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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 10/4/11

Occupy Wall Street Protests Spreading, There's a Need to Focus on the Core Issue, Money in Politics

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Take every issue the Wall Street protestors and those in solidarity with them all over the country are decrying and on every issue the source of the problem has the corporate and special interest largesse at its core. That knowledge, that understanding is the connection the people protesting and demonstrating need to see and focus on for them to bring about real change in this country.

Just take for example Wall Street and deep pocketed financial interests. These interests wanted a free hand and complete governmental deregulation of their affairs as much as possible. Their henchmen in Congress (and remember it's Democrats as well as Republicans in the pocket of the moneyed interests) enacted legislation in 1999, the Graham, Leach Bliley Act signed by Bill Clinton that overturned "Glass Steagel", the legislation enacted in the 1930's that separated the activities of the investment banks with the commercial banks. With this legislation all manner of financial institutions from Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Wells Fargo to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG became entwined in derivative schemes, credit default swaps and the packaging of sub-prime mortgages, many of which were sold fraudulently and when the sub-prime mortgage bubble burst with people defaulting on mortgages they couldn't afford (but were enticed to buy by sleazy outfits like "Countrywide Mortgage"), the whole thing began to collapse which is what happened in the fall of 2008.

That financial collapse on Wall Street brought the bailouts, engineered first by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (himself a former CEO of Goldman Sachs) that took the publics money and handed it to the very perpetrators who brought about the collapse (who have since not been held accountable for the financial crisis they created and the subsequent economic great recession that ensued). Paulson of course couldn't act alone so Congress was obliged to provide the legal cover and enacted the legislation for the bailouts to be legal.

Now this is what must be clearly understood. If those elected weren't selected and bankrolled by the moneyed interests there wouldn't have been the deregulations enacted, the excesses committed by the banksters wouldn't have occurred, there wouldn't have been a sub-prime mortgage bubble to burst, the bailouts wouldn't have happened and the economy wouldn't have tanked bringing on the great recession.

But the reality is it all did happen and it happened as a result of the collusion of money controlling the electoral process with the office holders in their pocket.

Eliminate the money from corrupting the electoral process and there are no candidates beholden to moneyed interests to enact the legislation for" well you get the picture.

It all begins with the control of the electoral process. That's why the #1 necessity is removing money from politics. It's the source of the corruption, why our politics is dysfunctional and our problems worsen, the rich get richer while the middle class keeps shrinking and the ranks of the poor keep growing.

Only a citizen funded, publicly financed electoral process can rectify and bring about representative government that is of, by and for the people.

So what the protests and demonstrations come down to and need to focus on in order to end the wars, get an economy that works to the benefit of the majority, not the richest 1% is for an amendment to the Constitution that bans corporate and special interest money in the electoral process.

It's the way truly representative democracy can be resurrected in this country. And the way for that to happen is to get money out of politics; out of the electoral process.

That's when real change would be possible and the key issue to focus on. That's what must be demanded by the people now.            

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Dave Lefcourt Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Retired. The author of "DECEIT AND EXCESS IN AMERICA, HOW THE MONEYED INTERESTS HAVE STOLEN AMERICA AND HOW WE CAN GET IT BACK", Authorhouse, 2009
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