But not for the stock brokers…
Starting today several new groups will add to the ranks of those “occupying” Wall Street, including MoveOn.org and various unions.
The anti-bank campaign has in fact been incubating for years — a “seed beneath the snow,†as the Italian novelist Ignazio Silone once termed the slow-to-arrive left. The sit-ins, teach-ins and street demonstrations popping up in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles are formally the handiwork of a coalition of community groups that recently gathered together as the New Bottom Line. Many of these groups have focused on immediate goals — such as stopping particular banks from foreclosing on more homes. They, along with unions, have demonstrated on Wall Street many times since the 2008 financial crisis. But only now, as Occupy Wall Street — an organization that they didn’t create — has grabbed the public imagination the past few weeks, are the myriad mobilizations commanding the media’s attention.
See the rest of this essay by Harold Meyerson
In related news, a new poll reported by the Washington Post (but not on their web site yet) indicates that about 14 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is moving. And, finally, Obama is starting to become aggressive in his campaigning for “change.”
In Texas on Tuesday, the president went after a leading Republican by name: “Yesterday the Republican majority leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said that right now he won’t even let this jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives,†Obama said. “I would like Mr. Cantor to come here to Dallas and explain what exactly in this jobs bill does he not believe in, what exactly he is opposed to. Does he not believe in rebuilding America’s roads and bridges? Does he not believe in tax breaks for small businesses or efforts to help our veterans?â€
This is obviously follow-up to Obama’s state of the economy speech in which he kicked the ball into Congresses’s (and mainly the Republicans’, and really, mainly the Tea Party’s) court.
This is going to be an interesting, and crucial, election season.
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Elections don’t have consequences.
If the results of electing Obama doesn’t convince you I suppose nothing will. Consider: Bush was the worst president in the world they said. He was a far right war criminal, an extremist. Obama was sold as the most liberal senator, a man bringing “Hope and Change”. Obama continued every evil policy of Bush, and extended many. The Democrats won two landslide victories in a row. What happened?
Nothing.
Elections don’t have consequences in the USA.
Of course they do. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed. We got a health care bill through, despite republican filibusters. Never mind the countless other things.
The real tragedy is what’s happened since the 2010 election. Putting Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives is what has ground government to a halt. Before 2010 government was horrible sausage making, but at least things got done.
Now, I’d love to see even MORE progress, for sure. I’d love to see the people involved in the fraudulent CDS slicing and dicing taken to court, and to see CEO’s that constantly harm the businesses they are running driven out of the profession and ostracized rather than given bonuses, but wanting MORE doesn’t mean that progress wasn’t made in other areas.
Elections do have consequences, and we’re seeing it now. Put sane people back in charge and lets move forward.