Yesterday the Chicago window workers' sit-in looked like it was gaining momentum - national press, a huge deal, an icon of a nation whose economy is parked in free fall as companies get denied the credit lines needed to keep rolling debts over. Now, that demonstration is off the news.
Today, former Democratic Alabama governor Don Siegelman's appeals case started: he got yanked out of office, convicted in a faulty process by the corrupt local U.S. Attorney's office, and tossed in prison. Siegelman also off the news.
Today, SEIU no longer appears on the side of the burgeoning righteous labor revolution; its president, Andy Stern, is apparently the 'SEIU official' contemplating inserting Ron Blagojevich into a cush job.
Today, Treasury Department officials will continue to hand out mysterious swaths of money, in all likelihood failing to log who the hell they are giving the cash to. However, we'd bet a mountain of Collateralized Debt Obligations that the Department of Justice isn't bugging the Free Cash for Cronies office. Treasury off the news.
Today, the appointment of one U.S. Senator, from New York, will not be handled by the anti-Wall Street Eliot Spitzer because he got taken down - again, by a weirdly obvious vulnerability. A second U.S. Senator, from Illinois, is entirely up for grabs; the very ability of a sole official to make this selection has been put into a radical focus, much to the delight of the chattering class (who have been noticing the peasants are getting restless and hungry).
Has anyone noticed that powerful politicians - Dem governors in particular - that are more on Wall Street's side never seem to get knocked out by surveillance, espionage, the information warfare hits, the 'Justice' political plays?
Can we seriously believe these days that the closed rooms of the powerful financial guys really sound any better than poor ol' Blagojevich's expletive-laden, desperate grabs?
I mean, I haven't even been paying close attention to Illinois, but I'd heard that this guy was marked to take a fall, he was super tainted. How could he not have expected wiretaps? It seems like he didn't give a damn, even with the Obama camp's tense distancing from him and the Feds' multi-year corruption investigation into the whole state government!
As a media play, it yanks attention off the nearly critical-mass labor conflict at the Republic factory, and in an almost COINTELPRO pitch-perfect wedge cuts SEIU into the 'bad guys' pile. That's impressive!
Side point: the triangle between the Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy, the cajoling about Wrigley Field, mixed with the paper's editorial board, just illustrates how these massive corporations fuck up conflict of interest for everyone.
Spitzer, Siegelman, and Blagojevich (the D3) are all part of a pattern: what they're all accused of seems par for the course, even timid by modern standards. Foundation seats? Appointees? How the hell does this normally work? Isn't this circle of chumminess the true texture of America's power, politics and cash allocation? Delete the expletives and imagine the variety of politicians who would likely say this stuff, servicing their patronage networks with all available appointments at their discretion.
Another fun bonus: Illinois, in an effort to dent the circle of state contractors giving political contributions, had set a deadline for the end of this year limiting contributions from parties scoring $50K or more from the state. So Blagovich was sprinting to the finish line!
(Blagovich gets a bonus for raising the profile of politicized foundation appointments: that overlooked feature of the tax system, foundations, so beloved by conspiracy theorists as 'skeleton keys' to webs of intrigue. The notion of President Obama controlling foundations, it's almost as if Blagovich knew where Obama had worked around town!)
Perhaps it's good that Fitzgerald fires another warning shot at politicians, generally. But will he get into the true context of the thing? Will his gig here lead to more transparent government, or a diversion from the massive systemic breakdown that the D3 were pretty much not party to?