I. The Gagging of Eliot Spitzer 
On Feb. 14 of this year, then New York Governor Eliot Spitzer gave the country this Valentine in the form of an editorial in the
Washington Post . Entitled
Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime the piece detailed the way in which the Bush Administration reinterpreted an old law in order to shut down
states’ investigations and prosecutions of predatory mortgage lenders. Allowed to enforce their own laws, the states might have been able to avert the current mortgage meltdown by discouraging the worst abuses. However, the Bush administration stepped all over states’ rights in order to aid people like Phil Gramm of USB and all the others who had jumped into the seemingly lucrative unregulated mortgage industry.
When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.
It was a very bold, very brave thing to do, and it brought Spitzer nothing but grief.
Within a month, Bear Sterns would become the victim of rumors that would lead it to a financial crisis. The Feds would step in and offer to help J.P. Morgan acquire Bear Sterns for a bargain basement price---at taxpayer expense, of course. At the time, this was portrayed as a rescue of Bear Sterns. Since then, some have begun to wonder if it was not the first step in a rescue of J P Morgan, which is apparently one of the lenders chosen by the Bush administration to survive the present meltdown. Students of history will remember that the house of Morgan did illegal business with Hitler’s Nazi Germany (just like the Bush family) and its owner was reportedly involved the plot to bring down FDR( again, like Prescott Bush). Ferdinand Pecora, a figure much like Eliot Spitzer in his day, who lead the public investigations into banking corruption during the Great Depression earned the enmity of J.P. Morgan Jr. by revealing his unsavory business practices. (References are cited in my old journal linked below
The Man Who Showed America That The Rich are a Danger to Democracy: Ferdinand Pecora http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/300More about the attack on Bear Sterns here:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3678336.eceIf you do not know about Ferdinand Pecora, enemy of the American “Banksters” (a term that
Time magazine coined for bankers who acted like gansters), the above DU journal has some links and quotes about the prosecutor who revealed the corruption and greed which contributed to the stock market crash. The public investigations which he conducted for FDR enabled the Democratic Congress to pass necessary regulatory reforms (like the creation of the SEC) which remained in effect until the Republican Congress under people like Phil Gramm decided that “Banksters” should be given free rein again.
Pecora would later write about the small investor, "surprised to find all of this going on, who had somehow believed that everything on Wall Street was regulated, overseen, and safe. He has reckoned without the ingenuity of the legal technicians and the complaisance of governmental authorities toward powerful financial and business groups." From Ferdinand Pecora: An American Hero by Jackie Corr
http://www.counterpunch.org/corr01112003.htmlAt the same time that the Bush administration was asking the US taxpayer to sign onto the first of a series of massive handouts to lenders, it was also engaged in an operation to silence its number one critic, Eliot Spitzer, the former New York prosecutor who knew more than anyone about corporate fraud. In early March, an unnamed “law enforcement official” leaked to the press information about Spitzer’s involvement with a high class prostitute----information that came from a wiretap.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd-spitzer.html?hpThere were hints that Spitzer might have used campaign money or public money to pay for her services,
even though Spitzer’s father is a billionaire meaning that he could not possibly have been strapped for cash. There were suggestions of a Mann Act charge, though no one ever gets indicted on those. The Mann Act was a law designed to entrap mobsters and uppity Black boxers and other "enemies of the state". How could the Governor of New York be an
enemy of the state ? His only crime was that he had tried to alert the public to the criminal activity of the Bush administration. Prominent, law abiding clients like him were usually not charged at all, or, if charges were pressed, they were given misdemeanor citations by local authorities. And the federal DOJ never went out of its way to alert the press before hand, making up stories about crazy accusations that were unproved. Not unless it had a hidden agenda.
After he was indicted in the press, Spitzer was indicted on the internet. Since he was a Clinton superdelegate, people claiming to be Obama supporters inundated liberal and Democratic blogging sites expressing outrage at his
shocking behavior and making demands that he step down from office (and relinquish his SD status). In retrospect, the people making these demands were almost certainly Republicans pretending to be Democrats (remember the old adage, Republicans smear with sex, Democrats smear with money). Maybe a few of them were actual Obama supporters. Democratic primary frenzy made some people extremely short sighted. Not Greg Pallast. He recognized a set up when he saw one. From March 14 of this year.
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”
Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.
Or maybe we should say, 'indiscretion.'
With the press, the bloggers (even liberal ones) demanding his head on a silver platter and the DOJ threatening charges, Spitzer was forced to resign as governor in a cloud of disgrace.
This removed a major threat to the presidential campaign of John McCain and the chances of Republicans across the nation. With the mortgage meltdown looming, had Spitzer been the governor of New York state as banking houses began to demand their multibillion dollar handouts, he would have been vocal in his criticism of the Bush administration. And given his reputation, the nation would have listened when he blamed Bush for the financial crisis.
