Obama and the democratic Congressional majority seem poised to avoid biting the hand that feeds them and just ride their sponsors' playbook meekly and uneventfully down to defeat in November.
What if Obama had the courage to lead his party, to enlist Warren Beatty in a whirlwind, 30 cities in 60 days, face to face, stunningly frank appeal to the American people, communicating what the real problem in America is, why he and democrats on Capitol Hill speak and act the way they do, and that he is no longer going to primarily represent the interests of the top 5 percent who own more than the combined wealth of the other 95 percent. Actor Beatty could open the Obama appearance with the lines of his 1998 Senator Bulworth character.:
http://www.imdb.com/...
Bullworth:...I'm a Senator/ I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day I'm in Washington/ I ain't getting it in South Central/ I'm gettin it in Beverly Hills/...
...I mean, those boys over there on the monitor/ they want a government smaller and weak/ but they be speakin for the riches 20 percent when they pretend they're defendin the meek/...
....But free don't get you no spots on TV/If you want to have senators not on the take/ Then give them free air time/ They won't have to fake/...
Angry black woman: Are you sayin' the Democratic Party don't care about the African-American community?
Bullworth: Isn't that OBVIOUS? .... So what're you gonna do, vote Republican? Come on! Come on, you're not gonna vote Republican!...
Obama could explain that the realities of campaign financing in the American political system left him little choice but to seek and to accept the financial backing of two of the most corrupted family fortunes in the United States. [1][2]
He could tell the people that, "a primary crisis in America today is the problem that although the bottom 80 percent of our country's residents offer the potential of a huge voting majority for democrats and their political platforms, the reality is that this huge majority today is reduced to combined wealth ownership of less than 12.3 percent of the entirety of privately held U.S. wealth.[3]
Seven slices of the wealth pie of the U.S. for 40 million Americans, and just one slice for the other 280 million.
The elite in this country who I and all members of congress are beholden to, have advanced this trend of increasing wealth inequity unparalleled in any other post industrial society, by relying on this premise to anticipate that you will not push back at them by voting your own, best interests in a majority bloc.":
"Most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor" - John Dickinson, 1776
Obama could go on to admit that the political interests of the bottom 80, and even the bottom 90 percent of the American people differ dramatically from those of the top two percent. Although he and congressional democrats would like to gamble on the "have not" majority voting for them in large enough numbers to win elections, they, as their republican opponents always do, have in the past opted to take the surer thing, the financial backing of the wealthiest few and the big corporations, along with the strings that come attached to this financial support.
http://www.salon.com/...
"..In other words, Obama exploited the trust that African-American voters place in him to tell them something that is just absurd: that Blanche Lincoln, one of the most corporatist members of Congress, works for their interests. Bill Clinton did the same with the Arkansas voters who still trust him."
Obama could explain how the playbook democratic financial sponsors direct his strategy on the Bush Tax Cuts sunset to follow is designed to play out. A sham "compromise" is in the works to give the appearance that Obama has "negotiated" preservation of the current tax rates for the bottom 95 percent of tax payers which necessitates giving tax breaks to the wealthiest resulting in far greater savings to them compared to the total amount of continuing tax relief for the middle class.
Obama could say he now recognizes he and his party have nothing to lose. He has been demonized as a leftist and a socialist by his political opponents even as he has acted as a loyal supporter of the interests and agendas of Wall Street, the largest multi-national corporations, the world's wealthiest families, and to the military and intelligence complex and their contractors, to the detriment of the have not majority.
He could announce a commitment to the have not American majority that will include his steadfast refusal to sign any bill repealing any provision of the Bush Tax Cuts sunset, because he has determined it to be the best decision to take in the interests of the majority. He could announce he is disbanding his deficit reduction committee in favor of a strong focus on cutting military and intelligence expenditures.
He could announce the firing of Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs and commit to distancing himself from the influence and the agenda of the "money party" wing of the democratic party. He could commit to a new criteria for his support and signing of any new legislation or policy initiative. Is it in the best interests of the bottom 80 percent of the US population? If the answer is no, Obama could commit to refusing to support it or to sign it.
