By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
Where’s Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? Where are the monopoly-busters and the fire-breathers? Our champions of public morality? The statesmen Roosevelt speaks of? The whole notion of statesmanship seems as outdated as rabbit ears for the television or a land-line telephone. It’s a pity, because some things we simply can’t do without: the cosmic cocktail of character, ethics, wisdom and skill dedicated to the public good, in service to the whole of the nation, is one of them.
Being a statesman is hard to live up to, of course, and some only manage it professionally, but well. When Senator Bobby Byrd died, we lost our congressional orator. When Teddy Kennedy passed, we lost a champion for the working class. Both were American statesmen despite the Achilles heels in their pasts: both offered the larger vision necessary for inspiration and motivation, bringing our faltering narrative back to the higher angels of public service and wellbeing.
But now those voices are silent, and we seem lost in the myopic politics of the moment. Barack Obama has the makings of a statesman, one of the things we love about him. If the nation can give him a working Congress in November we might see a lot more of that, despite the fact that those talents are seldom appreciated in a political arena coarsened by inflammatory language and dulled wit. The one conservative candidate who came close to inhabiting the description of statesman, John Huntsman, dropped out of the presidential campaign because he couldn’t earn more than a half percentage-point of right-wing enthusiasm.
There are reasons that we no longer have the capacity to discern our own good, both political and social. We can point our fingers at the influence of think-tanks and the fact-editing, religious bias of home-schooling. We might blame the evangelical take-over of Christianity and the outsourcing of jobs. We can cite the slow bleed-out of the union movement and the privatization of what have traditionally been public interests. We can thank the explosion of health-care costs and the breakdown of the social safety net, the wobble of long-ignored infrastructure and the economic disparity that has divided the nation along lines not seen since the Gilded Age. But none of this happened overnight and frankly, much of it happened on purpose. I suppose we could complain that “nobody was watching the store,” but we’d be wrong. Teddy’s invisible government — the geopolitical chess masters, moneyed and powerful as Midas — were watching and waiting.
Three decades back, a rosy-cheeked actor-turned-politician won election by promising to “get the government off the backs of the people.” That came as something of a surprise to many of us who hadn’t realized we were toting that load, but in a downturned economy, it seemed as good an entity to blame as any. Getting the nod, the man who would become Saint Ronnie the Reagan established a Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief only two days into his term, intending to reverse as much oversight as possible. He spent both of his terms in government bashing, busting not monopolies but unions, emptying public hospitals of the mentally ill and demonizing the poor, and vainly attempting to put the lid back on the hedonistic zeitgeist loosened in the ’70s. Sunny Old Ron wasn’t a nice guy; ask his kids (not the adopted one.)
Reagan was eventually followed by a likable Democratic glad-hander from Arkansas who, improbably, fractured the social safety net and then drove a stake through the heart of the Glass-Steagall Act, legislation passed in 1933 to prohibit commercial banks from playing roulette with depositors’ money. Glass-Steagall was dissolved in 1999, along with the distinction that separated commercial banks from brokerage firms. Clinton has since shown regret that he did not act immediately to regulate derivatives, but he — like his Federal Reserve Chairman and Ayn-Rand-acolyte, Alan Greenspan — didn’t think it necessary, trusting big banking to police itself.
It’s hard now to believe that was an innocent error, but giving Big Bill the benefit of the doubt, nobody suspected that Wall Street would kill the golden goose, shaking the world economy with unbridled speculation and greed. Remember, the majority thought Bush’s buddy, Kenny-boy Lay, and the Enron debacle represented a fiscal anomaly, not a preview of coming attractions.
Once the many-tentacled squid was out of Pandora’s box, who was going to stuff it back in? It’s still difficult to wrap our minds around the power of a financial institution like Goldman Sachs, Matt Taibbi’s proclaimed “blood-sucking vampire squid.” It’s truly impossible to contemplate the amount of money that travels through its books on a daily basis, leeched away in dozens of directions without anyone able to provide complete oversight of the complex process. Greg Smith’s public resignation this week certainly justified our fears about Goldman’s culture of corruption and greed, but at the end of his New York Times op/ed, Smith mentioned that he hoped his article would be a “wake-up call to the board of directors.” Did you laugh? I certainly did.