Look at some of the Senate races which the Republicans have managed to win by just a few votes. Now imagine that voters who were swayed by the McCain/Palin message---you know, the
Minority homeowners who could not afford a home got mortgages and defaulted, that is why you are losing your home---imagine that these voters had an opportunity to hear the (former) Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer speak to the American people in September and October as the stock market began to tumble. He would have been a favorite guest on news shows. Imagine that he was able to tell undecided voters
I have prosecuted lots of corporate fraud cases, and I can tell you for a fact that you are losing your home, because a bunch of lenders got greedy, and George Bush helped them rip you off. . How many would have believed the second message over the first? How many votes would have shifted to the Democrats? Enough to tilt the balance of power in the Senate firmly to the Democrats?
But Eliot Spitzer could not say a word. From last March until three days after the election, the Bush administration Department of (In) Justice held him hostage. Mukasey had him gagged in the only way that you can really silence a lawyer in this country short of throwing them into Gitmo----he was under federal investigation for possible criminal charges, which meant his own attorneys had him ordered to silence. Maybe people like you and me would defy our attorneys and speak out---there is no bad publicity for a writer or a protester---- but lawyers always listen to other lawyers. People like Karl Rove know that.
After the election, everything changed.
Investigators for the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service uncovered no evidence that Spitzer had misused public or campaign money to pay women employed by the Emperors Club VIP, a high-priced New York prostitution ring.
Justice Department guidelines disfavor indictments against clients of prostitution rings, even those who transport women across state lines to have sex in violation of the Mann Act.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602176.htmlSay what? When did they figure this out? Wednesday? Why the hell did the DOJ leak the misinformation to the press last spring about the misuse of public funds? Why did they tell us that there were Mann Act charges being drawn up against the New York governor if they never prosecute Mann Act violations?
Ignore these rhetorical questions. I have already told you why. They needed to silence Eliot Spitzer, because they knew that the impending mortgage meltdown was one genie they were not going to be able to keep in the bottle until after the election. The lenders wanted their bailout checks written while Bush was still in power.
However, it was essential that no one pin the blame for the mortgage meltdown on the Republican Bush administration, because what they did was not just careless or reckless. It was downright criminal.So, Eliot Spitzer was gagged. Until today.
II Nuremberg USA, If Not Now, Then Never 
Election 2008 is over. Obama won and so did a lot of Democrats. There will be a natural tendency to want to turn over a new page. Some will urge that we forget about the atrocious crimes of the Bush Administration, so that we can concentrate on solving the country’s economic and social problems. Others will argue that attempts to hold people accountable will make Democrats look soft on terror or corruption or will make us seem vindictive.
This is, pardon my French, bullshit.
If you have not read Noam Chomsky’s
Watergate: A Skeptical View , please do so now. It is one of the most prescient essays of all times, since Chomsky predicted the Bush-Cheney regime way back in 1973.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19730920.htmAt the height of the Watergate hysteria, when the nation was exclaiming as one
never again Chomsky predicted that Nixon’s crimes would be repeated in the not so distant future by another administration.
The Watergate affair and the sordid story that has unfolded since are not without significance. They indicate, once again, how frail are the barriers to some form of fascism in a state capitalist system in crisis. There is little prospect for a meaningful reaction to the Watergate disclosures, given the narrow conservatism of American political ideology and the absence of any mass political parties or organized social forces that offer an alternative to the centralization of economic and political power in the major corporations, the law firms that cater to their interests, and the technical intelligentsia who do their bidding, both in the private sector and in state institutions. With no real alternative in view, opposition is immobilized and there is a natural fear, even among the liberal opposition, that the power of the Presidency will be eroded and the ship of state will drift aimlessly. The likely result will therefore be a continuation of the process of centralization of power in the executive, which will continue to be staffed by representatives of those who rule the economy and which will be responsive to their conception of domestic and global order.
About the same time, another social critic wrote this:
“The trail of Richard Nixon, if it happens, will amount to a de facto trial of the American Dream. The importance of Nixon now is not merely to get rid of him; that’s strictly political consideration…The real question is why we are forced to impeach a president elected by the largest margin in the history of presidential elections…The necessity of actually bringing Nixon to trial, in order to understand our reality in the same way the Nuremberg trials forced Germany to confront itself…” Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Washington: The Boys in the Bag 1974 The Great Shark Hunt
Unfortunately, we never brought Nixon to trial, and the country never confronted itself. Instead, it elected “A Leader for a Change”, Jimmy Carter, and then four years later, it rejected “change” and returned to right wing politics as usual with the Reagan-Bush era of corruption.
Back in September, I wrote a journal which I called
Nuremberg USA: Impeach Bush Now So That It Will Never Happen Again http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2896870Looks like Bush and Cheney are going to get away with their high crimes and misdemeanors. They will cop an Article II plea and excuse themselves on the grounds that they were protecting the country from “terra-ists”. This lie will buy them a get out of jail free card, because who wants to look soft on terrorism? Not the new, improved Democratic Congressional majority with its Blue Dog wing. Not President Obama who will need bipartisan support to enact health care and economic legislation.
