But Clinton offered a message that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, according to accounts offered by several attendees, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish. Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, in effect: We all got into this mess together, and we’re all going to have to work together to get out of it. What the bankers heard her to say was just what they would hope for from a prospective presidential candidate: Beating up the finance industry isn’t going to improve the economy—it needs to stop. And indeed Goldman’s Jim O’Neill, the laconic Brit who heads the bank’s asset management division, introduced Clinton by saying how courageous she was for speaking at the bank. (Brave, perhaps, but also well-compensated: Clinton’s minimum fee for paid remarks is $200,000).

@politicoroger tell hillary we are not her firewall we know it's not about Obama legacy it 3rd term Clinton presidency

— richdoll (@richdoll54) February 10, 2016

Hey Black & Latino voters,

Did YOU get the Hillary memo asking you to save her campaign?

I'm just curious. https://t.co/oDwqHhLD5b

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) February 10, 2016

Hillary Clinton just sent out a 3 page memo on how she plans 2 get the black vote, she shld try Private Prisons she's filled them w/plenty

— GAPeach (@PoliticsPeach) February 10, 2016

@politicoroger Please convey to Robbie Mook that we are not her firewall. No more #PrisonIndustrialComplex.

— JadeinNM (@Jadeinnm) February 10, 2016

@politicoroger All Sanders needs to do is gently remind SC black voters about how the Clintons treated Obama in 2008. Her support is soft.

— S.Anderson00 (@SeanKAnderson) February 10, 2016

In the age of all-American anger: Bernie Sanders, “The Big Short” & a nation that’s had it up to here


(Nearly a decade after plutocrats exploded the economy, we're just as unequal as ever — and people are fed up)

by EDWIN LYNGAR

Feb 8. 2016

...snip...The biggest financial crime of my lifetime, the financial collapse of 2008, is a historic injustice that has gone unpunished. The people who caused it also profited from it. The plutocratic class, spanning from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, manipulate politicians to get whatever they want, while the rest of us get almost nothing for our votes. This state of affairs is obvious to anyone who cares to look, and it’s the driving factor behind Bernie Sanders’ strong performance in Iowa.

If this election becomes a referendum on that unaddressed outrage, Sanders can and should become the next president.

.........Conservatives and liberals often agree about the stupidity and injustice of bailing out Wall Street, while leaving the rest of us hanging, but conventional politicians on both sides of the aisle have done nothing to rectify this historic wrong. I would add that this incident stands as Barack Obama’s greatest failure. Regular people paid the tab for the graft and corruption of Wall Street, and frustration and resentment have been brewing ever since, driving the rise of the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Donald Trump and growing white mortality. Despite the greatest economic reaming since 1929, consumers and taxpayers have answered only with self-destruction and impotent rage, while our slimy, gutless and corrupt political class begs more campaign cash from the same people who caused the mess.

.....I’m not even angry about the stupidity and graft of the bloated housing market, but I am furious over what happened afterward. Nothing. American taxpayer largess was tapped to cover bad bets by the wealthiest few, while taxpayers and homeowners lost everything. I personally lost money and opportunity, and many people, family, friends and coworkers, all ended up poorer for it. My hometown of Reno, Nevada, was hit particularly hard. We are on the mend, now eight years later, but damage has been profound and lives have been unalterably disrupted. To add insult, homeowners and regular people were often blamed for a broken system by a fact-free conservative press. In the end, no one paid the price for systemic fraud, and banks were handed billions in free money that they lent back to regular people at 12 percent interest.

......The glorified mafia family we mislabel “American finance” is the biggest reason Bernie Sanders can and should prevail in November. It is only him (or someone like him) who can finally address the simmering, residual rage over this issue. Hillary will never do it, what with her cozy relationships to Wall Street bankers. Even if she cared to address the issue (and I doubt it), she has no credibility to do so. She is as much a creation of Wall Street collusion as anyone on the Republican ticket.

By contrast, Sanders is anti-greed, a man of modest means with wild hair and penchant for ’60s idealism. He comes to the race from a time before the mantra “greed is good” was enshrined in American capitalism.



.....snip..........

When The Bankers Plotted To Overthrow FDR


It was a dangerous time in America: The economy was staggering, unemployment was rampant and a banking crisis threatened the entire monetary system.

The newly elected president pursued an ambitious legislative program aimed at easing some of the troubles. But he faced vitriolic opposition from both sides of the political spectrum.