It takes a level of naivety, and perhaps an insider’s guilt, to project such a possibility on a group of individuals so cold-hearted that ice cuddles up to them, but I know what DID get the board’s attention. The day after Smith’s article appeared on the Times opinion page, Goldman lost $2.15 billion of its market value. It wasn’t ethical outrage that prompted the loss, of course. It was Smith’s allegation that Goldman was working for itself, not its clients, that set up a clamor and a rush to remove funds. While there was surely a percentage of working class citizens pulling their money from Goldman, even more money came from fat cats’ pockets. Rogue capitalism is mostly frequented by … ummm … rogues.
The good news is that this is not news at all. It’s not like we don’t know where the Masters of the Dark Arts live. If you ask your neighbors who has us by the short hairs — discounting the 20-some percent who blame Obama for all things evil — they’ll likely say banksters. Who is laughing and living large while we cry and try to keep from losing our homes? Banksters. Who continues to pull in huge profits and borrow at infinitesimal percentages while refusing to lend to the average citizen or small business? Banksters. Who paid back the bail-out billions with more government bail-out money? Oh, hell … you know.
Yes, you know. We’re the 99% and we know who is beneficiary of all our troubles, who is still making profit hand over fist. The economy is doing much better, thank you, but it’s not trickling down to our paychecks. Yes, manufacturing is up, unemployment is down, numbers are good and pigs fly. Ahhh, but don’t despair, young Jedi — the grassroots continues to grow in strength and influence.
The movement to remove our money from megabanks was more successful than many imagined it could be, with more than 10% of citizens and small businesses moving their money to community banks and credit unions last year. Sadly, you and I don’t have lobbyists to write legislation in our best interests, so it was a spit in the bucket to a bank like — for instance — Bank of America. Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi has written another bit of investigative journalism on B of A, tagging it as a “raging hurricane of theft and fraud:”
But despite being the very definition of an unaccountable corporate villain, Bank of America is now bigger and more dangerous than ever. It controls more than 12 percent of America’s bank deposits (skirting a federal law designed to prohibit any firm from controlling more than 10 percent), as well as 17 percent of all American home mortgages. By looking the other way and rewarding the bank’s bad behavior with a massive government bailout, we actually allowed a huge financial company to not just grow so big that its collapse would imperil the whole economy, but to get away with any and all crimes it might commit. Too Big to Fail is one thing; it’s also far too corrupt to survive.
Surely no one reading this piece will be shocked, just as nobody in the middle class was really shocked in 2009 when Taibbi famously referred to Goldman Sachs as a vampire squid. At that time, the financial industry behaved like a scalded cat, coming at him with fangs and claws, goading the press to go after Matt for his apparent hysteria and paranoia. Nobody is going after him this time around, perhaps thinking B of A can do its own heavy lifting.
Indeed, his prankster’s past behind him, Taibbi has become the darling of the #occupy movement. He can call up the litany of faces and facts that explain the anger we feel in this economy, as he recently did at a teach-in at Bryant Park exposing Bank of America. No, nobody’s after Matt Taibbi this time around; they’re too busy trying to discredit Greg Smith for going where no plutocrat has gone before.
According to press and co-workers, Smith is a “disgruntled employee,” an ungrateful recipient of years of privilege and probably having a mid-life crisis. Of course one should factor in all the particulars when discussing such a defense: Goldman banned the use of Facebook for its employees last year, fearful of the beans they might spill. Suspicious behavior, eh? You always have to wonder what a gag order is attempting to hide, but in this case — and thanks to people like Matt Taibbi and the Occupy Wall Street mock trials that found Goldman guilty of criminal conduct — their sins are all pretty much in plain sight.
Goldman’s Greg Smith was hoping for a wake-up call, and I think we’ll get it, but not from the Goldman Sachs Board of Directors. It’s the working class stiffs and those who desperately want work that are getting the signal about generations of coercive financial manipulation from banks, corporations and multinational holdings. Spring energies will soon outdistance the erratic weather, warming us with Aries fire and preparing us for the coming Uranus/Pluto square that’s guaranteed to sizzle with electric shock. That’s the energy that is going to define us — change and transformation, guaranteed. Mark Morford, writing about our ability to perceive the changes at hand, wrote:
Obama, in the early, utopian gasps of his presidency, made a few inspiring gestures toward a serious overhaul of energy and education. Then he found out just how hateful and nasty Congress and the Republicans can be, which occurred at about the same moment the rest of us realized just how infuriatingly moderate and cautious Obama really is. Then it slowly dawned: the Great Shift probably won’t come from government after all.
