I normally don’t put much stock in Chinese New Year symbols, but this year, starting on February 14th, Valentine’s Day in the West, the Chinese will begin the year of the tiger. Now the only tiger we identify in our own culture is Tiger Woods, and since his stock is way down right now, the year of the tiger will probably remain ironic at best in the U.S. Our tiger is currently toothless and being retooled (I mean rehabbed) in Mississippi, where sex addiction is apparently best addressed, Mississippi and sex addiction treatment seeming strange bedfellows aside.
For the first year of his presidency, Barack Obama has been much the lamb. He has tried to reach out to Republicans, find common ground, pursue consensus, and leave the law-making to congress, all of which has led to a decline in the country’s perception of him as a leader. While the nation seems to like him as a person, when they can separate the two roles in their minds, they have concluded that he is not the leader they had hoped for. Had he lined up with the Chinese symbol of 2009, he would have adopted the persona of the ox, not a likely persona for the slim, fit, agile person that he is. Besides, the last think the country needed was a bull in a china shop approach to issues, although he might have used that image to good effect with Wall Street, who know a bull when they see one, or so they keep telling us.
What this country needs right now is a lion, not a lamb. It is time for Obama to take off the kid gloves, stand up to the Republicans, show them that they are mere capons, not roosters they think they are, and roar and claw his way back into the leadership role the country expected him to assume in the first place. He should stop being so accommodating to the Republicans, especially now that they have rearmed themselves with that insidious weapon of mass destruction: the filibuster. Now there is no reason for Obama to worry about appearing a bully.
The primary reason Scott Brown won so easily in the Massachusetts election for Ted Kennedy’s former seat was that Scott looks and acts like a leader. His opponent did not. The heavily and traditionally democratic Massachusetts electorate, representing the general electorate as a whole because it was the only election available, sent a signal to Washington that the American people are sensing a vacuum in leadership that actually both represents and leads them. It is tired of seeing what it perceives to be the continued tiptoeing, kowtowing, and slinking around among politicians who are funded and influenced by special interest groups like Wall Street, the insurance industry, Big Oil, or corporate health care. They are desperate for a representative of Main Street and they found their first potential hero in Scott Brown.
America is purportedly a nation whose majority is at least descended from the Christian tradition. It is ironic, therefore, to be asking the President to be more the lion than the lamb, given the historic relationship between the Christians and the lions. However, Americans have never been consistent or wholehearted in their application of Christian virtues and imagery. For example, America loves football, a very violent sport in which never a cheek is turned. America is not in a generous position or mood today, especially toward other Americans. It saves its generosity for disasters outside America, such as the aftermath of the earthquakes in Haiti.
Barack Obama is the head of the Democratic Party. No democratic candidate can look forward to the 2010 election unless Obama changes his persona and starts acting as if he is king of the jungle rather than a lamb being readied for a Republican spit. If he is not bolder, he may end up an isolated black sheep, an image the racists would surely love to promote. Lambs negotiate; lions don’t.
America would rather respect and gain confidence in a lion than lie down with a lamb.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Wanted: Untouchables
The old untouchables were the Federal good guy agents led by Eliot Ness in 1929 who waged a war against organized crime led by Al Capone of Chicago. The Eliot Ness folks were dubbed the untouchables because they were incorruptible. They were beyond bribery and undeterred by bullets.
Today, we have another menace that threatens the entire country, not just Chicago. It is the small group of the largest banks that brought our economy to its knees in the past two years and who continue to flaunt their own sense of imperviousness to accountability. They indulge in lavish bonuses for their top guns at the expense of the common taxpayer.
Like Capone, Wall Street has traded in toxic assets and operated above the law. In Capone’s time, he simply broke the law and traded in toxic assets called liquor, while ignoring Prohibition. Wall Street dealt in toxic assets that were bundled into derivatives which were traded outside the scope of the law. There were no regulations protecting the public from derivatives. Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman Sachs, was quoted as saying that his firm was “doing God’s work.” Al Capone, I am sure, was seen as a Godfather figure. However, Capone never asked the government for bail let alone a bailout.
Unlike Capone, Wall Street sees no government agency or government leader capable of challenging its self-indulgence because it has brethren carefully planted across the spectrum of government power that might, under less corrupt circumstances, exercise reform. Unfortunately there is nary a politician in Washington who has not benefitted from Wall Street’s campaign contributions, thanks to the lack of any real self-imposed campaign finance reform. Therefore, there is no eager Eliot Ness who might be commissioned by the federal government to regulate Wall Street. There appear to be no “untouchables” or even potential “untouchables” on the horizon. Or perhaps there are.
