle-blower" abuses the term and demeans true whistle-blowers.
It is truly depressing to see progressives get in line with liberals to praise this shallow, callous and self-aggrandizing act.
Greg Smith is not a "whistle blower."
I agree with deepseaexplorer. Far too much is being made of this by pwogs who should know better. This guy was a major hedge fund manager who finally couldn't stand how his multi-millionaire clients were being ripped off by the multi-billion dollar Goldman Sachs. Those are the poor unassuming folk Greg Smith is now showing so much compassion and solidarity for. He was managing zillion dollar funds for African despots, certainly not for the teeming masses of Africa these tyrants with hedge fund accounts are starving and murdering every day. And suddenly he realizes that all GS cares about is how much money it can steal from despotic African and Asian governments? This is a case of one mob working with several other mobs, and the first mob is so lacking in scruples and the faintest trace of honesty or fair dealing that it's gouging the hell out of the other mobs.
So good for Greg Smith, but this really isn't the morality tale it's celebrated to be. I'm sure Smith will move on to some more "reputable" financial institution, where the routine theft and greed is carried out more respectfully, where the "culture" seems more sensitive to the needs of its zillionaire clients.
It's also worth remembering that Goldman Sachs was Obama's biggest supporter on Wall Street in 2008, and still is. He's a personal friend and golf buddy with the revolting Blankfein, hired dozens of Goldman former executives to build his team of economic advisers and in Treasury, and is surrounded every day by their wise corporate-friendly counsel. Every economic policy Obama's devised has been the handiwork of Goldman Sachs. Obama wouldn't be president without Goldman Sachs. He's as Wall Streeted up and corporatized as any president in US history. And none of that is going to change because Greg Smith resigned.
"I'm sure Smith will move on to some more "reputable" financial institution, where the routine theft and greed is carried out more respectfully, where the "culture" seems more sensitive to the needs of its zillionaire clients."
I doubt if any financial services company will touch him, ever, short of major reforms of the industry. If he didn't have plans to completely leave the industry, along with leads to facilitate that, he wasn't thinking ahead ...
All if the family! Isn't Chelsea Clinton married to a Goldman exec?
There's no need to get emotional,perry. "Clintophobe","undocumented statements","lie"?What do you consider the truth about bill clinton?That he didn't sign the Commodity Futures Modernization Act?Or that he didn't do it "enthusiastically"?From William K. Black: "The single most destructive deregulatory act,ironically,was contemporaneous with Akerloff and Romer's[George Akerloff and Paul Romer] hopeful conclusion in 1993: 'now we know better'-and can use that knowledge to prevent future crises.The 1993 deregulation was "bound to produce looting," which demonstrated that economists never 'knew better' and our [Black & colleagues at Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) West Region] successors as regulators no longer 'knew better'.In 1993,the federal financial regulatory agencies adopted an interagency rule junking their loan underwriting rules and substituting deliberately unenforceable guidelines.THIS IS THE RULE CHANGE THAT ALLOWED FRAUDULENT LIAR'S LOANS."(my emphasis).The entire article is "The Amazing Vanishing Act:Accounting Control Fraud Disappears from the Regulatory Lexicon" Feb.20,2012 at NewEconomicPerspectives.org.bill clinton is someone who fell in love with Wall Street.Later,in 1999, he signed the Gramm-Bliley-Leach Act aka Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999,which largely repealed Glass-Steagall.Later still,as Scheer notes, he signed,yes,"enthusiastically",the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.It's Orwellian-"Modernization" as we regress to the 19th century.Turd clinton is more responsible than any president or person since herbert hoover for unleashing the banksters on the rest of us.And you admire him.He also,as Mark Weisbrot reminds us in "America's Subversion of Haiti's Democracy Continues", CommonDreams Mar.14,2012,removed the democratically elected President of Haiti,Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in 2000.Why don't you get angry about that?Why do you admire turd clinton so much?