No, not government. Us. The Great Shift will come from us, participating in those things that move us, that inspire us, that bring us into alignment with our hearts. Now’s our time. The old chess masters — evil without pity or apology — accustomed to manipulating wars, finance and the arms trade, have finally overreached, unable to control the spiraling economy and dark intent of their runaway policies. As for us, our collective anger may awaken us, may lead us to the street or align us with activism, but statesmanship must be the next step in change: our character, ethics, wisdom and skill.
I think that’s why we don’t have many heroes to look up to any more. We’re settling in to realism and awareness, we’re finally beginning to trust ourselves. We know that in order to bring a shift of consciousness, we have to let go of the bullshit and occupy our hearts. And we’ve come so far, haven’t we? To be this aware, awake? Angry but not raging, concerned but not afraid. Able to identify the spin, recognize the authentic and hear the quiet whisper, more powerful than all the noise and chaos around us, that tells us it’s 2012 … and now’s our time.
I too agree about having ambivalence, at least initially, toward the term “occupy” because of the military/colonial inferences. But the word also held echoes of occupying campus buildings back in the 60’s which gave it an architectural, spatial dimension. I could see us, feel us, filling up that space. The demands were naive, the co-opting damning, but the experience of power that came from filling and holding that space was visceral. It’s a common concept today, to hold space for. We make space and then hold that space for friends and loved ones or clients. Part of doing that is to bear witness to them.
So that’s how I’ve come to think of Occupy – as an opening and holding of space where we can show up and bear witness. I feel there is so much power just in that. Just to show up and bear witness. Show Up and Bear Witness – Ram Das’s Be Here Now from the 60’s (70’s?) updated for a new era?
The more I/we show up and bear witness to greed, the more greed is called greed, the more power accrues to us and recedes from them. A slow process, perhaps, but one I think may be inexorable and hope will be exponential. I like “occupy” now and find it malleable and personally fruitful as a mantra and reminder. Show up and bear witness. Like a sacred vigil. As part of a movement or part of a moment. Hold space for truth. Show up and name names. There is power in naming. (Just ask Rumpelstiltskin.)
Agreed, Yeti — I prefer “inhabit.” Feels like something to be tried on, fit into rather than taken over. And education is ALWAYS the answers, Stormi. I’m appalled at how little respect teachers get in this nation and a “cult of stupidity” which seems a deliberate defense of ignorance.
I remember rabbit ears too, be, and I not only have a landline, I haven’t got a cell phone. I have mixed feelings. Sometimes I think I’m missing out; other times I celebrate my freedom from electronic tyranny. Don’t know how long I can hold out! You also remind me that Ronnie was an Aquarius … with all the cerebral distance and coolness that can sometimes promote.
My cousin is a retired Naval Commander, he was attaché to Reagan in CA during the years when Ron was Gov, and was “on call” in the Pentagon when he was Prez. Cuz was devoted to the old coot. Years after he was gone, cuz told me that as closely as he’d worked with him, Reagan never … NEVER … called him by name. Ron’s personal warmth was a charade, even to those close to him. When I think of Ron, I think of Uranus, short-circuiting; which is ultimately what happened in the end.
I picked up a four-disc set — sixteen hours — of old commercials on DVD the other day. I was the first generation of TV babies, a Howdy Doody, Hopalong Cassidy groupie. It’s a kick to watch the old stuff; innocent, even, compared to today. Now it’s all cars, insurance and meds, shot through with cultural message. Then it was breakfast cereal and toilet paper and spaghett-o’s. Anybody out there old enough to remember the Maypo kid, yelling for his cereal? Or Mikey, who would eat anything? Or the old lady from Wendy’s that yelped, “Where’s the beef?” — which became a question Mondale asked Reagan in the presidential campaign, ’84.
Funny how they all stick in yer head, some sector of our brain is crammed FULL of this stuff.
Happy Wearin’ ‘o the Green Day, by the way!
Yep media literacy is as basic as the alphabet now. To get the message it’s necessary to understand the medium. Here is someone who was perhaps the first teacher of media literacy — Marshall McLuhan. He is basically the inventor of the field, and a friendly soul if ever one came along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan
Cancer Sun, Taurus Moon — Chiron in Pisces (second Chiron return happening now).
Uranus opposite Neptune — a true mystic. He has Nessus exactly on the Aries Point. And — his Pluto is at 28+ Gemini, the degree that shows up for everything from 9-11 to the Indonesian quake of ’04 to Fukushima.
