Published on Thursday, November 17, 2011 by TruthDig
Michael Bloomberg: The Villain Occupy Wall Street Has Been Waiting For
In the pantheon of billionaires without shame, Michael Bloomberg, the Wall Street banker-turned-business-press-lord-turned-mayor, is now secure at the top. What is so offensive is that someone who abetted Wall Street greed, and benefited as much as anyone from it, has no compunction about ruthlessly repressing those who dare exercise their constitutional “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” that he helped to create.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seen here in 2008. (AP/Julia Xanthos)You would think that a former partner at the investment bank Solomon Brothers, which originated mortgage-backed securities, a man who then partnered with Merrill Lynch in the high-speed computerized trading that has led to so much financial manipulation, would have some sense of his own culpability. Or at least that someone whose Wall Street career left him with a net worth of $19.5 billion would grasp the deep irony of his being the instrument for smashing Occupy Wall Street, the internationally acknowledged symbol of opposition to corporate avarice.
But only in America is the arrogance of the superrich so perfectly concealed by the pretense of democracy that the 12th richest man in the nation can suppress dissent against corporate rapacity and expect his brutal actions to be viewed not as a means of preserving his own class privilege but as bureaucratically necessary to providing sanitary streets.
Even before he ordered the smashing of dissent by citizens peacefully assembled, Bloomberg denigrated their heartfelt message: “It’s fun and it’s cathartic,” he said of those huddled against the cold in a makeshift encampment, “... it’s entertaining to go and blame people. ... It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.”
It is mind-boggling that Bloomberg still hypes the canard that the banks were forced to reap enormous profits from toxic securities. It is an embarrassing, dishonest position when the record of banker fraud in creating the housing bubble is so well documented in Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuits. Is Bloomberg unaware that the major banks have agreed to pay hefty fines in a meager compensation for their schemes? That he blames the victims of the securitization swindles and then orders the arrest of those who dare speak the truth is a tribute to his belief in the enduring power of the big lie.
If the Bloomberg news service, the stock market idolizer owned by the mayor, had been anything more than an enabler this past decade of Wall Street excess, nay criminality, it’s possible we would not be experiencing the current crisis. If this leading financial news outlet had performed the minimum of journalistic due diligence on unregulated credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations and the other swindles marketed with an abandon informed by deep deceit and the financial industry’s pervasive corruption, the world economy may not now be in such terrible shape.
Yet the man whose personal wealth increased by $4.5 billion the first year of this meltdown when many Americans were losing their life savings now dares shift blame away from himself and others at the center of economic power to the most vulnerable among us. Instead of blaming the Wall Street lobbyists who got the laws changed so that they could securitize people’s home mortgages, no matter how unsound those mortgages were by design, he blames the folks suckered into accepting the banks’ phony offerings. “Blame the opium addict and not the pusher” is the excuse for the bankers who turned the lure of easy credit into a housing bubble that, when it inevitably exploded, impoverished the world but left the bailed-out Wall Street hustlers richer than ever.
“There’s something wrong with a kid who steals a bike going to jail and someone who steals millions paying a fine,” as former New York City Mayor Ed Koch put it in challenging Bloomberg’s blame-the-victims copout. The fines to which Koch referred represent a small percentage of the bankers’ ill-gotten gains, and, of course, as opposed to the kid who steals a bike, none of the bankers fined by the SEC has even been threatened with jail time. “What do you think they got fined for—schmutz on the sidewalk?” Koch asked. “They got fined because they abused their relationship with their clientele. And I want to see somebody—I want to see one of them, of a major corporation, punished criminally.”
Instead, the people led away in handcuffs are not the bankers who perpetuated the fraud of turning homes into the junk of toxic mortgages, which should be judged as criminal, but decent people who have committed only the “crime” of speaking truth to power.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seen here in 2008. (AP/Julia Xanthos)You would think that a former partner at the investment bank Solomon Brothers, which originated mortgage-backed securities, a man who then partnered with Merrill Lynch in the high-speed computerized trading that has led to so much financial manipulation, would have some sense of his own culpability. Or at least that someone whose Wall Street career left him with a net worth of $19.5 billion would grasp the deep irony of his being the instrument for smashing Occupy Wall Street, the internationally acknowledged symbol of opposition to corporate avarice.But only in America is the arrogance of the superrich so perfectly concealed by the pretense of democracy that the 12th richest man in the nation can suppress dissent against corporate rapacity and expect his brutal actions to be viewed not as a means of preserving his own class privilege but as bureaucratically necessary to providing sanitary streets.