While Scheer's excellent article generally does a great job excoriating Goldman, Wall Street, Washington, the amoral slugs who slip though the revolving door --- exemplified by Jake Siewert, Clinton's slimy PR slug who ironically made the murder of Glass-Steagall sound as progressive as he will undoubtedly shill for Goldman's looting of the planet --- but a broader picture of this entire corrupt system is addressed in this analysis by WSWS:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/pers-m15.shtml
"This is an indictment not simply of Goldman Sachs, or even Wall Street alone, but rather the entire economic and political system. Every official institution—the White House, Congress, the courts, the media, the Democratic and Republican parties—is complicit."
Yes, the entire system is complicit --- and the only cogent conclusion that one can come to is that this entire, integrated, and conspiring system is nothing short of a criminal (but well disguised) corporate/financial/militarist (and media) enterprise of global Empire hiding behind the facade of our former country.
Criticizing the vicious looting perpetrated inside the bowels of Goldman is not, in itself, enough to explain the vast economic inequality and destruction of public resources. Nor is it sufficient to finger the political deceit of the two-party "Vichy" sham of democracy in Congress and the Presidency to explain fast growing foreign wars of imperialism, untold death, and bleeding of our public treasury. Neither is criticism of corporatist hubris a complete answer to the global destruction of an environment that can sustain our lives, those of our children, or the human species.
No, it is only by accurately combining all the corrupted and cooperating elements of the disguised corporate/financial/militarist and media global EMPIRE, which has captured and now fully "Occupies" our former country by hiding behind the facade of its modernized two-party "Vichy" sham of faux-democratic and totally illegitimate government, that one can understand the comparison between this 21st century post-nation-state global Empire and its precursor, the earlier corrupted corporate, financial, political and militarist Empire which tried to hide behind its primitive single-party "Vichy" facade in captured and "Occupied" France c. 1940.
It has taken more than half a century from the first perverted dreams of a new 'global Empire', under the direction of a nasty mad-man in authority, for the model of global Empire to be perfected beyond nationalism, with a friendlier version of consumerist fascism, with "Inverted Totalitarianism" [Sheldon Wolin], and under the PR, if not direction, of a smooth-talking front-man, of which can be finally said, "Nobody Does It Better" --- when it comes to fooling all the people, all the time, about the DGE (disguised global Empire) being as comforting as the country that it has displaced.
Yes, Goldman is part of the unified global Empire (as are many other financial and transnational corporations). Yes, the country formerly know as the US is part, even the nominal/temporary HQ, of the unified global Empire (as are many other former countries like; U.K., Germany, Israel, France, etc. etc.). Yes, global militarist domination is increasingly successful at bringing any "GAP" areas of the globe to heel. And some would undoubtedly say that in total, the political, economic, financial, social, cultural, military, environmental, and other spheres of human existence are being brought into a coordinated global Empire which certainly portends to be able to survive as a Thousand Year 'Reich' (German for 'Empire') --- except for the inconvenient fact that it is on an unsustainable death-spiral, unless we can recognize it, expose it, confront it, and ultimately excise it.
Best luck and love to the "Occupy THIS Empire" educational and revolutionary movement.
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
Over
Violent/Vichy
Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Alan: Do you really suppose hardly anyone else realizes this is an Empire? There isn't a soul even in Washington who would deny it. Hell, they're proud of it. They may not constantly use the word to make the point, as you do, but they and everyone else knows the US is an empire and have known it for 50 years. We all get this. If reminding ourselves it IS an empire, "Vichy" sham faux-democracy, or any other repetitive description we care to apply, would bring it down, then we'd keep saying "EMPIRE EMPIRE EMPIRE EMPIRE" for as long as it would take to bring the monster to heel. But just repeating the word 80 million times doesn't seem to do the trick.
