US ELECCIONES EN TIEMPOS DE DEBACLE MORAL Y ETICA

ELECCIONES en tiempos de debacle moral y ética.
THE HARAKIRI of the REPUBLICAN PARTY
ELECCIONES Y EL HARAKIRI DE LOS REPUBLICANOS

Hugo Adan. Enero 27, 2012

TEMA: La espada de fuego que asesto Gingrich al corazon de Mitt Romney antes de la primarias en South Caroline (pidio Gingrich que Romney de a conocer los impuestos que paga a la nacion que son menos de un 14% mientras el resto del pais paga del 30 al 33%) esa denuncia no solo le costo a Romney la derrota en las primarias de ese Estado, en realidad incinero su candidatura a la Presidencia de la Republica. Por mas que invierta los millones que quiera en las primarias y que gane con ello la eleccion del Pdo republicano como candidato unico, su derrota ya fue capitalizada politicamente por Obama mediante su reciente Mensaje a la Nacion. No solo reafirmo alli la denuncia de Gingrich sino que la amplio a todos los millonarios.

Ni Romney ni Gingrich podrian ganarle a Obama. Aquellos se degollaron a si mismos y lo unico que le queda a los Republicanos es cambiar de candidatos y postular uno nuevo que este a la altura de los caidos.

Santorum (quien de santo no tiene nada pues fue denunciado como corrupto por los mismos de su especie),este sujeto no es mas que un simple caza brujas con la mentalidad de los verdugos de la Sta Inquisicion medieval (del conservatismo ingenuo y asqueroso de este "pro-life" era de esperarse lo que dijo a la nacion: que debemos alegrarnos de que hayan asesinado a cientificos iranies recientemente. De haber existido Santorum en los tiempos de Eistein u Openheimer este habria tambien pedido la muerte de ellos). En Peru solo el cuervo Cipriani del Opus Dei podria decir que Santorum es el candidato ideal para los americanos.

En cuanto a Ron Paul, si este ahora no abandona el chiquero republicano, se quedara como un simple reclutador y manipulador de conciencias en gente joven y honesta en ese Partido quienes a gritos le pide que inicie una revolucion contra el bi-partidismo que Paul denuncia retoricamente. Si Paul se queda alli, pasara al basurero de la historia politica americana. Que hace alli Ron Paul? sino adornar un Pdo podrido y fascistoide, cuyas mayorias lo detestan como real candidato porque no tiene para competir en la compra de elecciones. Si el Pdo diera apoyo a Ron Paul, este podria ganarle a Obama, pero eso es como pedir peras al olmo, un imposible dentro del electorado conservador de los republicanos.

Ron Paul y Neider deben unirse y crear un frente popular contra la corrupcion de la democracia americana y la reconstruccion del pais. Eso significa lanzar la 3ra y real opcion democratica. Que eso en lo inmediato serviria a Obama, quiza pero no mas que el servicio que ya le dio Gingrich. Lo cierto es que los republicanos ya no tienen candidato a Presidente. La 3ra opcion -aunque sea a nivel de Estados- cavaria la fosa donde seria enterrado el continuismo neoliberal desde Reagan hasta Obama.

Se lanzaria con la 3ra opcion un nuevo modelo de democracia orientado al Mercado donde se limite el poder de los grandes especuladores y financistas, con un nuevo Glas Steagle Act, con el impuesto Tobin a toda transacion financiera y con los recortes de privilegios al capital que solo de nombre es americano y que Obama denuncio solo de palabra -en su electoralismo mundano- y que jamas tuvo los cojones de implementar. De la traicion de Obama al pueblo americano ya tenemos bastante y es hora de pasar a la accion. Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Denis Kusinich y el senador de Vermont tienen la palabra.

Dentro de ese Partido, lo unico que les queda a los republicanos es postular un nuevo candidato y el unico que podria serlo seria el Gobernador de Indiana Mitch Daniels, quien hizo la mas coherente critica al discurso de Obama. Entonces podrian ganarle a Obama, las denuncias contra su traicion al pueblo harian el resto.

