Standing up to the Military Industrial Congressional Oil Wall Street Complex

Time for change

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Aug-23-10 10:11 PM
Original message

Standing up to the Military Industrial Congressional Oil Wall Street Complex

In my last post I talked about how the corrupt few are able to wreak so much death, destruction, and suffering on the rest of humanity. Included in that discussion are descriptions of the psychopathic character of the “corrupt few”, as well as societal characteristics that sometimes enable the corrupt few to create “pathocracies”, which are pathological societies designed and controlled by a small minority to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. I ended that post by saying “Don’t for a minute believe that the possession of wealth or success in life makes it less likely that a person is a psychopath. Wealthy successful psychopaths are far more dangerous than the ones who end up in jail for drug-related or other charges. And the most dangerous of all are national leaders with psychopathic tendencies. And for God sake, don’t EVER think that just because the only people who are being abused, tortured, and killed by your government are of some other race, ethnic group, or religion – Muslim, for example – that that means that they (your government) aren’t likely to turn on you next.”

President Eisenhower warned us, in his 1961 farewell address to the nation, of powerful interests that could ruin our country if we failed to exercise sufficient vigilance towards them:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city… We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Eisenhower referred to the danger as the military-industrial complex (MIC). An earlier draft of the speech called it the military-industrial-congressional complex, to emphasize the role of Congress in passing legislation to enable the MIC to expand their wealth and power. Perhaps the oil industry and the financial sector of our economy should be added to the phrase, to emphasize the role of wars for oil and the inordinate influence of Wall Street bankers on the fate of our nation. That would give us the MICOWSC – the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Oil-Wall Street Complex.

Though Eisenhower warned us of the MIC, he didn’t do much to combat them during his presidency. Eisenhower was succeeded by John F. Kennedy as president in 1961. Kennedy stood up to the MICOWSC like no U.S. president since:

John F. Kennedy’s stand against the MICOWSC

Kennedy’s foreign policy
If Kennedy’s foreign policy could be summed up in one word, perhaps the most descriptive would be “anti-colonial”. He attempted to shift our support to poor nations from military support to economic development. Donald Gibson explains Kennedy’s thinking on this subject, in his book, “Battling Wall Street – The Kennedy Presidency”

Kennedy’s defense of and commitment to development assistance was in part connected with his perception that underdevelopment was in part due to past colonial policies and to the neo-colonial, or imperialist, policies which were supported by powerful interests in the U.S. and Europe. Kennedy also believed that it was underdevelopment and poverty that provided the conditions that made communism attractive to many in the underdeveloped world. He opposed neocolonialism and wanted to offer an economic development program that would give progressive forces in the Third World an alternative to Communism…

In stark contrast to the prevailing attitude of the MIC, including most of Kennedy’s advisors, Kennedy did not care to offer third world countries a choice between Soviet Union oppression and United States oppression. He expressed this at a press conference:

The desire to be independent and free carries with it the desire not to become engaged as a satellite of the Soviet Union or too closely allied to the United States. We have to live with that, and if neutrality is the result of a concentration on internal problems, raising the standard of living of the people and so on, particularly in the underdeveloped countries, I would accept that…. I should look with friendship upon those people who want to beat the problems that almost overwhelm them, and wish to concentrate their energies on doing that, and do not want to become associated as the tail of our kite…

In particular, Kennedy very much resented the friendly ties that past U.S. governments had established with right wing repressive governments. Ted Sorenson wrote that:

Kennedy was extremely disturbed by “the attitude of that 2% of the citizenry of Latin America who owned more than 50% of the wealth and controlled most of the political-economic apparatus… They had friendly ties with U.S. press and business interests who reflected their views in Washington. They saw no reason to alter the ancient feudal patterns of land tenure and tax structure, the top-heavy military budgets, substandard wages and the concentration of capital… Kennedy at all times kept the pressure on… to give preference to governments willing to curb the holdings and privileges of the elite…”

This paid dividends in terms of our international reputation. Sorenson wrote:

In time most of the neutralist leaders came to respect Kennedy’s concepts of independence… They recognized that a subtle shift in attitude had aligned the United States with the aspirations for social justice and economic growth within their countries – that land distribution, literacy drives and central planning were no longer regarded in the U.S. as communist slogans but as reforms to be encouraged and even specified by our government – that this nation’s hand was now more often extended to leaders with greater popular backing and social purpose than the “safe” rightwing regimes usually supported by Western diplomats.

