Brandishing placards that said “No More Wall Street White House” and chanting “Shame! Shame!” the crowd took aim at the president, even if it saved most of its vitriol for the nearby headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — or as one banner labeled it, “Chamber of Corporate Horrors.”
To hear some Democratic analysts tell it, the mushrooming protests could be the start of a populist movement on the left that counterbalances the surge of the Tea Party on the right, and closes what some Democrats fear is an “enthusiasm gap” between their party and Republicans in the 2012 election. But that assumes the president is able to win the support of these insurgents, rather than be shunned by them.
Mr. Obama, in a series of recent hard-edged speeches around the country, has channeled many of the grievances of the movement known as Occupy Wall Street: deepening economic inequity, a tax code that gives breaks to the wealthy and corporate interests and banks that profit from hidden consumer fees. Yet the president also oversaw a bailout of those banks, appointed a Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, who is viewed by the protesters as a shill for Wall Street and pushed a reform of the financial industry that many in the movement condemn as shamefully inadequate in curbing its excesses.
“There’s a lot of discontent with Obama’s policies,” said Kevin Zeese, an organizer of the protest, which drew about 500 people. “Obama is out of touch. He’s busy going around the country raising $1 billion to run for re-election.”
At his news conference Thursday, Mr. Obama seemed to recognize the potential and pitfalls of the moment. He sympathized with the frustration of the protesters and criticized Republicans for trying to roll back regulations. But he also defended the bailout and the financial reforms known as Dodd-Frank.
“These days, a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded, and a lot of folks who aren’t doing the right thing are rewarded,” he said. “And that’s going to express itself politically in 2012 and beyond until people feel like once again we’re getting back to some old-fashioned American values.”
Even before the protests welled up, Mr. Obama’s political advisers said he would focus heavily on the issue of fairness, tapping into a widespread sense among middle class voters that they lost the most in the recession. Underscoring his more populist tone, Mr. Obamaconfirmed that he was open to paying for his $450 billion jobs bill by levying a tax surcharge on people with incomes of more than $1 million. The White House had earlier been cool to the proposal, made by Senate Democrats, in favor of taxing a broader group. Democratic strategists conceded that Occupy Wall Street was a fledgling movement — it began in New York’s financial district last month and has spread to about a dozen other cities — with a murky future but said they viewed it as a potential boon. The left has not had a popular movement to energize progressive voters for some time, even as the Tea Party has become a vital force in Republican politics.
The decision by organized labor to join the demonstrations has given them an extra jolt of numbers and credibility, since unions have historically played an important, but waning role, in mobilizing voters on the left.
“There’s been a lot of talk about how the progressive base is demobilized,” said Robert Creamer, a longtime organizer for progressive causes. “Not only do I believe this will inspire the progressive base, the same way that Tunisia inspired Egypt, but President Obama has framed up the issues perfectly.”
Indeed, the placards carried by the protesters — with messages like “I am the 99 percent; I don’t have a lobbyist” — could have been written by the Obama campaign. The president has made much of the widening gulf between the wealthiest Americans and everybody else, as well as a tax code that makes Warren E. Buffett’s secretary pay proportionally higher taxes than the billionaire investor himself. Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist, said the movement effectively counters Wall Street’s argument, echoed by many Republicans, that burdensome regulations lie at the root of the nation’s economic problems.
“The coverage the protesters are getting certainly puts a spotlight back on the role Wall Street abuses played, and raises the salience of having a president like Obama who is willing to insist on Wall Street reform,” he said.
The trouble is, the protesters do not think the president has done nearly enough to crack down on abuses. Several pointed out the lack of prosecutions of investment bankers or others involved in the mortgage-finance industry. Others said the Dodd-Frank legislation did nothing to curb the missteps of banks, while Mr. Obama’s economic team, particularly Mr. Geithner, came in for stinging criticism.
“With the people he put in, Goldman Sachs basically occupies the White House,” said one of the protesters, Bill Brunot, 60, a mechanical engineer from Winchester, Va. “We got sold out; the banks got bailed out.”
Mr. Brunot said the president could still win back the support of these protesters by changing course, though Mr. Zeese, the organizer, emphasized that the movement did not want to be co-opted by any party.
Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist and former senior adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said it was inevitable that progressive voters would be disappointed with the Obama administration’s track record, given the compromises that presidents have to make to steer major legislation through Congress.
But Mr. Bernstein said the protests were valuable as an indicator of broader sentiment in the country. “I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the validity of the themes these folks are raising,” he said, “because these are themes that resonate well past the folks on Wall Street.”
My response:
Why Wall Street is our enemy, what we think, what we want and how we are going to get what we want.
This question the New York Times has never asked 99% of the American people because the Wall Street 1% are afraid to hear the answer:
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Mark Landler, the New York Time's reporter, could have asked this question of people shopping for groceries in any super-market, filling their gas tanks, paying their electric or heating bills, filling out applications for employment, crying curbside looking at their belongings after the sheriff evicts them because they couldn't make their house payment, crying over a flag-draped coffin of a loved one "returning" from one of Wall Street's imperialist wars or trying to figure out how to provide their children with a college education while working three poverty wage jobs 60 hours a week with no access to health care or child care.