Obama could end his appeal by telling his audience that, just as the Sen. Bulworth character did, he will take himself, and attempt to take his party in a direction where they put themselves in the hands of the voters instead of in the hands of big financial backers. He can admit that he takes this decision because he now recognizes that he and his party have nothing to lose by appealing to the voters and that he knows it would mean much more if he had decided to make himself and his party the clear representatives of the best interests of the American people from the beginning days of his presidency.
I predict Obama and democratic candidates will instead stay the course and lose big in November. It is still the best option in consideration of their future career prospects. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spends $144 million per year to lobby congress. Defeated democrats are the future lobbyists. Too bad the bottom 80 percent don't have any money and are subjected to a political and an economic system with an ingrained incentive, structure and inclination to sell them out at every opportunity of the financial, media, and the political, elite.
[1]
http://news.google.com/...
http://news.google.com/...
http://www.google.com/...
Supermob: how Sidney Korshak and his criminal associates became ...
Gus Russo - 2006 - 623 pages - Snippet view
Even prior to that, in April 1941, when Ziffren and Bazelon were at the Gottlieb firm, Ziffren had inquired of the ... friend Colonel Henry Crown purchased a twenty-six-thousand-acre abandoned coal mine in Farmersville, California, ...
Captive city
Ovid Demaris - 1969 - 366 pages - Snippet view
The Alien Property Custodian in 1947, the year the Colonel purchased the Farmersville mine, was David L. Bazelon, ... Considered close friends, Ziffren and Bazelon joined in several multimillion-dollar ventures across the country. ...
[2]
Penny Pritzker
http://blogs.suntimes.com/...
411 F.2d 658
by Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit - 1969 - Related articles
Abraham N. PRITZKER, Jack N. Pritzker, Jay A. Pritzker and Stanford Clinton, individually and as co-partners, practicing law as Pritzker, Pritzker and ...
http://bulk.resource.org/...
Stanford Clinton
http://news.google.com/...
http://njlegallib.rutgers.edu/...
In The Matter of The Application for Playboy-Elsinore Associates
For a Casino License
Decided: April 7, 1982
.....Page 4
B. Areas of Concern Identified By The Division
At the close of the evidentiary phase of this hearing, the Division in its summation indicated that it would have no objection to the licensure of Eslinore if the following two conditions were imposed by the Commission:
....number one, there is no more dealing in any way, shape or form with any, Division or subdivision of the Teamsters fund.
Secondly, that the Pritzker family make efforts to insulate or extricate themselves from existing ties that they may have with Teamsters fund or funds in any way, shape, or form..
[3]
http://www.levyinstitute.org/...
(bottom of page 32)
"..it is possible to provide a partial update of the wealth figures to July 1, 2009 based on two notable developments....
...Trends in inequality are also interesting.... The share of the top 1 percent advanced from 34.6 to 37.1 percent, that of the top 5 percent from 61.8 to 65 percent, and that of the top quintile from 85 to 87.7 percent, while that of the second quintile fell from 10.9 to 10 percent, that of the middle quintile from 4 to 3.1 percent, and that of the bottom two quintiles from 0.2 to -0.8 percent. ..the share of households with zero or negative net worth, from 18.6 to 24.1 percent."
http://www.federalreserve.gov/...
Currents and Undercurrents: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth, 1989–2004 (a new triennial, SCF, Fed Reserve "Study of Conusmer Finances...will be released shortly after the election...sure to document, even further wealth concentration into the hands of the top ten percent.)
January 30, 2006
Abstract
This paper considers changes in the distribution of the wealth of U.S. families over the 1989–2004 period using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF)...
page 27
...Ownership shares. For some assets, the distributions of the amounts held are far more disproportionate than the differences in ownership rates. MOST STRIKING is the 62.3 percent share of business assets OWNED BY THE WEALTHIEST 1 percent of the wealth distribution in 2004 (table 11a); the NEXT-WEALTHIEST 4 percent OWNED ANOTHER 22.4 percent of the total. Other key items subject to capital gains also show strong disproportions: THE WEALTHIEST 5 PERCENT OF FAMILIES OWNED 61.9 percent of residential real estate other than principal residences, 71.7 percent of nonresidential real estate, and 65.9 PERCENT OF DIRECTLY- AND INDIRECTLY HELD STOCKS. For bonds, 93.7 PERCENT OF THE TOTAL WERE HELD BY THIS GROUP...."