Kennedy’s quest for peace
In a previous post I discussed JFK’s four refusals to let his military and CIA draw him into war with Cuba. Following the failure of the April 1961 CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs by a Cuban Expeditionary Force, Kennedy refused the advice of his military to invade Cuba. In March 1962 he rejected a plan by his Joint Chiefs of Staff to stage a false flag terrorist operation meant to draw the United States into a war against Cuba. In his handling of the October 1962 Cuban Missile crisis, Kennedy repeatedly resisted advice from his military advisors to escalate the situation by invading Cuba. And Kennedy even had to use his own military in the spring of 1963 to put a halt to CIA-sponsored raids against Cuba.

From the start of his presidency, Kennedy was strongly advised by his military to invade Laos in order to stave off a Communist takeover. The Chief of his Joint Chiefs of Staff even suggested that he use nuclear weapons against Laos. Instead, Kennedy worked out a diplomatic solution that culminated on July 23, 1962, with his signing the “Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos.” Kennedy vigorously promoted an independent Congo, to the dismay of multinational corporations and against the advice of his military and CIA. There is good evidence that Kennedy planned to withdraw from Vietnam – again, against the very strong recommendations of his military.

Most worrisome of all from the standpoint of the Military Industrial Complex was Kennedy’s plans to end the Cold War, as strongly suggested in his peace speech at American University on June 10th 1963, in which he made far greater peace overtures towards the Soviet Union than had been made since the start of the Cold War. This was followed up six weeks later by the signing of the first nuclear test ban treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Kennedy’s domestic policies
Perhaps the best way to evaluate our leaders is by the enemies that they make. Gibson devotes a lot of space in his book to describing the actions of Kennedy’s enemies:

The Lucepress, the Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek hammered away at President Kennedy’s policies… In doing so, they spoke not for the country nor for business in general, but for highly concentrated economic power organized around America’s leading financial institutions. They were not defending competition and the free play of entrepreneurship, but were rather engaging in a conflict with Kennedy over whether it would be private or public power that molded the future. The interests of old money, of status and privilege, came into confrontation with the most direct expression of a democratic republic – an elected and popular president acting on behalf of the nation’s interests. Actually, these publications were more than just mouthpieces for financial groups and oligopolistic oil companies, they were part of the network of families and institutions that are at the very top of what is generally called the Establishment… a network of individuals and families who tie together a wide assortment of institutions and organizations, stretching from top banks and oil companies to foundations, think tanks, the media, and the intelligence community…

Kennedy’s presidency and death in perspective
Kennedy’s underlying objective as president was to serve the public interest, not merely the interests of a powerful and wealthy minority. Gibson sums up this concept:

Kennedy’s ideas about the responsibilities of the presidency, his attitude about economic progress and the role of the federal government in achieving that progress… disrupted or threatened to disrupt the established order. In that established order, in place for most of the century, major government decisions were to serve or at least not disrupt the privately organized hierarchy…

Gibson sums up Kennedy’s interest in improving the lot of ordinary Americans, and contrasts that policy with most of Kennedy’s successors to the presidency:

With some minor exceptions, the government of the United States and the nation’s presidents, from Johnson to Clinton, have been unable or unwilling to mount any sustained effort to stop the deterioration of the economy…. No president since has come close to Kennedy in terms of proposing a coherent program or a willingness to take on powerful private interests. Whether the issue has been destructive financial policy, monopolistic practices, mergers, or speculation… the policies of presidents since Kennedy have been essentially passive… Phrases such as “free enterprise”, “free market”, and “laissez faire”… When these phrases are used as they were in (the) … assault on Kennedy, they are not really in defense of a decentralized, competitive economy which supposedly works through competition to produce the best products at the lowest price. Instead, those phrases were thrown at Kennedy because he was using the powers of government against an organized and powerful set of banking and corporate interests. The issue… was not competition, but who was going to shape economic events, they or Kennedy. They won.

