Wash Post exposes real agenda of Wall Street Democrats

[a kennedy]

by: David Sirota

Last night, I wrote optimistically about the possibility of Democratic Party elites finally realizing the error of their ways in ramming corporate-written trade policies down the throat of average Americans. Though I noted that most of the key players are still comfortable in the minority, and still awash in Washington's pay-to-play culture, I cited some recent moves as evidence that they may at the very least realize that they no longer live in the go-go Clinton Era where rhetoric about the "booming economy" could paper over the very serious economic challenges faced by regular working folks. Apparently, I was wrong.

A stunning piece by Washington Post business reporter Steve Pearlstein today shows that the real agenda of these Big Money insiders is to pretend to care about stagnating wages, slashed pensions, and job outsourcing - but not actually be willing to attack the "free" trade policies that are causing those hardships. Pearlstein notes the nefariousness of it all, after attending a conference by the so-called "Hamilton Project" - the group of Wall-Street-backed Washington, D.C. Democratic insiders working to crush unions, limit citizens legal rights and, of course, perpetuate our corporate-written trade policy:

"The problem is that, when you scratch the surface, the free-trade members of the Democratic establishment turn out to be more committed to Part A of the formula, more globalization, than they are to Part B, making sure the benefits from globalization are widely shared. For them, it's really not a package deal. And if push comes to shove, which it always does in trade politics, they'd welcome more globalization even without the compensatory social policies. How do I know this? Because they said so. At the conference's closing session, I asked former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and former deputy Treasury secretary Roger Altman if any of them would be willing to support the idea of a "time out" on new free-trade initiatives until there was some tangible progress toward greater economic security for U.S. workers. To a man, they recoiled at the idea."

Pearlstein describes the powerful moment America finds itself in - we have enough economic power to actually create a race to the top, instead of fueling a race to the bottom. But only if our government actually starts representing ordinary citizens, rather than Big Money:

read full article here: http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=B0EF65BA-E0C3-F084-DCF7DAE16ED0ECC4

[rosesaylavee]

1. When DEMs get control of Congress

and hopefully the WH, we must remain vigilant here and elsewhere and work to expose those politicians that are not working for the benefit of the country - no matter their party affiliation!

[xchrom]

4. ''WE'' have no power.

''we'' are given a semblance of power.

enough to lull or fool us into thinking that certain labelled{i.e. democratic, liberal, even progressive} people will rescue us -- i don't think that is going to happen.

not with out some serious hard ball played within the liberall progressive community.

[rosesaylavee]

9. I wonder if it will come from just the liberal community

or whether rational individuals across the country regardless of political affiliation will just start taking to the streets in protest. I have more faith in the common decency of our citizens than most.

I do think we have power and will act eventually. Fear is holding most back at this point. But there will come a time when decency demands we move beyond our fear and act.

[xchrom]

10. i don't know.

i'm not a fan of ''the people'' -- but i understand your point.

it maybe that unions will be the motivating force.

they are having to adapt pretty fast these days -- and i think they realize that many beltway dems are not the friends they purport to be -- so this could lead to some interesting realignments to some lesser known democratic liberal/progressive personalities.

[formercia]

15. Make Jomentum the poster boy.

If they want to be eliteist, globalist money grubbers, let them go elsewhere.

[xchrom]

18. i can't argue with that.

i wish your list was more at the front of all our elections.

[xchrom]

2. ''free-trade'', ''globalization'' have become a religion

to folk who are rooted in the off shoots from reagan's trickle down economic policies.

i don't what will shake them from their reverie.

[lisby]

3. May I be the first to say...

that this nation is completely fucked.

:thumbsdown:

Lisby

[OneBlueSky]

22. nice try . . . but many have been saying it for quite some time . . . n/t

.

[Joanne98]

5. He should have asked them about the failure of Doha!

I got news for them. We're going to get rid of globalization, one way or the other, whether they like it or not.

[Warpy]

6. Thank you, David Sirota

for saying in elegant language and with name dropping what I've been trying to say for YEARS: the Democratic party has a rotten core of moneyed insiders who have benefited greatly from Stupid's fiscal policies and would rather stay out of power than change them.

Thanks for saying that there is a cadre of inside the Beltway types who have always embraced the insanity of free trade without fair trade and don't give a shit that the party's base is slipping into desperation.

We still have the hope of a peaceful revolution via ballot, but that hope is dwindling fast.

[Mandate My Ass]

12. Yes I believe this too

the Dems want to continue to be the minority party because it furthers the illusion that they want anything differrent than the republicans.

Both parties serve their corporate masters. Period.

[glitch]

17. That would explain their incredible inertia on election fraud. nt

[seemslikeadream]

7. And I do not plan to cooperate with evil at any point

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/031 ...

This quote comes from a speech Dr. King gave on January 14, 1968. He had visited Joan Baez and her mother in jail and he gave the speech outside the Santa Rita jail in California afterwards.

“And I do not plan to cooperate with evil at any point. Somebody said to me not too long ago,

“ ‘Dr. King don’t you think you are hurting your leadership by taking a stand against the war in Viet Nam? Aren’t people who once respected you going to loose respect for you? And aren’t you hurting the budget of your organization?’

“And I had to look at that person and say,

"get a clue Democratic senators and representitives" SLaD says


“‘I am sorry sir, you don’t know me. I am not a consensus leader. And I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or by taking a Gallup poll of the majority opinion. Ultimately a genuine leader is not a of consensus but a molder of consensus.’

“On some positions cowardice asks the question, ‘is it safe?’

