A Majority of Americans (Including Both OWS and the Tea Party) AGREE on the Most Important Issues … We Just Don’t Realize It
I have repeatedly demonstrated that – despite the false divide-and-conquer tactics of the mainstream parties and mainstream media – the overwhelming majority of Americans agree on the most important issues facing our country. See this.
NO MORE BAILOUTS!
As I’ve noted since 2008, Americans are united in their overwhelming disapproval for bailouts to the big banks.
This has remained true right up to today.
As Rassmussen found only last month (as summarized by KXLF news):
Today’sRasmussen Reports survey finds that most Americans don’t like bailouts for financial institutions.
60% Oppose Financial Bailouts; 74% Say Wall Street Benefited Most
Survey of 1,000 American Adults
***
• Just 20% think it was a good idea for the government to provide bailout funding to banks and other financial institutions, but 60% say otherwise.
• While many activists try to link the Republican Party and Wall Street, Republicans think the bailouts were a bad idea by an eight-to-one margin.
• Those not affiliated with either major party think they were a bad idea by a four-to-one margin. Democrats are much more evenly divided. Thirty-four percent (34%) of those in the president’s party say the bailouts were a good idea while 42% disagree.
• Overall, 68% believe that most of the bailout money went to the very people who created the nation’s ongoing economic crisis, but 12% disagree and 21% aren’t sure.
As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent notes, the recent proposal from lobbyists to the American Bankers Association recommending ways to co-opt the Occupy movement accurately stated:
Well-known Wall Street companies stand at the nexus of where OWS protestors and the Tea Party overlap on angered populism. Both the radical left and the radical right are channeling broader frustration about the state of the economy and share a mutual anger over TARP and other perceived bailouts. This combination has the potential to be explosive later in the year when media reports cover the next round of bonuses and contrast it with stories of millions of Americans making do with less this holiday season.
(Except that it is the majority of Americans – not “extremists” on either side of the aisle – that share this anger).
The “Tea Party” movement was centered on the protesting government bailouts of the giant banks, before it was hijacked by the mainstream Republican party, Sarah Palin, Neocons and others. See this, this, this, this and this.
Ron Paul said last month at a GOP debate:
Bailouts came from both parties…. If you have to give money out, you should give it to people losing their mortgages, not to the banks.
And one of the most common sayings of Occupy Wall Street protesters is:
Banks got bailed out. We got sold out
END CRONY CAPITALISM!
I noted last year:
A Rassmussen poll conducted in February found:
70% [of all voters] believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
(and see this).
Remember that the government helped and encouraged the giant banks to get even bigger, and then has hidden their insolvency and shielded them from the free market, and helped them grow even during the severe downturn.
In return, the big banks and giant corporations have literally bought and paid for the politicians.
Conservatives might call it “socialism” and liberals might call it “fascism” – they are the same thing economically.
But all Americans – conservatives and liberals alike – can agree that it is not capitalism, and it is not American.
PROSECUTE WALL STREET FRAUD!
I pointed out a year ago:
Liberals tend to believe that the public should be protected against harm, while conservatives tend to believe that people should be left free to buy what they want.
Too far apart to ever agree?
No. Conservatives believe that people must be held responsible for their actions and punished for their transgressions. Indeed, some 82% of the American public wants tougher regulation of Wall Street.
Moreover, even for those who don’t like the government sticking its nose in our business, liberals and conservatives agree that if a company chooses to make a representation about something, it can be sued if it is a lie. In other words, all Americans agree that fraud laws should be enforced against everyone from the homeowner who fills out a mortgage application on a small house to the head of a giant bank who makes false statements about the bank’s balance sheets and the quality of it’s investments.
Everyone agrees that financial scammers must be tried and put in prison.
Indeed, Rasmussen found last month:
Two-out-of-three Americans (66%) believe the federal government has not been aggressive enough in pursuing possible criminal behavior by some Wall Street bankers, but 10% don’t feel that’s true and 25% are not sure.
Economists agree.
END – OR AT LEAST REIN IN – THE FEDERAL RESERVE!