But if we do nothing, what is to prevent it from happening again? And what about the suffering of those who were victimized by the current selected-not-elected administration? People whose civil rights were abused, rich, powerful people like Eliot Spitzer and all the unknowns who have been placed on No Fly lists or whose privacy has been violated or who have been stripped of their right to cast a vote or have it counted? What about Georgia Thompson, thrown in jail by federal prosecutors in hopes that she would make up a story so they could indict a Democratic politician? What about the Democrats who landed in jail who are guilty of nothing but being Democrats, like Alabama's ex governor? How can they ever sleep comfortably again if their faith in our democracy is not restored? There are some things you can not just forgive and forget. We tried that once, back in 1973, and look what happened? Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissenger, Karl Rove, Roger Stone---they all came back with a vengeance. Which villains from the current administration do you want to see in your rear view mirror twelve years from now?
III. Ohio 
Ohio should serve as a model for us all. After the shootings at Kent State, Nixon’s Department of (In)Justice tried to do the Republican thing. They tried to cover it up. However, the citizens of Ohio continued to fight for justice in the courts---criminal and civil---for years. After the 2004 stolen presidential election, Ohio voters did not shrug their shoulders and say “How can one voter make a difference against the system?”. They turned out in droves in 2006 to vote out the Republicans who had corrupted their democracy so that this year, when Obama won Ohio decisively, the nation was able to celebrate his presidential victory.
The abolitionist, John Brown grew up in Ohio.
“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.”
If we are going to purge the crimes of our guilty land, which has invaded sovereign countries for their natural resources (Iraq), tortured our own citizens (Jose Padilla) and citizens of other countries, violated most of the Bill of Rights (for example, domestic wiretaps) and turned many federal agencies into corporate lackeys ( witness the EPA, FDA, FEC, SEC, FCC etc.) as well as abusing the Department of Justice to corrupt the law in order to steal elections and consolidate executive power, figurative blood will have to be spilled. Yes, I know that Democrats hate the role of law enforcer. It makes them feel like
narcs , like the fuzz from some B grade 1970s youth rebellion movie. However, the people who once believed that you could not trust anyone over 30 are themselves over 30, and they will have to learn to trust themselves.
John Brown did not suggest sweeping the crimes of the guilty land under the rug. He did not say that we could run away from them by heading west (as many Americans of his day did). While violence is not the answer, direct confrontation is. Democrats have the power. They control Congress. In two months, they will control the Department of Justice. It is time for public hearings. It is time for criminal prosecutions.
The first people who need to be investigated and indicted are the people who were supposed to be enforcing the law, because they have no excuse. When John Ashcroft or Alberto Gonzales or Michael Mukasey allows corruption to run rampant among the nation’s federal attorneys, they can not plead ignorance. When the nation’s federal attorneys fail to enforce the law or when they are guilty of malicious prosecution for political reasons, they have violated the rules that govern their profession, and they need to be stripped of their right to practice that profession. A doctor who deliberately botches a surgery, because he does not like the patient would be stripped of his license. The same should be true for all the Bible college graduate attorneys that Rove hired on to be his political henchmen in the DOJ. These people are too dangerous to be out there practicing law.
The second group of people who need to be investigated are the business leaders whose criminal activity lead to the mortgage meltdown. And that includes the people in the Bush administration who were supposed to be regulating them (usually banking industry insiders themselves).
I would like to nominate Eliot Spitzer to be our new Ferdinand Pecora. I think he has the background and the expertise to do the job. These hearings need to be public, so that Americans know exactly what went down on Wall Street and Main Street. When the truth is known, the Republican minority in the Senate will not be able to stall the necessary regulatory legislation.
While we are at it, the oil industry needs to be raked over the coals. For the last six years, our government has been spending ten billion dollars a month and killing our own soldiers and foreign civilians so that we can steal Iraqi oil fields for a handful of U.S. oil companies. This is a very poor investment of U.S. dollars and resources as well as being illegal and immoral. The Bush administration has rewritten its environmental policy to suit big oil. It has based its entire foreign policy on the wish list of Big Oil. If Big Oil says jump, Bush-Cheney have said
How high, sir? . The rest of the economy has been allowed to suffer so that oil prices could remain artificially inflated. An idiot could have predicted the problems this would cause. Too bad the SCOTUS selected a village idiot from Texas to be our president.
Eliot Spitzer, former prosecuting attorney specializing in corporate corruption, knows the law and has the skills needed to go after corporate criminals and corrupt employees of the Bush Department of Justice. A relationship with a prostitute---a misdemeanor, victimless sex crime no worse than smoking a joint---should not affect his ability to protect our country from a repeat of the disaster of the last eight years. If he did not care, he would not have put his neck on the chopping block last Valentine's Day by writing that editorial.
They would not have tried to silence Spitzer, unless they were afraid of him. If we allow Spitzer to remain silenced, Bush-Cheney have won. If he continues what he started on Valentine's Day of this year, then America wins.
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave;
His soul's marching on!
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