"This is despotism, this is tyranny, this is the annihilation of liberty," one senator wrote to a colleague. "The ordinary American is thus reduced to the status of a robot. The president has not merely signed the death warrant of capitalism, but has ordained the mutilation of the Constitution, unless the friends of liberty, regardless of party, band themselves together to regain their lost freedom."

Those words could be ripped from today's headlines. In fact, author Sally Denton tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz, they come from a letter written in 1933 by Republican Sen. Henry D. Hatfield of West Virginia, bemoaning the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Denton is the author of a new book, The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right.

She says that during the tense months between FDR's election in November and his inauguration in March 1933, democracy hung in the balance.

"There was a lot at play. It could have gone very different directions,"

......snip......

When Roosevelt finally took office, he embarked on the now-legendary First Hundred Days, an ambitious legislative program aimed at reopening and stabilizing the country's banks and getting the economy moving again.



"There was just this sense that he was upsetting the status quo," Denton says.


Critics on the right worried that Roosevelt was a Communist, a socialist or the tool of a Jewish conspiracy. Critics on the left complained his policies didn't go far enough. Some of Roosevelt's opponents didn't stop at talk. Though it's barely remembered today, there was a genuine conspiracy to overthrow the president.


The Wall Street Putsch, as it's known today, was a plot by a group of right-wing financiers.

"They thought that they could convince Roosevelt, because he was of their, the patrician class, they thought that they could convince Roosevelt to relinquish power to basically a fascist, military-type government," Denton says................


http://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/145472726/when-the-bankers-plotted-to-overthrow-fdr

If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged.

http://robertreich.org/

Why We Must Try
Sunday, February 7, 2016

Instead of “Yes we can,” many Democrats have adopted a new slogan this election year: “We shouldn’t even try.”

We shouldn’t try for single-payer system, they say. We’ll be lucky if we prevent Republicans from repealing Obamacare.

We shouldn’t try for a $15 an hour minimum wage. The best we can do is $12 an hour.

We shouldn’t try to restore the Glass-Steagall Act that used to separate investment and commercial banking, or bust up the biggest banks. We’ll be lucky to stop Republicans from repealing Dodd-Frank.

We shouldn’t try for free public higher education. As it is, Republicans are out to cut all federal education spending.

We shouldn’t try to tax carbon or speculative trades on Wall Street, or raise taxes on the wealthy. We’ll be fortunate to just maintain the taxes already in place.

Most of all, we shouldn’t even try to get big money out of politics. We’ll be lucky to round up enough wealthy people to back Democratic candidates.

“We-shouldn’t-even-try” Democrats think it’s foolish to aim for fundamental change – pie-in-the-sky, impractical, silly, naïve, quixotic. Not in the cards. No way we can.

I understand their defeatism. After eight years of Republican intransigence and six years of congressional gridlock, many Democrats are desperate just to hold on to what we have.

And ever since the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision opened the political floodgates to big corporations, Wall Street, and right-wing billionaires, many Democrats have concluded that bold ideas are unachievable.

In addition, some establishment Democrats – Washington lobbyists, editorial writers, inside-the-beltway operatives, party leaders, and big contributors – have grown comfortable with the way things are. They’d rather not rock the boat they’re safely in.

I get it, but here’s the problem. There’s no way to reform the system without rocking the boat. There’s no way to get to where America should be without aiming high.

Progressive change has never happened without bold ideas championed by bold idealists.

Some thought it was quixotic to try for civil rights and voting rights. Some viewed it as naïve to think we could end the Vietnam War. Some said it was unrealistic to push for the Environmental Protection Act.

But time and again we’ve learned that important public goals can be achieved – if the public is mobilized behind them. And time and again such mobilization has depended on the energies and enthusiasm of young people combined with the determination and tenacity of the rest.

If we don’t aim high we have no chance of hitting the target, and no hope of mobilizing that enthusiasm and determination.

The situation we’re in now demands such mobilization. Wealth and income are more concentrated at the top than in over a century. And that wealth has translated into political power.

The result is an economy rigged in favor of those at the top – which further compounds wealth and power at the top, in a vicious cycle that will only get worse unless reversed.

Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than the citizens of any other advanced nation, for example. We also pay more for Internet service. And far more for health care.

We pay high prices for airline tickets even though fuel costs have tumbled. And high prices for food even though crop prices have declined.

That’s because giant companies have accumulated vast market power. Yet the nation’s antitrust laws are barely enforced.