Even before he ordered the smashing of dissent by citizens peacefully assembled, Bloomberg denigrated their heartfelt message: “It’s fun and it’s cathartic,” he said of those huddled against the cold in a makeshift encampment, “... it’s entertaining to go and blame people. ... It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.”
It is mind-boggling that Bloomberg still hypes the canard that the banks were forced to reap enormous profits from toxic securities. It is an embarrassing, dishonest position when the record of banker fraud in creating the housing bubble is so well documented in Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuits. Is Bloomberg unaware that the major banks have agreed to pay hefty fines in a meager compensation for their schemes? That he blames the victims of the securitization swindles and then orders the arrest of those who dare speak the truth is a tribute to his belief in the enduring power of the big lie.
If the Bloomberg news service, the stock market idolizer owned by the mayor, had been anything more than an enabler this past decade of Wall Street excess, nay criminality, it’s possible we would not be experiencing the current crisis. If this leading financial news outlet had performed the minimum of journalistic due diligence on unregulated credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations and the other swindles marketed with an abandon informed by deep deceit and the financial industry’s pervasive corruption, the world economy may not now be in such terrible shape.
Yet the man whose personal wealth increased by $4.5 billion the first year of this meltdown when many Americans were losing their life savings now dares shift blame away from himself and others at the center of economic power to the most vulnerable among us. Instead of blaming the Wall Street lobbyists who got the laws changed so that they could securitize people’s home mortgages, no matter how unsound those mortgages were by design, he blames the folks suckered into accepting the banks’ phony offerings. “Blame the opium addict and not the pusher” is the excuse for the bankers who turned the lure of easy credit into a housing bubble that, when it inevitably exploded, impoverished the world but left the bailed-out Wall Street hustlers richer than ever.
“There’s something wrong with a kid who steals a bike going to jail and someone who steals millions paying a fine,” as former New York City Mayor Ed Koch put it in challenging Bloomberg’s blame-the-victims copout. The fines to which Koch referred represent a small percentage of the bankers’ ill-gotten gains, and, of course, as opposed to the kid who steals a bike, none of the bankers fined by the SEC has even been threatened with jail time. “What do you think they got fined for—schmutz on the sidewalk?” Koch asked. “They got fined because they abused their relationship with their clientele. And I want to see somebody—I want to see one of them, of a major corporation, punished criminally.”
Instead, the people led away in handcuffs are not the bankers who perpetuated the fraud of turning homes into the junk of toxic mortgages, which should be judged as criminal, but decent people who have committed only the “crime” of speaking truth to power.
© 2011 Robert Scheer
- Posted in
50 Comments so far
Show AllToday Obama is in Asia crafting another NAFTA, and promising Australians that "US military expansion in the region will not be part of budget cuts", while his super secret catfood committee is preparing to announce trillions of dollars in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other domestic program cuts. All of these actions will impact tens of millions of people for many generations.
Remember the studies? One was done by Professor Emeritus, Robert E. Lane that linked happiness not with prosperity above a modicum of comfort, but with caring relationships? Another study (the name I can't recall) showed that happiness essentially levels off once an individual makes something in the ballpark of $65,000. per annum.
I share these studies and their conclusions because they beg the question: what prompts persons like Bloomberg, or a sell-out like Obama who's raising the ungodly sum of an estimated billion for what? Another faux election? While so many starve. And how many homes, yachts, and $2000 suits do these amoral excuses for human beings really need? Yeah, I know. Sociopathy IS how sociopathy does...
Beautifully stated, Siouxrose! Kudos to Ray as well.
Personally I'm starting to believe the nutters about Obama's origins and sketchy background. That he may have been groomed for some time for the role of Trojan Horse is no longer appearing so far-fetched anymore.
