Stoller has known Schneiderman for a few years. He says, simply put, you're seeing who Eric Schneiderman really is: a progressive, a man willing to stand up to massive pressures to do what is right and a man of integrity. And we're seeing who Obama really is -- all of the excuses (Republicans blocking him, bipartisanship, etc) are BS -- his policies are who he is. His actions on bankster prosecutions (or lack thereof) are who he is and what he believes.
Along with the snips below, he calls Obama out on overtly lying about NAFTA & FISA; he says that Obama administration members & (he singles out) his DOJ will carry their time in the administration as a mark of shame, and more.
In all the absurdly stupid punditry, the simple application of free will to our elected officials goes missing. Yeah, Obama got money from Wall Street. But Obama is choosing to pursue a policy of foreclosures and bank bailouts not because of any grand corporate scheme. He just wants to. He thinks it’s the right thing to do, and he’s doing it. If you don’t think it’s the right thing to do, then you shouldn’t be disappointed in him any more than you might have been disappointed in Bush. Obama is not trying to do the opposite of what he’s doing, he’s not repeatedly suckered by Republicans, and he isn’t naive or stupid. Obama is simply doing what he thinks is right. So is Eric Schneiderman. So is Tom Miller. So are any number of elected officials out there.
<snip>
The crazy thing is that robosigning is apparently still going on. Right now, the “settlement” talks are the equivalent of law enforcement negotiating with a serial killer over whether he’ll get a parking ticket, even as he continually sprays bullets into the neighborhood. Even having these “settlement” talks when the actual crimes haven’t been investigated or a complaint hasn’t been registered should be example enough that this process is rigged as badly as Dodd-Frank. It should not be a surprise that the administration is putting pressure on Eric Schneiderman, that Tom Miller is kicking him out of the club house. That’s who these people are. It’s what they believe in. Just as it should not be a surprise, though it is laudable, that Schneiderman isn’t knuckling under to the administration. I suspect he probably is laughing at the idiocy of Miller’s pressure tactic. I mean, this is a guy going up some of the most powerful entities in the United States: Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of America, the New York Fed, etc. And the Iowa Attorney General isn’t going let him on conference calls? Mmmkay.
<snip>
When you look closely at most significant areas of government, it becomes clear that the President and his administration are enormously powerful actors who get a lot done. Handing over our national wealth to the banks and to China is not nothing. These people are reorganizing the economy and the political system so that there are no constraints on the oligarchical interests that fund and pay them. That is their goal, it has been their goal from day one (or even before that), and anyone who says otherwise is just wrong or deluding him or herself. Obama spoke at the founding of Robert Rubin’s Hamilton Institute, and his first, and most important by far policy initiative, was his whipping for TARP, a policy that was signed by Bush but could not have passed without Obama getting his party in line. That was his goal, and he’s still pursuing it. The numerous “what happened to Obama” wailing editorials overlook the consistency of his policy agenda, which stretches back years at this point.
<snip>
Eric Schneiderman’s willingness to go after the banks and stand up to the corruption of the Bush and Obama administrations should be a reminder to all of us of this. We have free will. He is doing the right thing for no other reason than because he wants to, because he believes in it. He is going to face serious consequences for this, very nasty stuff. Eliot Spitzer was taken down and his name dragged through mud because of who he took on. Paying ugly costs for standing up is routine, unfortunately, in modern America. And the least powerful among us face far worse consequences than politicians who are embarrassed. But integrity exists, and Schneiderman is showing that free will can be exercised in its service. This fact is true of many people, not just Schneiderman; Bill McKibbin, Jane Hamsher, Dan Choi and others just got arrested in front of the White House to register dissent. So next time someone tells you that you have no choice but to support one of the two branches of the banking party, just remember, you also have free will. And the only person who can take that away from you, is you.
The rest at
Naked Capitalism.
In his inaugural speech, Schneiderman talked about the need to restore faith & trust in our public & private institutions (and how!) Stoller linked to the article Schneiderman wrote for the Nation, as reflecting his political beliefs. In the article, he is talking about taking the framing and the mindset back from the conservatives, who've been so successful in ingraining so much crap in people's heads for so long. He's talking about transactional vs transformative politics, saying that transactional is necessary sometimes to (essentially) play the game, but in the long-term, what we need is (true) transformational politics on the left:
<snip>
So here's a proposal to inspire a transformational focus by our candidates. On every issue, with every group of activists, politicians who claim to be doing transformational work should be required to prove it. All politicians who seek your support should produce articles, videos, transcripts--anything that demonstrates that they are challenging the conservative assumptions that frame virtually all discussions of public policy among America's elected officials. How do we talk about abortion? As a duel between "prochoice" and "prolife" extremists--or as an issue of basic human freedom for women denied the power to control their own bodies? What do we say about health insurance? That it requires a delicate balance between the free market and socialism--or that it is an essential investment in our most important national resource and a basic right, without which our commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is meaningless?
<snip>
The point of the transformational/transactional paradigm is not for everyone to be singing the same ode to change all the time, but for every would-be progressive official to pursue transformational themes as a central part of our conversation with our constituents and colleagues. We will never overcome decades of brilliant conservative propaganda on the economy until our representatives begin to reflect the basic ideas of Bernstein, Baker, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich in our stump speeches to political clubs and our talks at senior centers.
<snip>
Almost all of us are capable of taking examples of good public policy and placing them in a transformational progressive framework. But history teaches that the overwhelming majority of elected officials follow movement builders outside government when it comes to the new and risky. So it's time for progressive activists to focus their demands on transformational as well as transactional work. Once you recognize it, demand it and reward it, it will happen.
The rest is at The Nation:
Transforming the Liberal Checklist
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
