And not in the drink. So don't jump, George Bailey! John Edwards is rounding the bend and picking up steam. So much so, that folks like the radical fundamentalist economist, Alan"Grinch"Greenspan, and right wing pundit William"Scrooge" Buckley (he who praised Spanish fascist dictator Generalissimo Francesco Franko) , have bellowed out in public there disdain for Edwards and his policies. Like the bellows of the dinosaurs as they slipped into the primordial ooze of the tar pits, the bellows are sounding more like bleats. But they are still very very dangerous; maybe even more dangerous in their death throes.
They will roar and try to intimidate the smaller voices. The Des Moines Register's editorial staff added some bleats of their own when they endorsed Hillary Clinton instead of John Edwards because they thought "His harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change." They say this while commenting at the same time:
"We still believe he’s right about two Americas, the one for people who have everything they need and the one for people who struggle to get by.
But Edwards isn't anti-business; he's anti BAD business.
He’s right about the stagnation of middle-class wages. He’s right that the tax system and overall economic policy have become too tilted toward the affluent, making it virtually impossible for poor and middle-class families to get ahead. He’s right that the baby-boomer generation risks breaking the "one moral commandment" of Americans: "To give our children a better future than we received."
Edwards is most persuasive when he appeals to America’s goodness to do better by the vulnerable among us, as he did in last week’s Register Democratic debate:
"...Somewhere in America tonight, a child will go to bed hungry. Somewhere in America tonight, a family will have to go to the emergency room and beg for health care for a sick child. ...Somewhere in America today, a father who’s worked for 30 or 40 years to support his family will lose his job. That’s what’s at stake in this election. What’s not at stake are any of us. All of us are going to be just fine, no matter what happens in this election. What’s at stake is whether America is going to be fine."
Edwards has set the ambitious goal of eliminating poverty in a generation. He’s developed creative proposals to help families save and make college more affordable. (Other Democrats have outlined similar plans.) Edwards or whoever is the party’s standard-bearer should work to take those plans to the White House.
The question on Edwards is whether a self-described fighter for change, who wants to "cast aside the bankrupt ways of Washington," can get results in Washington. For someone trying to reunite the two Americas, would he be too divisive a figure?
Divisive? What a crock of a word! Aren't there good business folks left in America? Aren't there small business owners who are sick of the Wal-Martization of America? Aren't there small business owners and manufacturers who were forced to go overseas by companies like Wal-Mart who demanded cheaper and cheaper stuff who would rather keep production here. Who wants to fly to Beijing every month? Wouldn't Schwinn or Maytag have wanted a fighter in the White House? Wouldn't they want someone, like FDR, who could put the kebosh on the blackmailing of small manufacturers by foreigners and Wal-Marts or someone who would rein in predatory lending practices that will come back to bite local banks and businesses causing local misery?
And he might be too "harsh"? So when a President fights for fairness, he would be seen as "harsh", but if he was the CEO chopping jobs and getting a huge pay package, he's seen as one really awesome cool Gordon Gekko God? So when you are calling into question seedy business practices you are harsh, but when you perform these seedy practices you are mui macho? Balderdash! We are being flim flammed again and again.
If "Working with the business community" means behaving yourself and doing as your told because we own you, then voters who want none of this sort of feudal model should take note. They should also take note that if you put more corporate Democrats into office, then the "community " part of "business community" has been totally lost. You will have impersonal behemoths ruling your lives from far far away. When your local banker cheats you, he has to look you in the face. If your local banker is like George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life", you look your customers in the face and you call out the local big con developer:
"Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about...they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be!"
Calmer business types are not as crazy as the "movement conservatives" that Paul Krugman and Naomi Klein chronicle in their books of whom Greenspan and Buckley are some of the louder more offensive voices. In July, The Economist, wrote a very interesting piece on the type of populism that Edwards is embracing:Man of the Left
" He is intent on helping the poor more than soaking the rich; his inspiration is Robert Kennedy, not Huey Long."
The folks at The Economist don't find his policies all that scary.
Look beyond the unsubtle imagery, however, and Mr Edwards's anti-poverty plan is an intriguing mix. His goals are bold—to cut America's poverty rate of 12.6% by a third within a decade—but the means are mainstream. His policy arsenal includes expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, a kind of negative income tax that tops up the earnings of poorer Americans; giving poor people "work bonds" to boost their saving; and providing 1m housing vouchers to help poor families move to better neighbourhoods. Policy wonks argue about whether these ideas, particularly housing vouchers, will work, but they could all have come from a centrist Democratic think-tank.
The combination of bold goals and mainstream means is evident in two other Edwards plans: health care and energy reform. And it is why his campaign, regardless of its electoral fortunes, is shaping the Democratic race. Unable to dismiss his proposals as crazy radicalism, the other candidates have to be both bolder and more detailed than they would like.
They conclude with:
Surprisingly, perhaps, Mr Edwards's brand of populism seems to appeal to Republicans. When pitted against Republican candidates in polls, he scores better than the other Democratic front-runners. But it is the primaries that matter, and there Mr Edwards must hope for one of the others to stumble. If Obamamania fades, or the Clinton machine stalls, an Edwards nomination is just possible. But even if the man himself does not make it, the Democrats' presidential platform will be shaped by Mr Edwards's plans.
It's not surprising for the Europeans because their social contract is still intact. Krugman says in his book:
"The CEO of British Petroluem, based in the United Kingdom, is paid less than half as much as the CEO of Chevron, a company half BP's size, but based in America. "There is no shame factor in the U.S. In Europe, there is more of a concern about the social impact."