“but i can say there is some hope about viewing/reading practices as i often have students, albeit with some dismay, tell me that they cannot watch/read without now thinking about and deconstructing what they’re being fed.”
yay! dismay or no, yay!
we need to clone teachers of (hyper)media literacy and send them across the land…
hear hear Yeti! there is a (sadly much) lesser known “movement” to decolonize the university, or academia in general, but you may already know that. and thanks for bringing in the media literacy aspect, hypermedia is the number one educator of kids today and what keeps many of them (and adults) in wonderland. in every class i teach about critical media literacy, which isn’t a standard of educational curriculum here like it is in other countries (e.g.; canada, australia), nor is it very popular. but i can say there is some hope about viewing/reading practices as i often have students, albeit with some dismay, tell me that they cannot watch/read without now thinking about and deconstructing what they’re being fed.
BK: The last time I saw a video of Reagan it hit me that people were responding to his daddy voice. His acting skills invited the projection of the American Hero embodied in characters like John Wayne. I think a lot of people growing up in front of televisions responded to that fatherly American image. With John Wayne as a role model it’s no wonder America has been such an asshole to its neighbors. I think television destroyed statesmanship. The TV induced attention span with breaks for advertising every few minutes can’t perceive depth and nuance. It just wants easy to swallow concepts that make sense. Don’t think too hard, don’t bother with research, just swallow the pill, go to work, get your paycheck, build your nest and fill it with replacement consumers. I think back then the ‘Pubs chose an actor from America’s golden age (if you were white and middle class) because there were enough people by the late 70’s who grew up on TV to be easily bamboozled by acting skills. Without TV Murdoch’s media monopoly wouldn’t have near the power to manipulate people’s minds as it does. I grew up on TV. It’s hypnotic. Radio and print leave more of your mind un-colonized so you have more brain power to question what’s depicted. TV is glittery shock-and-awe blasting the visual-audio perception with key phrases calculated to tickle the reptile brains of viewers. Maybe some folk have natural resistance, but I think most of us growing up on TV have to learn how advertisers work their magic to be able to resist it. A visual symbol gets to the mammal and reptile brains before the rational human can make a choice about it.
Occupy I think was an unfortunate term to choose. How about De-Colonize? Occupy is what domineering empires with bloated military budgets do to lands and peoples with things the empire wants.
I bet Reagan won the election with a lot of “30-something” voters who were experiencing their 1st Saturn Return. Those folks were part of the Pluto-in-Leo generation too. Loved the movies and the movie stars. Still kids in many ways, and feeling all grown up and ready to take on responsibility, as they saw it. Their personal Saturn return would be around the same degree, one of the 1st 10 degrees of Libra, as the Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions that happened in late 1980 through August 1981. Those same people would have experienced their 2nd Saturn return in 2009 and 2010, and quite possibly lost their homes or jobs. This might have happened as Jupiter opposed Saturn starting in May 2010 and only this January, started separating from this aspect. Payback can be a bitch. Illusion can only ease the pain, usually a couple of hours if found through the movies, or drugs, but when Neptune came to visit the U.S Sibly Moon, he stayed and stayed and stayed. . .
You have helped me understand the Neptune-in-Aquarius effect better Jude. Since the start of 1998, Neptune has been slowly eroding away the ideals and beliefs and structures that benefited “the people” and “the future”; hallmarks of the sign of Aquarius. At the same time all us folks born with Pluto in Leo thought we were getting rich like we were entitled to do, like in the movies, and not noticing so much the infra-structure but only the new toys that kept thrilling us with brand new ways to play. As transiting Neptune got closer and closer to the U.S. Moon it was also opposing those natal Pluto’s of the folks who voted for Reagan.
Maybe it is a stretch to link all the Leo Pluto’s to the Neptune-conjunct-the Aquarian U.S. Moon, but the Moon represents the comfort of security as well as basic needs and it takes far more for a Leo Pluto to feel secure. I remember statesmanship, and rabbit ears for the TV, and I still have a land-line phone. I also remember that middle class didn’t include huge homes, several cars, and stock in GE; that was upper class back then. Waking up or “coming down” to the real world has and will be very painful for many of us, but the opportunity to restore a more sensible set of values might be a gift worth considering.
This year when the voters go to the polls, the thirty-somethings will be having a Saturn Return in late Libra and early Scorpio, and it might even be conjunct their natal Pluto. They will have been born when Reagan was in office and chances are a lot of them won’t want to repeat that illusion. At least their Pluto’s will not be so easily seduced by vanity.
be