En el otro lado, el pescado podria caer por la boca y Obama la tiene grande. Como no pudo mencionar el nombre de Romney en su discurso, cometio el "error" de decir una verdad que no planeo decir: que muchos millonarios evaden impuestos y que todos ellos debieran aportar como taxes el 30% de lo que ganan. Esto le podria estar costando su vida politica aun si gana la reeleccion a la Presidencia (al menos esa vida) pues es seguro que los millonarios no solo lo van a usar como hasta ahora lo han hecho -como papel higienico-, sino que a la 1ra de vastos lo van freir en el sarten que tienen reservado para pescados bocones como Obama y reemplazarlo por el VP de turno.

Mi TESIS aqui: Mitt Romney & Newt Gingrich se degollaron entre ellos y decretaron la derrota del Pdo Republicano: este Pdo se quedó hoy sin candidato que pueda enfrentar a Obama. Lo único que les queda es crear uno nuevo o degollar a Obama y en política USAna todo es posible. Pronto veremos –antes de las elecciones de Noviembre, y si postulan un nuevo candidato- como se resuelve el problema que dejo las primarias.

Romney ha muerto políticamente, un payaso del circo interno (Gingrich) lo degolló, pero antes de morir Romney alcanzo a devolverle la daga asesina. Ambos quedaron sin vida politica, los otros candidatos republicanos jamas la tuvieron.

No han pasado dos días y la descomposición acelerada de los cuerpos nauseabundos de Romney y Gingrich empieza ya a polucionar todos el ambiente politico americano.

Peor que la náusea y el asco que provoca esta contienda entre los ricos por comprar la Presidencia es el hecho de que la democracia americana sigue aun sin real alternativa popular. En un articulo de abajo veremos que la mas cercana propuesta a la trampa electoral realmente existente (elegir entre 2 evil forces, demócratas y republicanos, ambos dos financiadas por el gran capital corporativo) es la de Ralph Nader quien propuso quedarse en casa y no votar y aun esa propuesta está muy lejos de ser real alternativa pues no existe aún el Frente Popular unido contra el fascismo disfrazado del “dirty couple” y ni Nader ni Ron Paul tienen agallas para lanzar esa propuesta. Al diablo con la nacion, me quedo en casa, eso suena a traicion

En resumen: Hasta ahora a Obama le fue bien en el uso del lema “mi mejor aliado táctico es el mas cercano enemigo de mi peor enemigo estratégico”. No recuerdo si fue Von Klawsevich or Lao Tse quien acuño esta fórmula de guerra. Pero hay otra, “mientras el enemigo tenga un mínimo de poder militar y económico, cualquier victoria contra él es solo victoria táctica y transitoria, de ningún modo victoria estratégica y final”. Ademas, “cualquier victoria en suelo ajeno no vale nada frente a una derrota en suelo interno”. Veremos que viene dentro del Partido democrata; mas exactamente quien viene como VP, el remplazante de Obama. En ese criadero de cuervos -el partido democrata- cualquiera de ellos le podria sacar los ojos (y no solo eso) a Obama.

He aquí dos arts de democracy now al respecto.

1.
AS ROMNEY RELEASES TAX RETURNS, FMR SENATE INVESTIGATOR SAYS: WE’VE GOT TO START TAXING CORPORATIONS


http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/24/as_romney_releases_tax_returns

During the GOP primary, Mitt Romney has come under fierce attack for parking millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven. We speak with Tax Justice Network USA chair Jack Blum, a former top congressional investigator of financial crimes, who says tax evasion could seriously cripple the already struggling economy. Blum appears in "We’re Not Broke," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film examines widespread corporate tax evasion in the United States and the increasing role of offshore tax havens. "Has [Romney] cheated? No," Blum says. "What he’s done is take full advantage of a system that has been structured the way it is because of political influence and a tremendous amount of lobbying money on Capitol Hill... We must not only rewrite the Internal Revenue Code, but we must get a fair contribution from the very wealthy and from corporations, and that is the only way to balance the budget."

