Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Yes We Can...speak the Truth about Corporate Dems to reverse dangerous trend
Many Democrats seem set on Hillary Clinton getting a cakewalk to the party’s presidential nomination, but her neocon-style foreign policy and her cozy ties to Wall Street might give rank-and-file Democrats some pause, as Jeff Cohen suggests.
...I’ve never forgotten Clinton’s remark about representing banks because it tells us much about her worldview – both then and now that she’s even more embedded in the corporate elite (and had Rupert Murdoch host one of her Senate fundraising events).
More importantly, Clinton’s comment speaks to the decline of the Democratic Party as a force that identifies with the broad public, those who often get stepped on by big banks and unbridled greed. Her remark is an apt credo for a party leadership that has spent the last quarter-century serving corporate power (through Wall Street deregulation, media dereg, NAFTA-style trade pacts, etc.) as persistently as it spews out empty rhetoric about “the needs of working families.”
...In 2007, candidate Obama had taken on Hillary Clinton with campaign rhetoric like “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over.” The day after his Inauguration, he promised to “close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely.”
Despite the long-forgotten oratory, Obama recently appointed superstar lobbyist Wheeler as his FCC chair, who promptly pushed a Net Neutrality proposal undercutting an open Internet. He was top lobbyist for not one but two industries (cable TV and cell phone) regulated by the FCC – “the only person inducted into both the cable industry hall of fame and the telecom hall of fame,” according to columnist Juan Gonzalez.
If you staff your administration with corporatists, many of those individuals will ultimately opt to exit the White House to make more money working directly for big business.
In the book “This Town” – an insider’s account of the permanent members of The Club in D.C. who oversee the corporate state whether Democrats or Republicans hold power – journalist Mark Leibovich tracks Obama grads who moved to greener pastures. For example, Obama budget director Orszag predictably took a high-level job at Citigroup. Leibovich also mentions:
ANITA DUNN – a key 2008 campaign strategist and then White House Communications Director, she assisted Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign. After exiting the White House, she became a consultant for food companies working “to block restrictions on commercials for sugary foods targeting children.” Dunn went on to consult for TransCanada in its push for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.
JAKE SIEWERT – he left his job as a top Treasury Department official to become head of global communications for Goldman Sachs, the bailed-out-firm central to the financial meltdown. (Before the Goldman job was announced, Politico had suggested Siewert might take the helm of the purportedly progressive Center for American Progress.)
GEOFF MORRELL – chief spokesperson for Defense Secretary Robert Gates under both George W. Bush and Obama, he left that job a year after the BP oil spill in the Gulf and became head of communications for BP America. As Leibovich writes: “Bloomberg News would later report that BP’s Pentagon contracts more than doubled in the two years after it caused the biggest spill in U.S. history.”
Two realizations must be faced.
First: Whether Republicans or corporate Democrats control the White House, economic elites largely control policy – and it’s this corporate power and corruption that threatens the economic and environmental future of our country and planet.
Second: Despite gains on issues like gay rights and pot legalization, the trend since the 1980s has been economic/environmental decline alongside the solidification of corporate power and economic inequality – a long-term downward trend that has persisted through the Bill Clinton and Obama years, though at a slower rate than with the GOP in the White House.
The only way to reverse this dangerous trend is to tell the truth about and challenge corporate Democrats – including Clintonites and Obamaites – whenever and wherever feasible....
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/14/hillary-clintons-corporatist-party/
...I’ve never forgotten Clinton’s remark about representing banks because it tells us much about her worldview – both then and now that she’s even more embedded in the corporate elite (and had Rupert Murdoch host one of her Senate fundraising events).
More importantly, Clinton’s comment speaks to the decline of the Democratic Party as a force that identifies with the broad public, those who often get stepped on by big banks and unbridled greed. Her remark is an apt credo for a party leadership that has spent the last quarter-century serving corporate power (through Wall Street deregulation, media dereg, NAFTA-style trade pacts, etc.) as persistently as it spews out empty rhetoric about “the needs of working families.”
...In 2007, candidate Obama had taken on Hillary Clinton with campaign rhetoric like “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over.” The day after his Inauguration, he promised to “close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely.”
Despite the long-forgotten oratory, Obama recently appointed superstar lobbyist Wheeler as his FCC chair, who promptly pushed a Net Neutrality proposal undercutting an open Internet. He was top lobbyist for not one but two industries (cable TV and cell phone) regulated by the FCC – “the only person inducted into both the cable industry hall of fame and the telecom hall of fame,” according to columnist Juan Gonzalez.
If you staff your administration with corporatists, many of those individuals will ultimately opt to exit the White House to make more money working directly for big business.
In the book “This Town” – an insider’s account of the permanent members of The Club in D.C. who oversee the corporate state whether Democrats or Republicans hold power – journalist Mark Leibovich tracks Obama grads who moved to greener pastures. For example, Obama budget director Orszag predictably took a high-level job at Citigroup. Leibovich also mentions:
ANITA DUNN – a key 2008 campaign strategist and then White House Communications Director, she assisted Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign. After exiting the White House, she became a consultant for food companies working “to block restrictions on commercials for sugary foods targeting children.” Dunn went on to consult for TransCanada in its push for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.
JAKE SIEWERT – he left his job as a top Treasury Department official to become head of global communications for Goldman Sachs, the bailed-out-firm central to the financial meltdown. (Before the Goldman job was announced, Politico had suggested Siewert might take the helm of the purportedly progressive Center for American Progress.)
GEOFF MORRELL – chief spokesperson for Defense Secretary Robert Gates under both George W. Bush and Obama, he left that job a year after the BP oil spill in the Gulf and became head of communications for BP America. As Leibovich writes: “Bloomberg News would later report that BP’s Pentagon contracts more than doubled in the two years after it caused the biggest spill in U.S. history.”
Two realizations must be faced.
First: Whether Republicans or corporate Democrats control the White House, economic elites largely control policy – and it’s this corporate power and corruption that threatens the economic and environmental future of our country and planet.
Second: Despite gains on issues like gay rights and pot legalization, the trend since the 1980s has been economic/environmental decline alongside the solidification of corporate power and economic inequality – a long-term downward trend that has persisted through the Bill Clinton and Obama years, though at a slower rate than with the GOP in the White House.
The only way to reverse this dangerous trend is to tell the truth about and challenge corporate Democrats – including Clintonites and Obamaites – whenever and wherever feasible....
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/14/hillary-clintons-corporatist-party/
The full article here by Jeff Cohen is really informative. Good talking points about FACTS showing our party is not representing us well, but doing a bang-up job representing Big Money, despite the rhetoric.
23 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Democrats will show up if they know there's a difference btn the parties & at least ONE of them will represent the them.
Here, Sherrod Brown explains it better than I do~