Gibson comments on the significance of Kennedy’s death:

President Kennedy’s death ended… a contest between a president committed to using government powers to promote economic progress (versus) organized private interests protecting both their private power and their ability to influence governmental policy. The virtually uncontested exercise of power by the banking-oil network from the late 1960s onward has left the United States, and much of the world, with a … choice… whether or not to allow an already established pattern of decline to continue…

The Clinton Presidency

Gibson’s book was published in the early years of the Clinton presidency. Clinton was inaugurated in 1993, in the midst of a substantial economic downturn. His campaign rhetoric and early rhetoric as president showed some promise that he might take a strong stand against the MICOWSC. Gibson notes how the MICOWSC responded to this.

In the face of falling income, rising poverty, increasing inequality, diminished social services, deteriorating infrastructure, and a shrinking industrial base, the Establishment is primarily worried that the new president will actually try to use governmental powers to deal with these problems. In other words, certain things have remained exactly as they were when Morgan-Rockefeller interests severely attacked Kennedy as an “enforcer of progress.”

But we all know how that turned out. Despite some progressive policies enacted or attempted by the Clinton administration (the earned income tax credit, tax increases for the rich, and a valiant though failed effort at health care reform), and an improving economy in the latter years of Clinton’s presidency, many of his policies helped set the stage for financial disaster: The repeal of Glass-Steagall eliminated perhaps our best protection against financial sector manipulation of our economy; NAFTA resulted in the continued deterioration of our manufacturing job base; The Telecommunications Act of 1996 resulted in the massive consolidation of the telecommunications industry by right wing corporate America; and so-called “welfare reform” removed a crucial safety net for many of our most vulnerable citizens.

Gibson summarized the general failure of the Clinton policies:

Clinton’s proposals do not add up to a serious attempt at … reform… Even so, his programs have been severely criticized. More significant, perhaps, has been the consistent rejection by the Establishment of any attempt to use government powers to redirect the economy… That is, dominant economic groups see no need for constructive change, they continue to pursue the policies that have led to the crisis, and they beomce increasingly reactionary in their outlook…

The Obama Presidency

Robert Kuttner discusses President Obama’s handling of the economic power structure in our country in his book, “A Presidency in Peril – The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Street’s Power, and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future”. Kuttner describes the situation that Obama inherited in the introduction to his book:

The failure of the old order was pervasive. The public officials of both parties who had assured us that financial deregulation would deliver broad prosperity were shown to be catastrophically wrong. The Wall Street moguls who insisted that their own grotesque enrichment was merely a by-product of their vital service to capital markets were revealed as frauds. The free market economists who had given intellectual cover to the deregulators in government and the scoundrels in the banks were now intellectually bankrupt. For progressives, it was the ultimate teachable moment, and here was a leader (Obama) with unusual gifts as a teacher. As an outsider, Obama owed few debts to the political establishment. His idealistic call for transformative change roused a fearful electorate to vote its hopes…

Kuttner notes how, on the campaign trail Obama struck an anti-Wall Street tone:

In his review of why the system had failed, Obama pointed squarely to the political power of the financial industry: “This was not the invisible hand at work. Instead, it was the hand of industry lobbyists tilting the playing field in Washington.”

Kuttner then adds, “It was, sadly, an all-too-prophetic description of his own administration…”

The Obama administration’s Wall Street “reforms”
For a presidential candidate who railed against the financial industry on the campaign trail, President Obama has done precious little to ameliorate the situation. First there was the continued bailout of Wall Street, the ultimate cost of which some very good economists have estimated at several trillion dollars. This is what Pulitzer Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz had to say about the Obama administration’s bailout plan:

The U.S. government plan to rid banks of toxic assets will rob American taxpayers by exposing them to too much risk and is unlikely to work as long as the economy remains weak…. The U.S. government is basically using the taxpayer to guarantee against downside risk on the value of these assets, while giving the upside, or potential profits, to private investors… Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don't think it's going to work…

Then came the much anticipated and touted Wall Street financial reforms. The Obama administration actually worked behind the scenes to weaken Congress’s initial proposal. This is what Robert Reich had to say about the final bill:

The American people will continue to have to foot the bill for the mistakes of Wall Street’s biggest banks because the legislation does nothing to diminish the economic and political power of these giants. It does not cap their size. It does not resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated commercial (normal) banking from investment (casino) banking. It does not even link the pay of their traders and top executives to long-term performance. In other words, it does nothing to change their basic structure. And for this reason, it gives them an implicit federal insurance policy against failure unavailable to smaller banks – thereby adding to their economic and political power in the future.