OWS recognizes this, tries to expose it, confronts it, and ultimately hopes to excise it, but this can't be done until enough Americans begin to give a shit about what this empire is doing all over the world, and rid themselves of the fantasies that prevent that dramatic shift in perception. And just hollering "Empire!" all over creation every day isn't getting their attention. People here already get this, you don't need to remind us constantly. And please understand: I'm on your side. I totally agree with you, Alan. But I can't see what it serves to keep forever pointing out the "Vichy" mask US ruling elites are wearing, as if saying it over and over ad infinitum is going to work some sort of revolutionary magic.
Support OWS, and I'm sure you already do. That's the ONLY hope we have right now, and into the foreseeable future.
Ephraim, you may well have a point, although in my interactive conversation with most people at Occupy teachings and informal discussions (as well as in this non-interactive conversation thru internet) I continue to be conflicted with the fact that very a fairly low percentage of folks, even in the progressive community, seem as familiar as you suggest with a disguised Empire actually being in control of our country.
However, your point of getting tired of preaching the dangers of an un-confronted empire are something that I definitely feel tried about myself. And there is no major intellectual break-throughs for me to be just repeating this message --- I'd certainly rather spend my time using analogy-thinking to move ahead from this swamp.
Perhaps there is some inexorable truth to the pace at which a larger portion of the population become more actively attuned to confronting empire, as empire 'takes off the gloves' sort to speak. After all, the American colonists did not really start to rub at the bridal of the British Empire until signal events like the Boston Massacre in 1770 --- which served as a more broadly recognized oppression by the British Empire and which most historians view as one of the catalysts for the revolution against the Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre
Ephraim, although I am a pretty good student of history in general and teach it, I got an amusing surprise from this Wikipedia account of the circumstances surrounding and leading up to the Boston Massacre including this ironic note about the British Empire's actions to use it Navy's militarist moves to intimidate the colonials:
"Boston's chief customs officer, Charles Paxton, wrote to Hillsborough, asking for military support because "the Government is as much in the hands of the people as it was in the time of the Stamp Act."[5] Commodore Samuel Hood responded by sending the fifty-gun warship HMS Romney".
I'm guessing that 'Mittens' Romney will ignore this ironic footnote of history, as much as he claimed not to know what a two-party "Vichy" cover-up of Empire was, when I confronted him in Portsmouth, NH. [Our brief conversation about Empire begins at about 2:50 of the video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z00XFvXdzUQ
Likewise, in the interest of being bipartisan about raising the issue of Empire at the White House, neither did Obama offer to discuss the subject of the empire that everyone knows controls the US, when I spent the day in front of his oval office windows with my protest sign about the two-party "Vichy" Empire that controls the US --- although Obama did show the polite curiosity to have one of his SS goons go out on the roof and photograph my sign, perhaps to be made into his next year's WH Christmas card.
Anyway, Ephraim, as tired as I am about bringing this issue of Empire into the public discourse, I will continue to do so --- though with less ardor on CD, where a higher percentage of readers are probably well aware that they don't live in any kind of a democratic Republic, but where, as Ben Franklin told the lady in Philadelphia, "Yes, we have our Republic, if we can keep it (from Empire)".
Actually, Franklin did not complete his warning with the "from Empire", because he knew, as all the founding fathers knew, after the First American Revolution, that ALL the new American citizens understood, like it was burned into their brains, that the Revolution had been a fight "against an EMPIRE" --- a fact that I would rather not assume that all Americans understand so compellingly.
Best luck and love to the “Occupy THIS Empire” educational and revolutionary movement.
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
Over
Violent/Vichy
Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
I think if you could actually explain all this about our two-party Vichy empire to all the American people, about as many would care about it one way or the other as now do. My guess is, most Merkans would be perfectly indifferent or favorable to Empire as a Way of Life, in William Appleman Williams' phrasing from around 1980. Most of them just don't give a damn or they're actively enthusiastic that this is a rapacious, murdering empire. You would explain your point of view and overwhelmingly you'd hear : "Yeah, so? You got a problem with that, or what? Whaddya want, the Arabs taking us over? You want Sharia law all over this country? Don't you remember 9/11?"
