A Fight Both Liberals and Conservatives Can Rally Around …
Liberals love Franklin Delano Roosevelt … and conservatives hate him.
But both liberals and conservatives are inspired by the wise, non-partisan words of the supreme ass-kicker Teddy Roosevelt:
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
Roosevelt is exactly right: the root problem is not big business
(which liberals blame) or big government (which conservatives blame).
It is the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politicians which is the core problem (read this for details).
Sure, Teddy busted up the private cartels. But – as his quote shows – we have to bust up the public corruption as well, or nothing will change.
Remember, the government made the big banks into giants in the first place:
As MIT economics professor and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson points out today, the official White House position is that:
(1) The government created the mega-giants, and they are not the product of free market competition***(3) Giant banks are good for the economy
(Even after the financial crisis hit, the government encouraged the biggest banks to grow even bigger).
It is the Federal Reserve, Treasury and Congress who have:
- Repeatedly bailed out the big banks (and made permanent bailouts more or less official policy)
- Picked winners and losers – even involving foreign interests (and see this)
- Exempted them from standard accounting practices and the criminal and fraud laws which govern the little guy
This is not a partisan issue. Both liberals and conservatives agree that we must end the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big government and big corporations.
What History Teaches Us
Any conservatives who have any doubt about how corrupt Wall Street has become … please skim this and read these quotes:
“If the people only understood the rank injustice of our Money and Banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.”
- Andrew Jackson
- Andrew Jackson
“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people
themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined
in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus
in banks.”
- John C. Calhoun, Vice President of the United States
- John C. Calhoun, Vice President of the United States
“There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite
accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity
by…corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in
this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a
source of abuses.”
- James Madison
- James Madison
Any liberals who have any doubt about how corrupt government officials have become … kindly glance at this and read the following quotes:
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to
me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the
Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know
that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so
interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak
above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
- Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, 1913
- Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, 1913
“There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own
Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own
ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free
from the law itself.”
- Senator Daniel K. Inouye, 1987
- Senator Daniel K. Inouye, 1987
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.”
- Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952
- Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952
OWS and Tea Partiers are the only ones that understand this fully. Anyone still clinging to their traditional [R] and [D] is part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteIf these two groups could bridge the gap between "give me more" and "leave me alone", and they could prevent corruption by the current power brokers, they would be a force that government would have to bow to.
"OWS and Tea Partiers are the only ones that understand this fully. Anyone still clinging to their traditional [R] and [D] is part of the problem." Agreed!
DeleteThe same is true for the traditional [C's] and [L's] of the UK... I had to find out the hard way, I was head hunted! The establishment can't deal with incorruptible or progress, yet the public as I discovered can't get enough of the truth.
I think there may need to be a new wave party with a more ubiquitous tie across society. one that can unify the divided and conquered. Almost everyone believes in freedom except our rulers. Anyone else feeling the Pirate party?