As I pointed out last month, Americans are not happy with the Federal Reserve:
CNN notes:
“We are seeing a level of enthusiasm for Ron Paul that can be compared with President Obama in 2008″, said Eric Brakey, Media Coordinator for NYC Liberty HQ, the grassroots organization hosting the rally for the candidate. “Congressman Paul’s youth support is different now than it was during his last presidential campaign. It’s more organized and it’s picking up steam and continues to grow”.
As the longtime congressman from Texas stepped onto the stage, the crowd screamed with enthusiasm. The audience’s biggest reaction came when he spoke about ending the Federal Reserve. “The country has changed in the last four years, but my message hasn’t changed” Paul said. “The country is ripe for a true revolution”.
At least 75% of the American people want a full audit of the Fed, and most were against reconfirming Bernanke.
Indeed, as Bloomberg noted last December:
A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation’s independent central bank, saying the U.S. Federal Reserve should either be brought under tighter political control or abolished outright, a poll shows.
***
Americans across the political spectrum say the Fed shouldn’t retain its current structure of independence. Asked if the central bank should be more accountable to Congress, left independent or abolished entirely, 39 percent said it should be held more accountable and 16 percent that it should be abolished. Only 37 percent favor the status quo.
Economists agree.
RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION AND OUR LIBERTY!
As I noted in September, Americans want our freedom back:
Americans have become much less tolerant of the wholesale destruction of our constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.
As Talking Points Memo notes:
On the eve of the ten year anniversary of 9/11, the Pew Research Center has released new data on Americans’ reaction to the attacks, and the foreign and national security policies pursued in the post 9/11 era. They show a country with views that have evolved on the relationship between civil liberties and the tools given to government to fight terrorism, and a disbelief that the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan helped to lessen the chance there will be another terrorist attack on the United States.
The Pew survey showed a large shift in the number of Americans who are willing to see some of their civil liberties go out the window in the name of fighting terrorism. Directly after 9/11, Americans were willing to make the deal, as 55 percent thought it was necessary, against 35 percent who felt the opposite. Now, only 40 percent felt that giving up some civil liberties is necessary to curb terrorism, with 54 percent against.
END PERPETUAL WAR!
Americans want to put a stop to perpetual warfare:
Ron Paul is [partly] gaining popularity because he is against the never-ending War On Terror, and wants to bring the troops home. Americans are sick of the never-ending, ever-creeping war. See this, this and this.
As Talking Points Memo reported earlier this month:
“…Only about a quarter say the wars in Iraq (26%) and Afghanistan (25%) have lessened the chances of terrorist attacks in the United States,” the Pew report reads. “In both cases majorities say the wars either have increased the risk of terrorism in this country or made no difference.”
Top American military leaders agree, saying that the war on terror has weakened our national security.
And a CBS News poll from November 11th found:
- Three-quarters of Americans support US withdrawal from Iraq.
- Two-thirds of Americans believe the Iraq War was not worth fighting.
- Half of Americans oppose US involvement in Libya.
- More than half of Americans want to end the war in Afghanistan.
- Seventy per cent of Americans do not support military intervention to change dictatorships into democracies.
- 55% of Americans say Iran can be contained via diplomacy.
- Only 15% of Americans support military intervention in Iran.
MAKE ELECTIONS FAIR!
I noted last year that Americans want fair elections:
All Americans agree that … there should be free and fair elections. That is why – according to ABC News and the Washington Post – 80 percent of all Americans oppose the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing unlimited campaign contributions. Americans understand that – unless we take the flood of money out of elections – Washington will represent special interests, and not us.
And we all agree on publicly verifiable, automatically audited paper ballot elections with reasonable ID requirements, so that we assured that no party can manipulate electronic voting results.
KEEP POISON OUT OF OUR FOOD AND WATER!
I noted last year that Americans want safe food and water:
Americans want to be free to live our lives without being poisoned. We agree on safe food, clean water and a healthy environment.
For example, polls show:
- A large majority of Americans want strong food safety rules, and want genetically modified foods to be labeled
- Most Americans are worried about water pollution
- Americans don’t want to be exposed to toxic pollutants
IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AGREE ON THESE CORE ISSUES, WHY AREN’T OUR DEMANDS BEING HEARD?
If Americans from across the spectrum agree, why aren’t these desires being implemented by our politicians?
Because our politicians are bought and paid for … lock, stock and barrel.