They know either Romney or Obama will keep them firmly embedded in this crumbling empire that is hellbent on bringing down as much of the rest of the world as it possibly can with it. And they're down with that. The miseducation of this country's majority simply cannot be overstated. Being an ignoramus and proud of it has always gotten, and will continue getting, one very far in the US Vichy sham Empire. It was probably the same way in the waning decades of the Roman Empire.
Unfortunately, Ephraim, you're probably right.
You might enjoy, although be depressed by, Morris Berman's latest, "Why America Failed" --- which he basically chalks-up to "hustlings", which as you say is basically a materialist self-interest that can be summed as "what's in it for me" --- or perhaps in the context that we are discussing, and as you say, Ephraim, "So what's the problem? It's our Empire, right or wrong, buddy".
Unfortunately, the children of such people will live to hate what their parents have allowed to happen.
"And so it goes" (as the late great Kurt Vonnegut Jr. would say).
Actually, he did pretty much say it in his last non-fiction work, "A Man Without a Country"
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Without-Country-Kurt-Vonnegut/product-reviews/158322713X/ref=cm_rdp_hist_hdr_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
My favorite passage:
"Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."
Source via Kindle: Vonnegut, Kurt; Daniel Simon (2011-01-04). A Man Without a Country (Kindle Locations 525-526). Seven Stories Press. Kindle Edition.
Ephraim, best to you and yours,
Alan
I'm a very big fan of both Morris Berman and Vonnegut, and watched Berman on a CSPAN book signing talk for his new book. He went even further than I usually do of how we got this way--spiritually and psychologically. Take a look at a book he wrote in the '70's, "The Reenchantment of the World," for an excellent survey, about Merkans' williingness to swallow whole the narrative of the 1% as holy writ. They want to get rich quick, any way at all, and basically admire the hell out of anyone who does, no matter how many laws they break or lives they destroy.
We're an immoral country and mostly have always been, or amoral at best. And no one understood the American psyche better than Vonnegut. I just sit here waiting for the next atrocity episode, knowing 90% of My Fellow Americans won't pay attention to it for 3 seconds, and if they pay attention for 1 minute they'll quickly find any convenient rationalization that puts their lazy moral minds at ease. As Vonnegut would say, they won't do anything any differently unless they have to. And nothing forces them, so they don't have to.
Actually opinion polls show that most Americans oppose the empire's military adventures in the middle east. My guess is that you sell "most Merkans" short on the issue. I am always skeptical of arguments that most Americans support the empire.
Immoral, But Not Illegal
Greg Smith echoes Barack Obama:
"Transcript of Obama’s press conference" -- October 6, 2011
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/transcript-of-obamas-press-conference-2011-10-06
"Jake Tapper.
"Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Just to follow up on Jackie’s question -- one of the reasons why so many of the people of the Occupy Wall Street protests are so angry is because, as you say, so many people on Wall Street did not follow the rules, but your administration hasn’t really been very aggressive in prosecuting. In fact, I don’t think any Wall Street executives have gone to jail despite the rampant corruption and malfeasance that did take place. So I was wondering if you’d comment on that. [...]
"THE PRESIDENT: Well, first on the issue of prosecutions on Wall Street, one of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehmans and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole subprime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn’t necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless. That’s exactly why we needed to pass Dodd-Frank, to prohibit some of these practices."
Greg Smith and Barack Obama are on the same page -- what the banksters did was "immoral" but not "illegal" -- look forward, not backward.
Perhaps Greg Smith's NYT Op-Ed was intended as a job application for the Obama White House.
On second thought, Obama needs Lloyd Blankfein's "immoral but not illegal" campaign cash for 2012 -- plus, he will no doubt need some more Goldman Sachs alumni to fill his administration if he wins a second term.
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