{"id":54570,"date":"2012-03-17T10:10:25","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T14:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=54570"},"modified":"2012-03-17T20:03:36","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T00:03:36","slug":"occupy-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/occupy-shift\/","title":{"rendered":"#Occupy Shift"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“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.”<\/em><\/p>\n

— Theodore Roosevelt<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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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 The whole notion of statesmanship seems as outdated as rabbit ears for the television or a land-line telephone.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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cblood-sucking vampire squid.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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<\/em> … rogues.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, but don’t despair, young Jedi — the grassroots continues to grow in strength and influence.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. Rolling Stone’s<\/em> Matt Taibbi has written another bit of investigative journalism on B of A, tagging it as a “raging hurricane of theft and fraud:”<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. No, nobody’s after Matt Taibbi this time around; they’re too busy trying to discredit Greg Smith<\/a> for going where no plutocrat has gone before.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}