As for Bloomberg, was there any question where his loyalties would lie? Wasn't it apparent to NYers when they elected the man where his power and authority is derived? People Power?
Why would a person who exists within the .0001% sympathize with a cause which places him in the role of public enemy #1?
Every US, high horse politician is a groomed Trojan Horse for the empire in one way or another. It doesn't seem all that far fetched. In a capitalistic society, where money and power is everything and compassion and benevolence are obsolete, to find a perfect Trojan Horse is a piece of cake.
People get pst off when I suggest Obama became the chosen one partly on the basis of his skin color. If his skin was white, I think by now his approval rating among blacks would be nil. That's a Trojan Horse worth keeping. Another factor was his anti-Iraq war speech. There are many anti-war voters who still hold that speech as a reason to stick with him. Speeching is easy for Obama, but going beyond that and voting against war spending was not part of the scam. His job was to convince voters to "support the troops."
Again, the empire's psyops technicians are far ahead of us. As the oligarchs have made quite clear, while we judiciously study what they do and say, they are busy creating other realities that we can also study and discuss. You thought Bush was bad? Hang onto your seats, folks, soon the road gets ruthlessly bumpy.
http://tinyurl.com/26v4ykt
For those who haven't read about it yet.
Thomas Merton once wrote of a sixth century Syrian hermit who said that the truly rich man is not he who has everything, but he who needs nothing. Bloomberg and his ilk will never understand that kind of thinking, nor will they understand people who merely want to live their lives, rather than accumulate a bank vault full of gold ingots.
I appreciate everything you said. However, in this reality until it changes...money does buy happiness. Unless one has one's own cave by a stream in the wilderness with food and "mooing" growing near by in then the coin of the realm is required for existance.
Bloomberg represents the shared agenda of the vast majority of both democrats and republicans.
Former mayor Koch is only criticizing what he actually supports when he supports the democrats "leadership."
This is a bunch of crap to help deflect our attention from the whole truth.
There is a whole herd of like-minded corporatists running loose globally and Scheer wants us to focus on the pile of crap produced by one of them.
Why?
However, these two are not aberrations at all. Where did all the Southern Republicans come from, Folks? They came out of the Democratic Party in mass, just a few decades ago. So,PLEASE, use your brains and realize that the Democratic and Republcian Parties are joined at the hip, and do something else other than voting for these soul mates.
Funny in a very sad way. Common Dreams keeps sending all these DP messengers and wannabe counselors our way to read over and over again. People like Norman and Michael and Tom. They are always telling the DP leadership what they should be doing, but these DP politicians then just go over and move right into the Republican Party, both in person and in spirit. Why should anybody ever pay any attention to the likes of the sad sack reformist liberal peons (sorry, Mike)? Why should they?
Money speaks and that's who the DP politicians prefer. If asked to stand down by the super rich, all the DP politicians will do so. Remember Al Gore? He 'won' the popular vote with The People but lost it with the super rich, so he just flded it all up and walked away. Then he became a preacher man ala Saint Jimmy...
'Bloomberg represents the shared agenda of the vast majority of both democrats and republicans. Former mayor Koch is only criticizing what he actually supports when he supports the democrats "leadership."'
Now if Mr. Birdbrain can figure that all out, why are so many others trailing so way behind him in the political IQ race?
You are correct that the Southern Republicans once were Southern Democrats. But they jumped parties because of the Civil Rights legislation passed in the 1960s. Democrats were the southern racists until then. Not too many of them are still in politics - or even alive. The new crop of Republicans were nurtured in the mythology of the Civil War - the same mythology that nurtured the German right-wing between the world wars; namely; the"we were betrayed" nonsense and "the south will rise again" nonsense.
But the point most people who post on CD is that even when Democrats stay in the party, their efforts are aimed at continuing the distortions in the nation's social fabric that we see today. George Wallace used to say that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties - many CDers agree with that.
This kind of regional hate speech is as offensive as it is false.
I see it posted here daily that there is no difference between the parties. So should all the articles printed on CD say that same thing, in every article, every day? IMHO that would get pretty old pretty quick.