Mark Landler could have come to the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant to ask workers who will be losing their jobs when the plant closes later this year--- like over 58,000 other mines, mills and factories have already closed down operations as thousands more take advantage of this capitalist economic crisis created by the Wall Street 1% to "scale back" in quest of greater profits through tossing working people into the streets while forcing millions more to work for poverty wages--- to ask the question: How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Mark Landler could have asked senior citizens and retirees denied cost-of-living increases and facing cuts in Social Security as part of Obama's "austerity measures" being implemented to pay for Wall Street's dirty imperialist wars: How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
The Wall Street 1% doesn't want New York Times reporter Mark Landler asking 99% of the american people: How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
The New York Times would rather have its reporters out figuring how Obama might take advantage of a "leaderless" movement without an ideology, without a vision, without any specific and concrete demands that Obama, the Democrats and Republicans might have to respond to and actually do something about--- so, it is convenient for the New York Times to claim that Barack Obama's new found tough-sounding, populist message befitting a demagogue fits right in with this populist movement against Wall Street.
Of course, Barack Obama is being backed for re-election by Wall Street's main mouth-piece--- the New York Times; so, this article by Mark Landler fits in very well with the New York Time's goals and objectives.
Here is what we want:
A people’s program for real change...
* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil protecting Wall Street’s interests.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs; free health care for all.
* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs; free child care for all working families.
* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs; repair, restore and build new infrastructure.
* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs protecting and restoring to health our ecosystems.
* Public Ownership of the 58,000 mines, mills and factories closed by Wall Street – twenty-five million good paying, decent union jobs.
* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.
* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.
* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage.
* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.
* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.
* Defend and expand Social Security.
Wall Street is our enemy.
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
The time has come for working people to break free from Wall Street’s “two-party trap.” We need a working class-based progressive people’s party.
Peace + tax the rich = millions of new jobs at real living wages putting people to work solving our social problems which will solve our economic problems, also… Redistribute the wealth. Put people before Wall Street profits.
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Here is how we are going to get what we want: Through a broad-based people's front uniting 99% of the American people against the dictate of Wall Street's 1%.
Our goal and objective is to challenge Wall Street for power so 99% of the American people are making the decisions instead of Wall Street's 1%--- the way democracy is supposed to work.
We aren't going to be tricked into voting for Obama based on his resurrected populist demagoguery; we are going to be working to create an alternative political party reflecting what we are struggling for in the streets, in our communities and in our places of employment.
Our movement against Wall Street is not going to be hi-jacked by Barack Obama and the Democrats nor Ron Paul and the Tea Party Republicans.
Our vision is for an America at peace working in cooperation with the rest of the world without Wall Street's wars paid for through austerity measures from which Wall Street has in mind to reap further profits from our problems; problems created by Wall Street's 1% which us 99% had no part in creating.
Barack Obama and the Democrats talk about, "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs;" but, they refuse to take the appropriate actions required to save the jobs of thousands of auto workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant here in Minnesota.
Obama and these same Democrats, since it is election time, come around talking about "green jobs," a "green economy" and "helping small business flourish so jobs can be created;" yet, these same Democrats--- working in complete cooperation with Republicans with Wall Street's mining interests--- are destroying the wild rice industry many Native American Indians here in northern Minnesota require to make a living from--- an industry that is part of their culture which provides a source of healthy food required to combat heart disease and diabetes. Where can one find a "greener" more people friendly industry? So much for "green jobs" and "a green economy." So much for supporting "small business."
The Democrats talk about "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" yet the only jobs the Democrats have created are the jobs in the Indian Gaming Industry forcing some two-million American workers to work in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws. So much for the "war on poverty;" even a school child understands that when you force working people into jobs paying poverty wages without any rights, poverty is going to be the result. Of course, this is news the New York Times has never seen fit to print even though the Indian Gaming Industry is part of the Wall Street club making billions for the owners of the slot machines and scam artists like those selling AFLACK to casino workers--- but, then again, Barack Obama has proven to be quite the health insurance salesman for this Wall Street industry with his, "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act."
Why is it so difficult for the New York Times to understand the message coming from the movement against Wall Street? It is all about Wall Street's profits, isn't it?
The New York Times refuses to acknowledge that this rotten capitalist system is on the skids to oblivion dragging us all down the bumpy, curvy road to perdition with no stops in purgatory for a breather--- a cruel and inhumane system that has reached its twilight with a most barbaric, savage, corrupt and cannibalistic stage known as imperialism--- desired only by the 1% of the parasitical Wall Street coupon clippers who profit from exploitation of the working class--- the 99% of the American people who want out.
The New York Times has never had much patience for us Marxists who bring forward the only credible critique and alternative to capitalism and in capitalism's dying days the New York Times isn't going to have a change of heart now--- it just plods on with its lies not wanting, nor willing, to consider the truth: Wall Street is the enemy of all humanity.
Wall Street is our enemy because Wall Street always places its own narrow interests for maximum profits no matter who gets hurt before people and the environment and this is why we are in the throes of so many problems with so much human misery and suffering.
Capitalism is the system of the Wall Street 1%; a system of cooperative socialism is the system that will provide a better life for the other 99% of us.
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