And the powers-that-be are good at using the age-old divide and conquer trick to keep us weak, divided and fighting at each others’ throat … instead of for what we actually want.
But ultimately, the main reason that we are impotent is that we don’t realize that the overwhelming majority of Americans want the same things we do.
Indeed, most Americans – conservatives and liberals – are fed up with both the mainstream Republican and Democratic parties. This is not surprising, given that neither party is addressing the core demands of the American people as a whole.
Sure, liberals and conservatives will always disagree on some things. But if we realized how many core beliefs we share, we would unite to take our country back from those who disagree with fundamental American values.
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November 24th, 2011 at 3:15 am
“Wall Street companies stand at the nexus of where OWS protestors and the Tea Party overlap on angered populism”
Absolutely!
But there’s a difference.
Tea Partiers, for whatever weird psychological reasons (certainly having to do with ego) have been deluded into defending and *championing* the very wall-street m***erf***ers who are f***ing them in the a**.
OWSers at least know who’s standing behind them, and what they’re doing.
November 24th, 2011 at 3:22 am
[...] Look, we actually agree with each [...]
November 24th, 2011 at 6:51 am
END DEFICIT SPENDING!
LIVE WITHIN OUR MEANS!
Glaring omissions…
November 24th, 2011 at 6:55 am
That’s a well documented divide and conquer problem solver to bring down the divide and rule system.
November 24th, 2011 at 7:34 am
I am thinking Ron Paul. Not perfect, but not bought. Has more in common with both OWS & Tea Party than anybody else.
November 24th, 2011 at 7:58 am
PS. I get a “freedom quote” of the day. This one seem apropos to the “divide & conquer” strategy:
“How fortunate for governments that people do not think. There is no thinking except in giving and executing commands. If it were otherwise human society could not exist.”
– Adolf Hitler
(1889-1945) German Nazi Dictator
November 24th, 2011 at 8:17 am
Glaring omissions…
Leave it to you, Quimby. Wrong again. The article is about shared core beliefs. And yours ain’t among them, but in fact precisely where we differ. Deficit spending is exactly what is needed right now.
November 24th, 2011 at 8:27 am
The American people actually have more wisdom than the duopoly will allow to be expressed.
Nothing does more to accelerate and permit the narrow control by special interests of their core agenda than the false divisions that are the lifeblood of these two parties.
The party structure inhibits the ‘granularity’ of opinion which is actually the way real people think.
WAKE UP!
This system can be broken up by enabling direct citizen networked lobbying… all it takes is a very simple ‘one-click’ microtransaction capability and an ability for independent interests to harvest them.
A couple of times a week… a successful solicitation for a 25 cent contribution for some issue or another… times 150 million voters equals over $7 BILLION per 2 year election cycle .
Would it happen just like that? Probably not. But when I can get this profitable model implemented… and it IS a profitable model…
The landscape is going to change.
P.S. The public finance of elections, should it be desired should be implemented via such a system… a small amount of dedicated funds to each citizen to utilize for legal candidates of their own choosing.
Leveling the Transaction Landscape: Technology and the Campfire
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2011/04/leveling-transaction-landscape.html
Fixing the Political Relationship
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5qxJDnwXAU
November 24th, 2011 at 10:17 am
I have been looking into the formation of a third party for the last two years. Such efforts tend to crash and burn when confronted with the problem of building a platform. We can all agree on what is wrong with politics today; but we can never agree on a forward-looking program, since only half (or less) of us are “progressive”..
Editorial note: I had written “American politics”, but deleted the nationality reference; it seems to me, on reflection, that in many nations around the world you could make this same observation. It is the “spirit of the times”, aka the Zeitgeist.
November 24th, 2011 at 10:19 am
I think a lot of people are starting to see the corrupted too big to fail part of the banking system as the enemy of America.
People want these guys prosecuted and not with the laws they have been tampering with for 30 years. These laws are not legitimate. If a criminal bribes officials to make his crimes legal. You should invalidate the laws which were a result of bribery before prosecuting the criminal with the legitimate laws that existed before.
With TBTF bankers being seen as the enemy, many people are by extension starting to see politicians as collaborators or even traitors.