I think what the author did here was very well done, and Bloomberg is the perfect target for this article because he was Democrat, turned Republican, turned independent Republican which plays quite nicely with those here who feel there is no difference between the parties.
But my guess is that the people here who say there is no difference between the two main political parties in this country are men. Any woman of reproductive age in this country who cares about reproductive rights, I'm quite feel there is definitely a difference, and I'm sure they fear a total Republican takeover of government.
Also any people concerned about a theocratic take over of the government, and the marginalization of science should be very concerned about a Republican takeover.
Yea when it comes to war and taking care of the top 1% there is little difference between the parties, but to say there is none is a bit like when Dubya said "Youre either with us or against us". In politicsas in life, things aren't always black and white, but are more often shades of grey.
Obama extended the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy while downsizing home heating and Head Start which previously provided a safety net for children. One poster also correctly identified the Cat Food Committee (a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans) who is selling social security down the river as we know it, so the 1% can coup more benefits. Numerous CD articles have noted the disproportionate giveaway operating under the banner of “compromise” which means the Democratic members are left negotiating against themselves while the Republicans sit back and scoop up the remains from the social safety net corpse for their own handlers.
If that is the world you want to live in then by all means mis characterize it as a black and white issue; noting could be further from the truth.
Give him enough rope!
"If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you."
"It will be you-you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives."
"We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it."
"Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun."
As stirring as Trumbo's words are, they are given even more resonance by actor Donald Sutherland when he gives his electrifying speech using those words from Johnny Got His Gun at the end of the documentary FTA which originally came out in the early 1970s [and due to political pressure only played one week in movie theaters when it was originally shown] but was re-released just a few years ago.
I'm posting before checking others' comments, and imagine at least one industry apologist will show up to repeat the right wing lie that it was all the fault of those who were not properly prepared to pay their mortgages... one can only imagine the type of minds that still hinge their arguments on such disgusting deceits.
As pinchyway says, this message is sent daily on CD, by numerous flacks for the DP. It seems at least half the articles have this theme. Republicans bad, Democrats disappointing but vastly better than Repugs. Don't fall for it. Vote for third party candidates who really get what OWS is about, or just abstain. If third parties are to be forever frozen out of the electoral process by the duopoly, then political action has to happen elsewhere, as OWS is already showing. Even if they say they're not political.
Posted by raydelcamino
Nov 17 2011 - 10:18am
"Instead, the people led away in handcuffs are not the bankers who perpetuated the fraud of turning homes into the junk of toxic mortgages, which should be judged as criminal, but decent people who have committed only the “crime” of speaking truth to power"
Last time I looked, the Obama Administration has not opened a single investigation (much less prosecution) of any corporate faction named in the articles list of grievances. Of course, this is another one of CD's purported progressive spokesperson who provides half-truths. Yes, Bloomberg is criminally culpable, BUT SO IS OBAMA. I believe Scherer wants to achieve a radical agenda. Where we part company is that he is still operating under an illusion that the Democratic Party can be taken over from within. I’ve moved light-years away from that meme years ago. Apparently, he has not.
He, as the president, and the tone-setter for the nation, is absolutely to be held the most accountable for our current situation. He *could have* done something meaningful... in fact, all he really has needed to do is LET THE PEOPLE LEAD...
But not only has he not moved out of the way to allow the momentum of We The People to demand accountability, he and his administration have actively worked to protect the interests of the top .01% against We The People.
He actively BLOCKED investigations... He purposely spoke out to diffuse the righteous anger of the 99% by claiming the actions of Wall St were all legal. His policies (and the policies of the general Democratic Party) have again and again made real reform IMPOSSIBLE, and consistently moved the dialog away the People's Agenda, and back to the agendas of the ruling elites — like reducing the deficit, protecting insurance agencies, raiding Medicare and SS... and blocking valid Wall Street reform in any way shape or form.
Peace and Solidarity, EarthFirst
While stopped at a red light yesterday afternoon, lost in thought about the usual mix of hope and angst and wonder about the world, I was jolted back to the moment as a city bus edged out into the intersection to make a left turn heading back towards town. Not an unusual occurrence, except for this one was now a gigantic full-color gaudy billboard for Wells Fargo! I've lived here for four years and have never seen any of our buses with anything but the most insignificant bits of advertising on them during that time.