But they were a bit surprised that Edwards brand of populism appeals to Republicans and Democrats. Well, I'm not. It's because people here finally have woken up to the huge scam that has been perpetrated on the American people by Friedmanreaganrubinomics; the free market scam. Our nation was founded on dumping one million dollars worth of East Indian Tea Company tea into Boston Harbor. Sam Adams and his bunch were middle class merchants who were revolting against the Wal-Mart of the day. They were revolting against the "greed is good, every man for himself" feudalism. They were entering the Age of Enlightenment.
And We still don't want no stinking monopolies. The rancher and farmers here in Montana know who the culprits are. They are the meat packers that own 80% of the business. They import cheap cattle and stick them in the sausage and call it All American. That's why Edwards' cry for "Country of Origin" labeling works here. But it works everywhere now because people want to know where there pet food as well as their kids' burger and peanut butter are coming from.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
U.S. consumers overwhelmingly support stricter food labeling laws, with 92 percent of Americans wanting to know which country produced the food they are buying, a consumer magazine said on Tuesday.
Consumer Reports said recent food scares, including worries about peanut butter and lettuce, have made Americans more interested in knowing not only how their food was produced but where it was made.
And here's Business Week where Maria Bartiromo tries to put various labels on him and fails. But in the process you get an really good look at John Edwards as a small business man working as best he can in a rigged system:
You were a trial lawyer representing injured people and making millions on Big Business. Some say this country is way too litigious, and that's one of the reasons it's not as competitive as it once was. Is America too litigious?
The first thing I would point out is that I was a small-business owner and ran a small business. Helped run a small business in the beginning, and then ran my own small business for two decades. So I actually know a lot of the issues that businesses are faced with as a result of my own personal experience. What I believe is that the jury system represents democracy in action. Are there things that can be done to create improvement? Yes, there are. For example, I've proposed that in the case of medical malpractice, we put more responsibility on the attorneys who are considering filing cases, requiring them to have independent experts determine whether the case is meritorious or not, and then require the lawyers to certify that the case is meritorious before filing it. And I would hold the lawyers, not the individuals, responsible financially, so that we don't get cases into the legal system that don't belong there and clog up the system.
Bartiromo Interviews Edwards
John Edwards was a small business owner. He grew up in a small town of small businesses and locally owned industry. He gets the personal responsibility and the shared responsibility of a a member of the middle class. He, Paul Krugman and I grew up in an era when the cranks were pushed to the side and the middle class had a new sense of empowerment both financially and politically. And that's what made the authoritarian anti democrats angry and bitter. Krugman quotes Adlai Stevenson:
"The strange alchemy of time has somehow converted the Democrats into the truly conservative party in the country--the party dedicated to conserving all that is best and building solidly and safely on these foundations. The Republicans, by contrast. are behaving like the radical party--the party of the reckless and embittered, bent on dismantling institutions which have been built solidly into our social fabric."
"The reckless and embittered" seized our nation for the last 30 years and it's time for them to step to the back of the bus before we kick them under it. Paul Krugman, once again today, explains that the reason for the mortgage disaster is that Greenspan and his gang "were blinded by ideology." Greenspan would not believe that good businessmen would knowingly sell bad mortgages or risky funds or tainted pet food or children's toys with lead. Greenspan, both Friedmans, and Hamiltonians live in a Cloud Cukooland of their own making. Their airie faire Utopia is a crock. All it does is allow gangsters to steal our stuff. Greenspan obviously thinks that Capra's great social commentary and Jimmy Stewart's anguished performance in "It's A Wonderful Life" is just HUM BUG!
It's time to replace "Wall Street" with "It's a Wonderful Life" for good. It's time to return "The American Dream" and kick "The Gospel of Greed" to the back of the bus before we shove it under the bus. It's time to reward work over wealth. It's time to return to traditional liberalism. But it will take a radical turn to do it. We cannot meander our way to it otherwise we will find ourselves heading into the tar pits with the rest of the Dinos.
So listen to George Bailey when he says :
Now wait...now listen...now listen to me. I beg of you not to do this thing. If Potter gets hold of this Building and Loan there'll never be another decent house built in this town. He's already got charge of the bank. He's got the bus line. He's got the department stores. And now he's after us. Why? Well, it's very simple. Because we're cutting in on his business, that's why. And because he wants to keep you living in his slums and paying the kind of rent he decides."
We can fight the Potters, the greedy ones who have never understood the way most of us think. And we can fight for the George Baileys who want to be good neighbors and good civic leaders. We can fight for the middle class and those who want to join it. When Sam Adams threw the tea in the harbor and Tom Paine wrote "Common Sense; regular people formed a "new nation", they did it so that their children would have " A Wonderful Life" filled with the blessings of hard work and good times with families and friends. And it would be a nation that would give opportunity to all those who worked hard and played by the rules. And Ben Franklin declared a wonderful life to be when you are "healthy, wealthy, and wise." George Bailey found out what "wealth" was. Will we?
UPDATE: In light of Nataline's death, John Edwards says:
"What’s going to happen on January the third, right here, in Iowa? Is you’re going to rise up," he said. "You’re going to say, enough is enough. We’re going to stand up, we’re going to start a rising, and a wave, that sweeps across this country, with the power of change that cannot be stopped. And it’s going to start right here in Iowa."
Our George Bailey is rising! Cut to the Revolution!