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• "He Says One Thing and Does Another": Ralph Nader Responds to Obama’s State of the Union Address
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As Romney Releases Tax Returns, Fmr Senate Investigator Says: We’ve Got to Start Taxing Corporations. January 24, 2012

AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from Park City, Utah, from the Sundance Film Festival. Tonight’s State of the Union address by President Obama comes just as a new Pew survey finds 86 percent of Americans say strengthening the economy should be the top priority of the President and Congress. That was the main subject of last night’s Republican primary debate as Mitt Romney went after his rival Newt Gingrich.

MITT ROMNEY: I think it’s about leadership, and the Speaker was given an opportunity to be the leader of our party in 1994. And at the end of four years, he had to resign in disgrace. Now, in the 1970s, he came to Washington. I went to work in my first job in the 1970s at the bottom level of a consulting firm. In the 1990s, he had to resign in disgrace from this job as speaker. I had the opportunity to go off and run the Olympic Winter Games. In the 15 years after he left the speakership, the Speaker has worked—been working as an influence peddler in Washington.

AMY GOODMAN: Before Mitt Romney lost to Newt Gingrich in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican presidential primary, he came under fierce attack for parking millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven. Meanwhile, official documents reviewed by ABC News show that Bain Capital, the private equity partnership Romney once ran, set up some 138 secretive offshore funds in the Cayman Islands.

Well, today we’re turning to a former top congressional investigator of financial crimes, who says tax evasion could seriously cripple the already struggling economy. Jack Blum appears in We’re Not Broke, a documentary that has premiered here at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. The film examines widespread corporate tax evasion in the U.S. and the increasing role of offshore tax havens. Jack Blum is a lawyer and chair of Tax Justice Network USA.

Jack, welcome to Democracy Now! OK, the debate is heating up, primarily between Newt Gingrich now and Mitt Romney. Talk about Mitt Romney and his private equity firm Bain Capital.

JACK BLUM: Bain Capital is a firm that specializes in taking over other companies and supposedly putting them on track to success and then selling the companies off. But this industry is built on tax dodgers of various kinds. So, typically, the money that’s used is borrowed money, and the borrowings are secured by the company that they’re buying. Now, what this does is create tremendous tax deductions for interest payments on the loan. The fascinating thing is that the partnerships that do this are also offshore partnerships. They’re set up in the Cayman Islands.

And they’re set up there for three different reasons. First, tax. There is no tax in the Cayman Islands, and there’s a system of deferral of tax, as long as it’s kept offshore. The second reason for being in the Cayman Islands is no disclosure. You can’t find out who the other partners are. You can’t find out anything about how this partnership is put together. And finally, the third reason is no regulation. So there’s no a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. There’s nothing that will tell us what’s really going on in the partnership.

And finally, if he is one of the partners who’s a manager, he takes his income—this is the income he gets for managing other people’s money—and that comes to him in the form of capital gains, because he’s allowed to have what’s called a carried interest. And the carried interest pays a tax rate of 15 percent. He doesn’t even pay Social Security tax.

Now, what’s unbelievable here is that we have a debate going on in the country about firing teachers, firing firemen, firing public officials, because we’ve got to balance the budget. And that debate is being led by Republicans. And these Republicans are saying, "Got to cut the budget, or else we sink." Nobody, and this is both Republicans and Democrats, talk about the missing revenue.

AMY GOODMAN: The issue of corporations paying taxes, the Republicans refer to as a job killer.

JACK BLUM: Well, the truth is that the companies that have not paid taxes are the ones who lay people off. So, Bank of America, which made quite a bit of money last year—had a lot of that written off because of loss carryforwards, but still made a lot of money—actually got a refund from the government and, the day its numbers were announced, fired 30,000 people in a restructuring. So, there’s a mythology here that somehow this system of subsidizing companies by giving them either zero or near zero tax rates through these various loopholes is going to create jobs, is so much nonsense. And there’s now an effort underway, and it’s almost comical, to repatriate funds of the companies moved offshore through transfer pricing and other techniques, and they want to repatriate it at a 5 percent tax rate, arguing that that is going to create jobs. Well, we did it before. And in fact, the companies who repatriated funds laid off thousands and thousands of people.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

JACK BLUM: I haven’t seen them. But what I can say is that he is paying less than average middle-class Americans by far. And he’s doing that because all of his income comes in as capital gains. Now, has he cheated? No. What he’s done is take full advantage of a system that has been structured the way it is because of political influence and a tremendous amount of lobbying money on Capitol Hill.