Another Eliot, Eliot Spitzer, once wielded a heavy sword on Wall Street as New York Attorney General, but unfortunately he had an Achilles heel attached to another appendage. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut A.G. who appears to have no hidden weaknesses, is now a candidate for the Senate replacing Chris Dodd who is “retiring.” Perhaps Blumenthal can step up and lead the reform effort, but we would have to wait until next year, and that will be too late to prevent the next cloudy bubble rising over Wall Street.
The current attorney general of the United States, Eric Holder, has yet to play his hand, if he legally has any cards to play. Perhaps he will find a way to bring Wall Street to justice and relieve America of the rage it feels toward Wall Street and government alike, both symbols of callous self-indulgence, capitalism at its worst, corruption, and complicity.
In any case, America needs a new generation of untouchables to come along and clean up the brazen disregard of what government and capitalism are meant to serve: namely, the people, not the Capones or the Wall Street Cojones.
The American people are not helpless in pursuing reform. They can become one gigantic group of untouchables themselves, and they can start by making three very effective moves:
1. Remove all investments and deposits connected with the large and culpable banks. Tear up credit cards connected with same.
2. Write current senators and representatives and tell them you want to see substantial and real reform of Wall Street before June, 2010.
3. From now on the people should elect only politicians who refuse corporate donations to their campaigns.
Tea Party folks take note: Given the size and power of the corporations, small government is the last thing you actually want first. What America needs first is actual representative government, which means “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The only way that can happen is if we the people actually fund their campaigns instead of leaving it to the Wall Street or corporate machine.
Today, we have another menace that threatens the entire country, not just Chicago. It is the small group of the largest banks that brought our economy to its knees in the past two years and who continue to flaunt their own sense of imperviousness to accountability. They indulge in lavish bonuses for their top guns at the expense of the common taxpayer.
Like Capone, Wall Street has traded in toxic assets and operated above the law. In Capone’s time, he simply broke the law and traded in toxic assets called liquor, while ignoring Prohibition. Wall Street dealt in toxic assets that were bundled into derivatives which were traded outside the scope of the law. There were no regulations protecting the public from derivatives. Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman Sachs, was quoted as saying that his firm was “doing God’s work.” Al Capone, I am sure, was seen as a Godfather figure. However, Capone never asked the government for bail let alone a bailout.
Unlike Capone, Wall Street sees no government agency or government leader capable of challenging its self-indulgence because it has brethren carefully planted across the spectrum of government power that might, under less corrupt circumstances, exercise reform. Unfortunately there is nary a politician in Washington who has not benefitted from Wall Street’s campaign contributions, thanks to the lack of any real self-imposed campaign finance reform. Therefore, there is no eager Eliot Ness who might be commissioned by the federal government to regulate Wall Street. There appear to be no “untouchables” or even potential “untouchables” on the horizon. Or perhaps there are.
Another Eliot, Eliot Spitzer, once wielded a heavy sword on Wall Street as New York Attorney General, but unfortunately he had an Achilles heel attached to another appendage. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut A.G. who appears to have no hidden weaknesses, is now a candidate for the Senate replacing Chris Dodd who is “retiring.” Perhaps Blumenthal can step up and lead the reform effort, but we would have to wait until next year, and that will be too late to prevent the next cloudy bubble rising over Wall Street.
The current attorney general of the United States, Eric Holder, has yet to play his hand, if he legally has any cards to play. Perhaps he will find a way to bring Wall Street to justice and relieve America of the rage it feels toward Wall Street and government alike, both symbols of callous self-indulgence, capitalism at its worst, corruption, and complicity.
In any case, America needs a new generation of untouchables to come along and clean up the brazen disregard of what government and capitalism are meant to serve: namely, the people, not the Capones or the Wall Street Cojones.
The American people are not helpless in pursuing reform. They can become one gigantic group of untouchables themselves, and they can start by making three very effective moves:
1. Remove all investments and deposits connected with the large and culpable banks. Tear up credit cards connected with same.
2. Write current senators and representatives and tell them you want to see substantial and real reform of Wall Street before June, 2010.
3. From now on the people should elect only politicians who refuse corporate donations to their campaigns.
Tea Party folks take note: Given the size and power of the corporations, small government is the last thing you actually want first. What America needs first is actual representative government, which means “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The only way that can happen is if we the people actually fund their campaigns instead of leaving it to the Wall Street or corporate machine.
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