The question remaining in all this seems to be: In a landscape of illegitimate laws, where politicians act as collaborators supported by a corrupted mainstream media and where any third party as no chance of being elected, how can justice be served without having to resort the guillotine?
November 24th, 2011 at 11:06 am
[...] seven or eight chapters of Barzun’s book immediately after reading Barry Ritholz’s post HERE, which [...]
November 24th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
If you want to end the Fed, how do you handle central banking functions? Banks issue currency? Rigid currency values based on a basket of commodities that the US produces. How do you accommodate growth of population in the economy without locking in a downward spiral for those who do not hold large sums of capitol?
November 24th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Asymptosis Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 3:15 am
“….Tea Partiers, for whatever weird psychological reasons (certainly having to do with ego) have been deluded into defending and *championing* the very wall-street m***erf***ers who are f***ing them in the a**. ”
EXACTLY,
I was on board with the premise of the Tea Party for all of the first week, but as soon as their message became distorted and reshaped by Koch brothers and Fox network from a protest of corruption between government and business special interests into a message of cutting taxes and deregulating corporations, I knew the tea party was a joke.
For this reason I support the OWS movement, for the same reason Fox network and politicians in the pocket of corporations continue to say things like “occupy a desk” or “take a bath and get a job”.
November 24th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
The Motorcycle Boy Reigns « Interloper Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 11:06 am
” [...] seven or eight chapters of Barzun’s book immediately after reading Barry Ritholz’s post HERE, which [...] ”
Read your blog regarding Barzuns concerns and Ritholtz point that even though we seem to agree on ther basics, we get divided on the means.
A simple phrase from your blog that sums it well – “If you’re going to lead people, you have to have somewhere to go.”
I think what has (almost) happened is similar to Hitlers use of fearful propaganda and the public’s need to direct rage during Wiemar hyperinflation, when he was able to find a target for that rage – a communist involved in an attempt to burn down the Reichstag, he was then able to use the fear/anger of Communism to convince the government to allow him to suspend the Constitution and invoke Marshall law under his leadership, effectively going to the opposite extreme of Communism – Fascism.
Though Wiemar is a much more exaggeration example, I saw a similar strategy with the Tea Party via Fox network, this time invoking fear and outrage over “socialism”, “government takeover” and Barack “Hussein”Obama “the Muslim” as the cause.
So far, I see no redirection of purpose with the OWS movement, as long as I keep hearing Fox network belittle them, I know they’re valid.
November 25th, 2011 at 12:34 am
Our problem is to find a means to reform our election system and the corrupt political system in Washington. Rageing is not a means. In this day and age we should move toward an interactive web site that agrigates a program of a host of reforms. Two models come to mind. One is Wikipedia for developing thoughtful content and editorial dialogue that disallows bitter opinion — and the other (I forget the name, if it still is in business) is used by corporations to develope concensus positions amongst personnel on broad corporate isssues. A certified social security number would be all that is required to participate. I believe the contributer cream would rise to the top. Then teams would evolve to develope a wide range of alternative, even opposite, planks and voting would sort out the trash and the majority opinion. Any ideas on how to get started? Mal Williams
November 25th, 2011 at 12:45 am
I should have pointed out that Wikipedia has developed an extensive methodology that has allowed the cream of contributers to form effective teams while allowing opposite views to seperate and contribute on opposit issue teams. It has been a magnificant key to Wikipedias success. It could work for politics if it had a running voting mechanism that was respected as representitive of the voting public, especially if the system allowed minority views to progress and remain posted for ongoing competition — no one is fully shut out except by overwhelming vote.
November 25th, 2011 at 10:52 am
the 99% needs to understand we live in a world of deception .. just about all you need is a believable paper trail that you are qualified* to speak and/or do .. and enough people on the take that the concept gets the push needed .. and when it becomes self evident a swindle has/is happen’d/’ing – thats when you need a lawyer and/or an investigative accountant .. possession is 9/10ths of the law is so yesterday
* open your mind to the possible avenues
November 25th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
The two movements have something else in common: they are spontaneous (the Koch/Unions takeover insinuations are nonsense) and they are…day to day regular, normal Americans. We are a divided nation at the moment and the elites BOTH D’s and R’s are getting richer and richer singing their own tunes and worshiping their common modern golden calf (‘ēggel hazâhâḇ).