AMY GOODMAN: Is all of this legal?

JACK BLUM: Yes. And that, of course, is the real underlying problem that we confront. It’s legal, and it is the result of an incredible amount of money being spent on lobbying. There’s a recent study done by Citizens for Tax Justice, who put together numbers that show the companies that have taken advantage of these tax schemes are spending upwards of $2 billion a year in lobbying. That’s how they get the breaks. And it’s this congressional campaign money, it’s the ability to get access to the members, the ability to control and dictate what the tax laws will look like, that gives them the opportunity to engineer those laws, to take full advantage and save huge amounts.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think has to happen?

JACK BLUM: We’ve got to start taxing corporations. Right now, the average American is being asked to subsidize the corporations, pay a lot of tax, and not get any government services. What creates wealth is the commons. What creates wealth is the infrastructure in America. What creates wealth is our educational system. These corporations, that take full advantage of it, don’t want to help pay for it. And that has to be corrected. But until we get our hands around the problem of campaign contributions, and until the public understands what’s going on, that’s going to be very difficult. And the rhetoric in this campaign, this business of saying the problem is that we’ve got to cut, we have to balance the budget, and not discussing this revenue issue, is nothing short of insane.

AMY GOODMAN: Where is Obama when it comes to leadership on this issue?

JACK BLUM: When he was inaugurated and when he was campaigning, he said he’d straighten up the mess that the tax code is. He didn’t do it. And he’s surrounded by a group of advisers who don’t want to tackle these problems, I think, because many of them come out of the very community and the very law firms that have created the problem. Now, in the film, we show him bringing many of the corporate leaders, who are the heads of companies that don’t pay any tax, in to a circle of people who are advising him on the economy. Well, I can assure you they’re not telling him that the way to solve the economic problems is to collect tax from their companies.

AMY GOODMAN: Doesn’t this also have to do with campaign contributions? He says he’s going—they’re going to raise a billion dollars. That’s the Democrats alone. So the Republicans express the philosophy outright. The Democrats rely on the same amounts of money from the corporations that they fear they won’t get.

JACK BLUM: OK, the congressional Democrats do. I should say, to his credit, Obama has said he won’t take contributions from lobbyists, and corporate contributions are prohibited. However, if you look at the congressional side, that’s a whole different story. But really, the reason for bringing these people in as advisers is, at first, to neutralize their desire to pour money to the other side, but then also to give the appearance of being business-friendly and to make sure that the congressional Democrats continue to get the funding they need to get elected. And when we’re running billion-dollar campaigns on all sides, this is pretty amazing stuff.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to hear President Obama say in the State of the Union address?

JACK BLUM: That we must not only rewrite the Internal Revenue Code, but we must get a fair contribution from the very wealthy and from corporations, and that that is the only way to balance the budget.

AMY GOODMAN: Citizens United, how does that fit into this picture?

JACK BLUM: We have an amazing situation as a result of Citizens United. "Corporations are people," says Mitt Romney in one of his statements. They’re not. Corporations are a special privilege granted to a group of people so that they can invest money without the fear of losing if the investment goes bad. They’re not people. And Citizens United has allowed corporations to get in the act and contribute to these funds, which are, quote, "independent funds," that spend unlimited amounts of money. And that sort of takes control of the election process. Now, that can’t be allowed. What we have developed is a system of representation that is by money talking and no taxation, which is absolutely the reverse of where this republic started.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you talk about tax justice? How do you change the conversation in this country? You’re featured in a film here at the Sundance Film Festival called We’re Not Broke. That’s going to surprise a lot of people.

JACK BLUM: Well, of course, because there’s been this drumbeat of "We’re broke. We’re broke. We’re broke. Fire everybody." The way we’re going to change that is to show people what’s going on. When people saw this film, when people began to understand that corporations like Google and Apple don’t pay U.S. federal tax, their jaws dropped. Now, how you can solve these budget problems and not talk about that is unfathomable. And we’re going to get them talking about it by looking at those tax returns and looking at what’s really going on.