At first I just stared in dumbstruck disbelief......like anybody needs reminders that Well Fargo and Wachovia just merged into an even larger behemoth. Doesn't seem you would have to be very observant or a customer to put that two and two together after the bombardment of ads and reminders as it was happening. I'm not a tv watcher or seeker of mainstream news and info and even I knew that they were going to be wed and that the dominant partners name would be used. Like they need to advertise more?
To see this rolling display of uber-wealth in my small town (even though it is a pricey tourist town) made me imagine the hundreds, probably thousands of bright red buses and vehicles with the bold yellow WELLS FARGO emblazoned on the sides now crisscrossing the land. In my opinion, not because they need the advertisement, but purely as a presence and a display of power. I mean, there is nothing about my financial life that will ever require the services of Wells Fargo or any other similar financial or investment institution. And I am so not alone. And those with more complex finances and needs, do they need courted and enticed by the big red buses?
I used to print and apply vehicle graphics when I lived in St. Louis. I could probably pretty accurately figure out how much Wells Fargo spent to create their network of mobile billboards...costly advertising that would seem completely unnecessary to lure in customers. I could have done some amazing things for a lot of people with whatever amount they spent on this particular ad campaign (undoubtedly a mere pittance in the whole advertising budget of the bank) and it certainly is just one more indicator to me of even bigger and grander reminders of wealth and power to come as the 1% aims to keep the rest of us out of the clubhouse.
It is so disgusting to see the power elite strut, puff up their chests and then beat them for all to see...for all to be reminded who and what is in charge. Even more loathsome are the drones and worker bees who will enthusiastically do the bidding of their keepers, no matter the absence of compassion and respect or how inhumane they become as they help to protect the golden calf while keeping their disenfranchised counterparts out in the cold...never recognizing themselves as other than hard-working, obedient, deserving players in the game and potential entrants into the elite power class.
I need audio to explain this huh?
Phase II ???? Phase II, and voting, and going to Congress is going to change things‼‼ Excuse me….no one is hearing us‼! There is no voter fraud …but there is ELECTION FRAUD . And, everyday THEY are finding more and more ways to keep the American people from voting. PEOPLE KNOW HOW TO VOTE. Don’t just tell us to go vote‼ One step forward and two back. There can be no PHASE II until we have awakened all of the American people to what is a stake here. More and more cities and towns are getting involved and this is good. Neighbors talking to neighbors and making change at the local levels. We need to become viral before we can give them a cold. When they the American people see average American people getting their heads beat in for doing what their Constitution tells them they can do …..then the torch can be passed. It has ever been so and shall ever be.
rarely is anyone charged...
No, we on the far left most certainly do not think that Bloomerberg could possibly have a sense of personal culpability. We're sorry to say that Robert Scheer, et al, continue to illustrate a glaring divide between the true left and their liberal philosophy/practice, the fake left, which continues to lend credibility to elites, and hold the door open to the Demok hijack-the-left establishment.
Sheer seems to forget that Clintok, the last great champion of the Demok/liberal establishment, has been fully discredited, and liberalism has been fully discredited. Triangulation - fully discredited. "Have your cake and eat it too" - fully discredited.
It's no surprise, because Scheer has to appeal to his fellow San Franciscans while they continue to occupy their higher-than-you class pedestal. It doesn't matter that Scheer says some things that appeal to the people. We're learning that that simply isn't good enough. A classist/elitist taking some time off for charity work isn't good enough. We know this now. Now we know that the Hippocratic Oath is where it's at: DO NO HARM. Which means Scheer has to choose the people now, exclusively, if he wants to contribute to the solution instead of contributing to the problem.
So he has to stop appealing to the elites in us, so we can finally purge the elites from within us, so we can stop inadvertently supporting the elites, so we can become independent from elites, so we can take control of production and policy. It's a tough job and we need full support. We need ALL the energy behind us. We cannot share it with the elites. So Robert Scheer, please stop lending credibility to the elites, ehh?