Why We Are Passive

"A nation that has lost hope can no longer be democratic. What paralysis is to the individual, the listlessness that comes from hopelessness is to the nation."
--Edward A. Filene, President, Economic Club of Boston, March 9, 1905

The genius of the Corporate United States is the thrall of helplessness that steadily wears down and overwhelms its working subjects. The principle stands enshrined in the phrase "Too Big to Fail". I suspect much of the Tea Party's appeal was simply in its call for action, action that was instantly overtaken and exploited by the very powers its advocates either consciously or unconsciously opposed.

It is this festering urge to fight-- the resistance to being frail and uncertain that makes the current Egyptian rebellion so transfixing for those who gave up trying to find change to believe in. The protesters suddenly finding their voices across the Middle East shame us, for we are reminded what the very notion of democracy once used to mean.

Freedom sold for a pottage and a wide-screen TV

Back in 1905, these were the words that thundered from the lips of a Republican President: "Neither this people, nor any other free people will tolerate the use of vast power conferred by vast wealth and especially wealth in its corporate form, without lodging somewhere in the government a still higher power ..." Theodore Roosevelt condemning the Railroad Monopoly's corporate rebates.

By choosing subservience to amoral profit over idealism and intellectual independence Americans became witless marks for Wall Street's hustle; their "Can-Do Spirit" broken by the malaise that attends both despair and self-aggrandizement, they were left to grovel at the glittering altar of greed. Now, having failed to heed all warnings, like the oppressed of Egypt, their tardy attempts to revive their democracy will demand much blood and sacrifice.

And moral courage

Drinking Hot Kool-Aid Tea

There has been a lot of breast-beating lately about 'taking back the country' and 'honoring the Constitution' but the republic is rotting on its old abused foundations. The U.S. Senate, conceived as the 'saucer' in which to pour and cool an impassioned public's 'hot cup of tea', is now a cabal of co-conspirators committed to the art of delay and shameless obstruction.

Rules once employed to ensure proper deliberation and consideration of important issues are now used to pursue an exclusively partisan agenda. As a result, problems mount, progress is delayed at the public's expense simply for a political gain. Half of the Democrats and the entire Republican Party now apply obstructionist tactics. The Right-Wing with one goal in mind: defeat Barack Obama. America be damned.



This extreme oppose-at-any-cost tactic is about to send American foreign policy into disarray. It does not matter if the security of the country is at stake. For the Senate's hyper-partisan Republicans all that matters is that no good deed gets credited to a Democratic president.

"key Republican senator casts on the Obama administration's chances of passing nuclear treaty with Russia".--Washington Monthly "... a treaty endorsed by six former secretaries of state and five former secretaries of defense from both parties; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; seven former Strategic Command chiefs; national security advisers from both parties, and nearly all former commanders of U.S. nuclear forces."

Meanwhile the rest of the world looks on in horror, wondering what on earth are these Republicans drinking? Apparently a lot of hot tea and kool-aid.

Fool's Gold and Teabags

Growing up my father told me there is only one sin in this world and it's willful ignorance. For thirty years, ever since the rise of supply-side economics, there has been almost wholesale acceptance that 'if something is making somebody money, then that something must be good'. But what if that 'something' amounts to wholesale robbery? Just because the thief ends up rich that does not make it good. With the chicanery still going on in the financial markets you'd think even the Teabaggers would get the score. No such luck. Their chosen candidates look less like small government 'reformers' than a Wall St. "Dream Team". Some, like Dino Rossi, oppose even Congress' timid and tepid attempt at regulation.

Now that we are mired in the Global Recession brought on by Wall Street's shenanigans it is instructive to look back at some of the signposts that were pointing us to the Road Not Taken. From way back in 1997 a reporter for the Roanoke News named Michael Hudson wrote “Merchants of Misery: How Corporate America Profits From Poverty” in which he ripped subprime lending and other shady credit practices.

Turns out Hudson wasn't the only one.

From the late 1990s, ACORN, you know those shady advocates slandered by Andrew Breitbart and the NYTimes, saw the dangers of subprime mortgages. They had seen first-hand how unscrupulous lenders were enticing people to buy homes they couldn't afford or convince them to strip out all of their equity.

Back in 2001, ACORN helped sponsor anti-predatory lending laws in Oakland and a few other cities around the nation. Oakland's ordinance, approved by the City Council in October 2001, was ahead of its time. The law would have prohibited subprime mortgage lenders from making a loan unless the borrower could afford it and had obtained a written certification from an independent credit counselor stating that the borrower had received financial advice. In other words, subprime lenders would have had to make sure that people could pay back a mortgage before getting one. "Given the number of foreclosed properties that we eventually had, it would have made a huge difference," Oakland Councilman Larry Reid told Full Disclosure.

Then, as now, ACORN did not realize just how much they were up against. In 2005, the California Supreme Court promptly struck down Oakland's law along with a similar Los Angeles' ordinance. Siding with the majority in the 4-3 decision, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a Bush II appointee known for being hostile to the New Deal and FDR, wrote: "should other cities adopt a similar extension of liability, subprime lending could conceivably be sharply curtailed in the state." Well, she was right about that.