What accounts for Obama acceding to Wall Street interests
The question of what accounts for the Obama administration’s Wall Street friendly policies is a subject of much discussion in Kuttner’s book. He has quite a lot to say about it in the very first chapter.

First there is the issue of the Obama administration’s economic advisors. Many of them are the same economists who set the stage for financial disaster during the Clinton administration. Kuttner notes that:

By the time he (Obama) clinched the Democratic nomination, his advisors had become a much narrower group, as the aides oriented toward Wall Street had efficiently elbowed out the progressives on Obama’s team…

Kuttner devotes much discussion to the inadequacies of this group of economic advisors, especially Robert Rubin and Larry Summers:

Given the abject failure of the financial deregulation that Rubin championed as Clinton’s top economic adviser, followed by the collapse of the business model that he promoted as senior executive at Citigroup, it is remarkable that a consummate outsider like Barack Obama did not view Rubin (or his protégé Summers) as fatally damaged goods. On the contrary, Obama felt he needed men like Rubin and Summers for tutelage, access, and validation. That itself speaks volumes about where power reposes in America…

Glass-Steagall was designed to prevent the kinds of speculative conflicts of interest that pervaded Wall Street in the 1920s and helped bring about the Great Depression (and that reappeared in the 1990s and helped cause the crash of 2007). The Clinton’ administration’s prime architect of the Glass-Steagall repeal was Robert Rubin….

Kuttner comments upon the use of the term “visionary minimalist” (which means someone with sound visions who believes that they are best reached by going slow) to describe Obama, as well as his tendency towards compromise and “bipartisanship”:

In ordinary times, a post-ideological “visionary minimalist” might be sufficient to coax new areas of common ground. But in a severe crisis created and prolonged by the hegemony of Wall Street, minimalism is capitulation. And with a Republican Party determined to destroy Obama no matter how much he listens, a politics of accommodation is a fool’s errand. The moment required transformative leadership, not visionary minimalism…

Perhaps the Wall Street money flowing into Obama’s campaign coffers explains a lot. Kuttner explains:

Despite the carefully cultivated buzz about Obama’s small-money base, his biggest donor source was Wall Street. As the year wore on, large donors were instructed to break up their contributions into small checks over time, in order to reinforce the campaign’s small-donor myth… Obama was a particular favorite at Goldman-Sachs, whose employees provided the biggest single bundle, $571,330 for the year 2007

Defending Obama
I rarely quote sources that I don’t agree with. However, given the magnitude of the problems that Obama inherited, I suppose he deserves every benefit of the doubt. I almost always agree with the political opinions espoused in The Nation, and especially those of Eric Alterman, one of its most prominently featured writers. Writing in The Nation, Alterman recently defended President Obama – kind of. The title of his article is “Kabuki Democracy – Why a Progressive Presidency is Impossible, for Now”. He begins by sounding like he really doesn’t want to defend Obama:

Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment… Obama supporters have been asked to swallow some painful compromises. In order to pass his healthcare legislation, for instance, Obama was required to specifically repudiate his pledge to pro-choice voters to “make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as president.” That promise apparently was lost in the same drawer as his insistence that “any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange…including a public option.” Labor unions were among his most fervent and dedicated foot soldiers… and many were no doubt inspired by his pledge “to fight for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.” Yet that bill appears deader than Jimmy Hoffa. Environmentalists were no doubt steeled by Obama’s promise that he would “set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming – an 80 percent reduction by 2050.” That goal appears to have gone up the chimney in thick black smoke. And remember when Obama promised, right before the election, to “put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road I’ve been calling for since March – rules that will keep our market free, fair and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms”? Neither, apparently, does he. Indeed, if one examines the gamut of legislation passed and executive orders issued that relate to the promises made by candidate Obama, one can only wince…

None of us know what lies in the president’s heart. It’s possible that he fooled gullible progressives during the election into believing he was a left-liberal partisan when in fact he is much closer to a conservative corporate shill. An awful lot of progressives… feel this way, and their perspective cannot be completely discounted.