“Expediency asks the question, ‘is it is politic?’

“Vanity asks the question, ‘is it is popular?’

“But conscience asks the question, ‘is it right?’

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. And that is where I stand today and that is where I hope you will continue to stand so that we can speed up the day when justice will roll down like waters all over the world and righteousness like a mighty stream. And we will speed up the day when men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and nations will not rise up against nations neither they will not start a war anymore and I close by saying as we sing in the old Negro spiritual,

“I ain’t going to study war no more.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Singer Joan Baez in a Special On Civil Disobedience: Baez Recalls When King Visited Her in Prison, and We Play a Rare Recording of King's Remarks to Supporters Outside the Prison

[Kolesar]

21. I like it...a lot

[jazzjunkysue]

8. Amen. Wish I were represented by my govt.

[mom cat]

11. K&R for truth!

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. We have free-market Democrats? Any one I know?

[mntleo2]

14. No Dem OR Repug With Elite Class

...they may label thmeselves as being "different" from one another, but they are not. If you are wealthy, you just do not care about the struggling masses, even if they are writhing in agony right at your feet. I am saying that not only does power corrupt, but wealth will also take you out of the real world and into the realm of Lala Land. Then these people are all surprised and stunned when the working class has had it and rises up with their pitch forks and torches. It happens over and over again in history and nobody seems to get it. Poverty breeds anarchy. It just does. One reason why America's "golden eras" are full opf peace and prosperity for most ~ because it usually brings security and well-being to the many rather than a wary "peace" for the elite with rage simmering right below them.

Here's what I mean:

One time while listening to a wealthy friend talk about stocks bonds, and all that, I casually asked the rhetorical question as to what stocks and bonds really were? I commented that all they seemed to me to be was just a bunch of numbers flying around in cyber space and before we had cyber space all wealth seem to be were was pieces of paper flying around from bank to bank. That's all. I then surprised myself as much as him when I uttered the realization that wealth is all about what most people agree upon that is valuable. If most of us did not agree to what is collectively valued, than it would all just become rubbish. It was stunning to both of us I think, to realize how simple and true this was!

For a moment a look of pure terror and panic came into his eyes when he realized I was right ~ that all that wealth is just an illusion we all go along with. But then relief flooded his face as he came to the conclusion that, because I was poor, I had the "luxury" of viewing it that way.

But I know I am right. For instance I know that, if the whole world decided tomorrow that diamonds are nothing but shiny rocks with no value, diamonds WOULD become just shiny rocks with no worth. Wealth is all about that which we all "agree" upon that is valuable. When it no longers has value to most of us, than all it becomes is a bunch of nothing. Wealth is an illusion. If more people realized this illusion, than we would not have the problems of elitist thinking such as what the DLC and their ilk promote. It is a dangerous thing to know what wealth really is ~ because what if those of us who know what an illusion it really is, convinced the reader here this was true and they went out and spread that knowledge far and wide? Within a week the people who think they all have power and wealth would suddenly have none!

And what next will we as a global community begin to hold onto that we view as something pretty and sacred? Whomever has the most of that will then become the new elite until we all decided that value is in the eye of the beholder and that we are all responsible to make "wealth" something more than owning a bunch of shiny things.

I do not think it will be too long now before the torches and the pitch forks come out again, if this continues and if the DLC types don't get the picture. There are far more of us than there are of them and they know it. It is up to WE The People to realize the power we have collectively and act upon it! Their gated communities and their bank accounts could mean nothing to desperate people and the illusions smashed. Only this time, because it is global, it wouldn't just be in one tiny area. It will be EVERYWHERE.

But who am I? Just a poor single mom with little to lose so I can utter the truth and laugh to myself at the absurd folly the rest of the world is taking so seriously, which btw forces us to add to our own misery. And oh look at the shny bombs and guns they would take out to use against us if anyone in power saw that what I know to be true might spread to you? I have nothing to lose except my life and even that has little value to all but a few, so what are they going to do?

Shhhhh! Now YOU know what I know ... Go out and whisper this big, dark "secret" until everyone realizes what prancing morons people like the DLC econmically challenged are. You could be part of changing the world! LOL!

Cat In Seattle

[glitch]

19. You're absolutely correct. Even real ownership is granted by the community

And the community can take it back at any time, and has a few times in history. Private property is also an agreed upon privilege.
Smart rich people know this and behave sociably. Like FDR.
Stupid rich people don't get it and throw their weight around. Like Louis XVI.
But revolution requires a long train of abuses and usurpations, which is what your friend remembered. And they've only just begun.
They are leaving a hell of a mess for their children.

[unkachuck]

24. beautiful....

....nothing more powerful than a commonly shared idea....

[Greyhound]

26. Hammer, meet nail-head.

Funny you should use diamonds as your example. Do you know that they are, in fact, worthless shiny rocks? De Beers is the only reason they have any (perceived) value at all.

I hope this spreads, you've done an exceptional job, thank you.

[glitch]

16. Sirota is one of the must-reads now. Great article, thanks for posting nt.

[cyberpj]

20. "the free-trade members of the Democratic establishment ". Name names! nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. hmm one Joe Lieberman

one Hillary Clinton, member of the third wave....

Any member of the DLC, happy now?

[OneBlueSky]

23. many posters have addressed this problem over and over . . .

albeit often couched in different language . . . personally, I've been asking for just one Democrat of substance to stand up and address corporate control of the Congress . . . just one . . . same issue, different slant . . .

[KoKo]

27. kick