Later that very year, Ameriquest, the industry leader in subprime mortgages announced that it was setting aside $325 million to settle attorney-general investigations in 30 states to settle allegations that it had preyed on borrowers with hidden fees and balloon payments. In at least five of those states—California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Florida—Ameriquest was forced to settle multimillion-dollar suits. Brian Montgomery, the FHA commissioner said he "was shocked to find customers had been lured away by “fool’s gold”. Fools gold is apparently Wall Street's favored currency. In 2007 , Citigroup acquired Argent Mortgage Ameriquest's wholesale origination-lending unit along with its loan-servicing unit.

Here's how all that fool's gold the country's largest financial institution was busy repackaging for its global customers was being concocted:

At companywide gatherings, Ameriquest managers and reps guzzled alcohol while swapping tips for fooling borrowers and cooking up phony paperwork. As Michael Hudson lays out in his latest book, "The Monster" say a customer insisted on a fixed-rate loan, "but you could make more money by selling him an adjustable-rate one? No problem" ... (just) position a few fixed-rate loan documents at the top of the stack of paperwork to be signed by the borrower then bury the real documents -- the ones indicating the loan had an adjustable rate that would rocket upward in two or three years -- near the bottom of the pile. Then, after the borrower had flipped from signature line to signature line, scribbling his consent across the entire stack, and gone home, it was easy enough to peel the fixed-rate documents off the top and throw them in the trash."

None of that drew a blink from Citigroup guru, Robert Rubin. From InnerCity Press:
"As President George W. Bush and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke Friday wrung their hands in Washington about the subprime mortgage meltdown, New York-based Citigroup announced it was buying a chunk of admitted predatory lender Ameriquest. Citigroup is a meta-predator, taking advantage of the foreclosure boom to scoop up one of the most abusive lenders at a temporarily reduced price. The head of Citigroup's "global securitized markets" unit, Jeffrey Perlowitz, said the takeover "allows Citigroup to secure valuable and scalable platforms in a market undergoing significant change."

Oh, so that's the change Wall Street wants us all to believe in ... profits earned from deceit and outright robbery.

Yes, you could argue that such is the consequence of human greed and failing to read the fine print, but that really begs the question. The question the teabaggers and the rest of us need to answer is whether encouraging predatory behavior by jettisoning all rules and regulations ends up doing anybody but the bankers and the scoundrels any damn good. But then, again, as Dad would say: you can't reason with willful ignorance.

The Distractions of Myth

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Patrick Henry never opined between "liberty" and "death", Paul Revere was just one among many, and contrary to the Tea Party's patriotic raptures, America's betrayal did not start with Obama. It began at its founding.

The New England farmers who threw off British rule years before the battles of Lexington and Concorde soon realized the ideals they had fought and died for were not shared by the wealthy Federalists who expressed their gratitude at being freed from British taxes by keeping their fellow Americans mired in debt. It took a second peasant eruption, the Shays Rebellion, for Madison to convince the moneyed elite that to share a "common vision" the new republic needed (at least a pro-forma) Bill of Rights.

Jefferson viewed the uprising with approving condescension: "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

So where are the anti-Federalists in the big-business-corporate-funded "Tea Party"?

But there lies the rub. Wherever aggrieved interests are perceived to align comes the tug between anarchy and the corrosive power of the status quo. Rather than protesting the size of government, these would-be libertarians should be demanding a repeal of corporate personhood, non-partisan elections and publicly funded campaigns. Instead we are treated to the absurd spectacle of a pair of millionaire grifters invoking the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. to protest the evil notion that every American should have the right to affordable health care.

Swallowing Weak Tea

The saddest thing about the Tea Party Movement is that their gut instincts are right-- their government is bloated, corrupt and unresponsive. Unfortunately, their misguided glimmerings of history allows their rage to be exploited by the very interests that compound the dysfunction. Calling Obama a 'socialist dictator' is music to Wall Street ears.

"Society created its own organs to look after its common interests... [b]ut these organs, at whose head was the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own special interests, transformed themselves from servants of society into masters of society. It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society whose mere instrument it was intended to be."-- Frederich Engels, March 18th, 1891 on the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune.

Who knew the Tea partiers were actually heirs to libertarian socialists.

K Street

The K Street Project was launched in 1995, by Republican strategist Grover Norquist and House majority leader Tom DeLay to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans in top positions.

Often referred to as the fourth branch of government, these D.C. lobbying firms have great influence due to monetary resources and the revolving door policy of hiring former government officials. "It is common practice for politicians to request money from lobbying firms for an exchange in better access to officials and to buy favoritism in policies."-- Source Watch

Business Lobbyists Write Legislation.