And this film shows not only the question of how that money has not been paid, but it also shows young people all over the country spontaneously beginning to understand the issue and demonstrating. So, a group called US Uncut stepped forward and began to demonstrate in front of some of these companies, saying, "Pay your fair share of taxes." And that morphed into some of the folks who are in the Occupy movement. So I think there are groups—there are many groups that are involved now in trying to bring this message across. Tax Justice Network has worked with a coalition called the FACT Coalition. It’s more than 40 different non-profit groups—some conservative, some liberal, some religious, some labor. And they’re all talking about the issue of, we have got to get back to a point where there’s tax collected and where government services are provided based on taxes being collected.

AMY GOODMAN: Jack Blum, I want to thank you very much for being with us, former top congressional investigator of financial crimes, lawyer and chair of Tax Justice Network USA.

This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Two State of the Union addresses ago, President Obama promised a nuclear renaissance. We’ll look at The Atomic States of America. Stay with us.

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2.

RALPH NADER RESPONDS TO OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
OBAMA SAYS ONE THING AND DOES ANOTHER, says NADER


"He Says One Thing and Does Another": Ralph Nader Responds to Obama’s State of the Union Address. January 25, 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/25/he_says_one_thing_and_does

Responding to President Obama’s State of the Union address, longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader says Obama’s criticism of income inequality and Wall Street excess fail to live up to his record in office. "[Obama] says one thing and does another," Nader says. "Where has he been for over three years? He’s had the Justice Department. There are existing laws that could prosecute and convict Wall Street crooks. He hasn’t sent more than one or two to jail." On foreign policy, Nader says, "I think his lawless militarism, that started the speech and ended the speech, was truly astonishing. [Obama] was very committed to protecting the American empire, in Obama terms."

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined right now by Ralph Nader to talk more about President Obama’s State of the Union address, longtime consumer advocate, former presidential candidate. His latest book is Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win."

Ralph Nader, your response to the State of the Union address? It could be President Obama’s last. It could be the beginning of a new President Obama for a second term. What do you think?

RALPH NADER: Well, I think his lawless militarism, that started the speech and ended the speech, was truly astonishing. I mean, he was very committed to protecting the American empire, in Obama terms, force projection in the Pacific, and distorting the whole process of how he explains Iraq and Afghanistan. He talks about Libya and Syria, and then went into the military alliance with Israel and didn’t talk about the peace process or the plight of the Palestinians, who are being so repressed. Leaving Iraq as if it was a victory? Iraq has been destroyed: massive refugees, over a million Iraqis dead, contaminated environment, collapsing infrastructure, sectarian warfare. He should be ashamed of himself that he tries to drape our soldiers, who were sent on lawless military missions to kill and die in those countries, unconstitutional wars that violate Geneva conventions and international law and federal statutes, and drape them as if they’ve come back from Iwo Jima or Normandy. So I think it was very, very poor taste to start and end with this kind of massive militarism and the Obama empire.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And on the economy, Ralph Nader, on the economy, your response to what Obama said last night?

RALPH NADER: A lot of good-sounding words. He’s very good at that. I’m glad he focused on Wall Street abuses on more than one occasion. I’m glad that he focused on renewable energy. But notice that he just mentioned climate change but didn’t go anywhere on that one. He still is not able to use the word "poverty." It’s always the middle class, which is shrinking into poverty. But you’ve got 60, 70, 80 million people living in poverty in the United States, and child poverty.

And the most amazing gap was his promise in 2008 to press for the raising of the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.50 by 2011. So, he went for equal pay for equal work for women, but millions of people in this country, one out of every three full-time workers, are earning Wal-Mart wages, many of them not far over the $7.25 rate. Now, the $9.50 minimum wage would still be less in inflation-adjusted terms than it was in 1968, when worker productivity was half of what it is today.