Meanwhile, the biggest Wall Street banks have more of the nation’s banking assets than they did in 2008, when they were judged too big to fail.

Hedge-fund partners get tax loopholes, oil companies get tax subsidies, and big agriculture gets paid off.

Bankruptcy laws protect the fortunes of billionaires like Donald Trump but not the homes of underwater homeowners or the savings of graduates burdened with student loans.

A low minimum wage enhances the profits of big-box retailers like Walmart, but requires the rest of us provide its employees and their families with food stamps and Medicaid in order to avoid poverty – an indirect subsidy of Walmart.

Trade treaties protect the assets and intellectual property of big corporations but not the jobs and wages of ordinary workers.

At the same time, countervailing power is disappearing. Labor union membership has plummeted from a third of all private-sector workers in the 1950s to fewer than 7 percent today. Small banks have been absorbed into global financial behemoths. Small retailers don’t stand a chance against Walmart and Amazon.

And the pay of top corporate executives continues to skyrocket, even as most peoples’ real wages drop and their job security vanishes.

This system is not sustainable.

We must get big money out of our democracy, end crony capitalism, and make our economy and democracy work for the many, not just the few.

But change on this scale requires political mobilization.

It won’t be easy. It has never been easy. As before, it will require the energies and commitments of large numbers of Americans.

Which is why you shouldn’t listen to the “we-must-not-try” brigade. They’ve lost faith in the rest of us.

We must try. We have no choice.

http://robertreich.org/

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/flea-why-i-support-bernie-sanders-20160205

"The concept of a president in this country who is not beholden to corporate lobbyists is such a beautiful idea," Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea says

....snip....

A year ago, nobody really cared about Bernie Sanders or knew who he was. And here's a guy that is not relying on fear-mongering or Super PACs or billions of dollars. He's just talking about issues that really affect us as human beings, like caring about each other and evening the playing field.

...snip....


People try to demonize it like, "Socialism is the next step to communism." That's just insane silliness. Bernie isn't talking about eliminating the spirit of capitalism in terms of the competitive spirit of people being able to lift themselves up by their bootstraps through discipline and hard work and creativity and ingenuity.

He's not trying to eliminate making something great of yourself and being part of the American dream. He's just saying, "Let's even the playing field so everybody can get a decent education and have an opportunity to get health care and take care of themselves and educate themselves." That's what civilization should be about.

....snip....

The bottom line is that everybody deserves to get a good education. This country is completely capable economically of providing a high-grade education for everybody regardless of their economic class. And everybody deserves to have a high grade of health care regardless of their economic class.

That is what's going to help [reduce] crime and poverty. That is what's going to make this country a beautiful, vibrant place.

Beyond economic issues, the thing that drives my interest the most in any presidential candidate is the one that's least likely to go to war and least likely to start some bloodthirsty murderous war campaign in order to keep the Military Industrial Complex going and make billions for the corporations at the expense of human life.

I think Bernie is the least likely to start a cockamamie war.

....snip....

Progressive 3.0: Beware the Latest Version of Hillary Clinton
by John Atcheson
Common Dreams
2/5/16

.......snip.........

Look, let’s get this straight.

It wasn't very long ago when Hillary Clinton favored the TPP, the Keystone XL Pipeline and the death penalty.

She also opposed gay marriage and reinstating Glass-Steagall.

Her foreign policy is closer to the neocons who got us into Iraq (which she voted for) than what the American people favor.

She’s flipped on immigration, gun control, and NAFTA.

That’s not progressive.

She attributes her changes towards progressivism to “evolving” as a result of “new information.”

But as Politico points out, for most of these issues, there was no new information. For example, what’s changed on gay marriage, other than public opinion?

It also begs a question: if Sanders could see the folly of invading Iraq, or the stupidity of repealing Glass-Steagall, or the gross inequity of trade pacts, why couldn’t she?

Either she has bad judgment, or she’s being disingenuous about flip-flopping.

But now it’s apparent that the American people are taking a progressive turn and so, Hillary is shedding her moderate coat, and donning her progressive one.


When Mrs. Clinton – filled with righteous indignation – says let’s talk about issues and let’s look forward, what she’s really saying is let’s not talk about my campaign financing, or my policy history, because it won’t bear the scrutiny my new, new, new progressive brand demands.

........snip......

Read in full~
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/progressive-30-beware-latest-version-hillary-clinton