From Mother Jones: On August 7, thousands of state legislators and corporate lobbyists were scheduled to descend on Orlando, Florida, for the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

While other lobbyists focus on the federal government, ALEC gives business a direct hand in writing bills that are considered in state assemblies nationwide. Funded primarily by large corporations, industry groups, and conservative foundations -- including R.J. Reynolds, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute -- the group takes a chain-restaurant approach to public policy, supplying precooked McBills to state lawmakers. Since most legislators are in session only part of the year and often have no staff to do independent research, they're quick to swallow what ALEC serves up. In 2000, according to the council, members introduced more than 3,100 bills based on its models, passing 450 into law.

"Politicians pushing a bill that would ban municipal competition for broadband asked to clarify, and rather than answer themselves, the politicians "turned to a Time Warner staff member and an attorney who represents the industry to speak on their behalf."

Freedom Works

The Tea Party movement owes its prominence to Freedom Works. Professing to be an advocate for 'liberty' and 'smaller government' Freedom Works is a front for corporate interests. It is chaired by former U.S. House Majority Leader, Republican Dick Armey who in 2004 "spoke glowingly of 'Rx Outreach,' a national mail order program for low-income people that had just been launched by Express Scripts Inc., a pharmacy benefit management firm based in Maryland Heights, Mo." At the time, FreedomWorks "had been working with Express Scripts' public relations firm, and a week later issued a news release praising Rx Outreach. Express Scripts says it plans to donate money to Armey's group, though it won't say how much or when."

In early 2005, Radio listeners in 15 states heard a broadcast appeal from former House Majority Leader Dick Armey asking them to help scuttle a bill designed to contain asbestos litigation. But at no time in the ad - made in his capacity as co-chairman of FreedomWorks did Armey disclose that he is also working as a lobbyist for Equitas, a British insurer that has lobbied to thwart the asbestos trust fund legislation. -- Source Watch.

Asked later that year why his Republican comrades were consuming so much more federal pork than the Democrats ever did Dick Armey replied: 'To the victors go the spoils.'

And 'we the people' are left with nothing but a bunch of old teabags.

The Goo-goos, the Bad and the Ugly

Everything Old is New Again. Although it is portrayed as an Obama-inspired phenomenon, at its root, the Tea Party movement is a reincarnation of the Goo-Goos and Mugwumps. Born at a time when government at the state and national level was enthralled by the Spoils System, the "Goo-Goos" were intent on reforming both political parties and dismantling the patronage machines they saw as turning government increasingly corrupt and incompetent.

For the Tea Partiers already riled by the failures and indifference of government Obama's election was a galvanizing lightning rod. Like their Goo-Goo forebears alarmed by the immigrant hordes pouring into their cities, the Tea Partiers see Washington's ills as a result of their vote being marginalized by the unwashed and uneducated. Never mind that as the Washington Post reveals under Cheney and Bush aided by a disinterested Republican Congress, the government has largely been outsourced to corporations (Booz Allen Hamilton, L-3 Communications, CSC, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, SAIC and thousands of others): [there now exists], "a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine... "affluence is another attribute of Top Secret America. Six of the 10 richest counties in the United States are in these (tax-payer funded) clusters."

B.A.D. Beyond All Decency: A black woman whose farmer father was murdered for defending his rights sacrificed on the altar of white victimhood to appease ... Glen Beck?

There are villains, cowards and hypocrites to spare in the defaming of Shirley Sherrod but what the episode exposed is the ferocity with which those who profit from the selling of our government keep us grabbing for each other's throat. As the wise old farmer said scoffing at the charge of racism against Ms. Sherrod, "there's somebody trying to stir up trouble."

An Ugly History

The Mugwumps and Goo-Goos like the present-day Tea Partiers, were nothing new. Before them were the Nativists and the Know-Nothings and the Americans for the Star Spangled Banner, all convinced the moment times grew dire that only they were the true Americans.
Over time those Yanks have grown to accept the Irish, the Italians and the right kind of Jew, not once realizing that without the mess called democracy, those poor immigrants would never have risen to join their blessed middle class. For others, like Shirley Sherrod, that line stays drawn at color. Let's hope as the time again grows dire that the real bad ugliness is behind us.

Between 1865 - 1920, immigration trends shifted from Western Europe (Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands) to Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Poland, the Balkan states). This trend alarmed the mainly Protestant “old immigrants,” who felt threatened by the mainly Catholic “new immigrants.” Nativist organizations demanded literacy tests and quota systems to curb what they saw as a demoralizing and worsening situation for the country. Such efforts culminated in the passage of the National Origins Act in 1924.

During the Great Depression, the Federal Bureau of Immigration and local authorities rounded up Mexican immigrants and naturalized Mexican American citizens and shipped them to Mexico to reduce relief roles. More than 400,000 repatriodos, many of them citizens of the United States by birth, were sent across the U.S.-Mexico border from Arizona, California, and Texas. In Los Angeles, the only Mexican American student at Occidental College sang a painful farewell song to serenade departing Mexicans.

The National Origins Act of 1924 set no legal limit on immigrants from the Americas.