If Alterman’s intent was to defend Obama, it seems that the act of doing so was extremely distasteful to him. But then he says:

Personally, I tend more toward the view … that Obama is a “liberal who’s always willing to cut a deal and grab for half the loaf.” He has the policy preferences of a progressive blogger, but the governing style of a seasoned Beltway wheeler-dealer.

Alterman then goes on, through the remainder of the article, to explain how difficult it is in today’s political climate, with so much power in the hands of corporate elites, to achieve progressive goals.

My response to Alterman’s defense of Obama
While I’m willing to keep an open mind on the subject, I have become more and more disappointed with Obama as his presidency has unfolded. I agree that he is up against a political environment in which the achieving of a progressive/liberal agenda is extremely difficult. I certainly don’t want him to end up like Kennedy – assassinated, that is. And often I wonder whether or not Kennedy’s fate is on his mind when he makes decisions that seem mainly aimed at protecting powerful people and corporations that don’t at all share the interests of ordinary people. But I expect someone entrusted with the most important job in the world to make more of an effort to fight on behalf of ordinary people – especially in times of crisis – no matter the fact that the chances of success may be small. That’s just the way I feel. We need someone with the courage of a John F. Kennedy as President of the United States today.

With regard to Alterman’s suggestion that Obama is willing to accept “half a loaf”, I just don’t see it like that. I don’t believe that the many compromises that Obama has made with respect to his campaign promises gained us half a loaf. Allowing the health insurance industry to maintain control of health care in our country doesn’t seem to me like half a loaf. Insurance companies are already substantially raising their rates to compensate themselves for any losses they have to endure as a result of the federal regulation in the health care reform bill. How well will Americans be able to afford that?

And consider Obama’s actions at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. There is no way that what he settled for could be considered “half a loaf”. There is widespread agreement by climate scientists that the summit ended in abject failure. Markus Becker sums up how most climate scientists assess what happened:

The global climate summit in Copenhagen has failed. There will be no concrete goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Industrialized countries extended no concrete offers of hope to developing countries…

In the run-up to the conference, scientists, environmentalists and politicians alike called it one of the most important in history. But now it's just a missed opportunity. Likewise, it might just be one of the last of its kind in the battle against climate change. It took governments from around the world 17 years to come together for this summit in Copenhagen – 7 years of talking, seemingly endless negotiations, ideological debates, delays and maneuvering. It's been 17 years since the first climate-related meeting, held in Rio in 1992… And this is what we're left with. Many of the hopes that had been building up since 1992 have now been shattered.

The final accord dropped the goal of 80% greenhouse gas reduction by 2050 and made no mention of a mid-term goal in greenhouse gas reduction, despite the fact that scientists say greenhouse gas emissions must be cut 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 to avoid catastrophe. It retained a (non-binding) commitment to reducing global temperatures by 2050, but contained no concrete plans for achieving that goal.

Final words from Donald Gibson on what we’re up against

Donald Gibson ended his book on Kennedy’s fight against Wall Street with the following words of advice to our new President, Bill Clinton:

John Kennedy thought that the president can defend “the public good and the public interest against all the narrow private interests which operate in our society.” … Fulfilling that function in the 1990s will not be easy. Unless the attempt is made, the decline will continue and might accelerate. President Clinton will have to decide what his life and his presidency will mean in the end. If all he wants is a few kind words from members of the Establishment, or just to be listed with Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush as one of the presidents who served during the decline, then he need not rouse himself. If he wants his life’s work to mean more than that, he has to engage the enemy, and do it in a clear and public way.

When Gibson’s book was published in 1994 Barack Obama wasn’t even a national figure. But Gibson’s advice to President Clinton in 1994 applies just as much to President Obama in 2010. Let’s hope that President Obama turns around and makes better use of his – and our – opportunity.