So, a lot of his suggestions, like the attitude toward foreign trade—well, he said that in 2008 he wanted to revise NAFTA. He didn’t lift a finger. So how credible are his words vis-à-vis China, for example, in the trade area and importing hazardous products into this country? How credible are his words? How credible are his words when he says he wants to start a financial crimes unit in the Justice Department? I mean, what does that mean, unless he demands a much larger budget for prosecutors and law enforcement officials against the corporate crime wave? Maybe he needs a subscription to the Corporate Crime Reporter to tell him that we’ve been through these kinds of rhetorics before by prior presidents. They’re going to establish an enforcement unit here and there, but without a major budget, it’s going to go nowhere.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me play President Obama’s announcement last night of a new unit devoted to investigating major financial crimes.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We’ll also establish a financial crimes unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That’s bad for consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count. And tonight I’m asking my attorney general to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama announcing that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will head this unit. I’m going back to the—to August, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman being kicked off a 50-state task force negotiating a possible settlement with the nation’s largest mortgage companies, the move coming just a day after the New York Times reported that the Obama administration was pressuring Schneiderman to agree to a broad state settlement with banks over questionable foreclosure tactics. Ralph Nader, your response?

RALPH NADER: Well, that’s the double standard that he’s such an expert at, Obama. He says one thing and does another. Where has he been for over three years? He’s had the Justice Department. There are existing laws that could prosecute and convict Wall Street crooks. He hasn’t sent more than one or two to jail. So, it is important to strengthen the corporate criminal laws through congressional legislation, but what has he done? This financial crimes unit, that’s like putting another label on a few doors in the Justice Department without a real expansion in the budget.

But then, when he said to the American people, "no more bailouts, no more handouts, and no more cop-outs" — but that’s what’s been going on. And it’s going on today and it went on last year under his administration. Washington is a bustling bazaar of accounts receivable. They’re bailing out and they’re handing out all kinds of subsidies to corporations—handouts, giveaways, transfer of technology, transfer of medical research to the drug companies without any reasonable price provisions on drugs, giveaway of natural resources on the federal lands. You name it, it’s still going on. And as far as a cop-out, how about his deferred prosecution gimmicks with these corporations under the Justice Department, where they never have to plead guilty, they never have to make themselves vulnerable to civil lawsuits so they pay back the American people what they’ve stolen from them?

So, obviously, State of the Union speeches are full of rhetoric, they’re full of promises, but it’s good to measure them against the past performance of the Obama administration and what his promises were in 2008. They don’t really stand up very well.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ralph Nader, I want to turn to the Republican response to the State of the Union address. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a former budget director under President George W. Bush, delivered the response to his address, to Obama’s address. He slammed Obama for halting the Keystone XL pipeline project that would transport oil from Canada to Texas, equating the move to a, quote, "pro-poverty policy."

GOV. MITCH DANIELS: The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ralph Nader, your response?

RALPH NADER: Well, first of all, the XL pipeline is basically shipping very dirty Albertan oil down through the United States, over very, very sensitive aquifers and other environmental conditions, down to the Gulf in order to ship it abroad. That’s the big farce of this pipeline project. It’s not going to be brought to make this country more reliant on Canada instead of the Middle East. It’s basically an export pipeline.

And the second is, Mitch Daniels would have done the public a great service, in his speech, if he would have urged the corporations in this country, who are sitting on $2 trillion of cash, like Cisco and Apple and Google, to start giving some of that cash back to shareholders in terms of dividends and to pension funds and mutual funds, which would increase consumer demand and create more jobs, just the way a minimum wage increase would increase consumer demand to create more jobs. Instead, he didn’t say that. And Obama has constantly restricted any kind of stimulant to tax breaks, to tax incentives, to tax reductions, which of course will not do much to build up the government’s resources for a major job-producing public works program in every community, good-paying jobs repairing America— schools, bridges, public transit, drinking water systems—jobs that cannot be exported abroad. So, we need to develop a very concrete critique of these politicians’ statements up against what they could do if they had the courage of their office.

Imagine Obama never mentioning the Occupy movement. Imagine Obama never mentioning the Occupy Wall Street movement, the main citizen awareness movement to be coupled with his alleged concern with Wall Street abuses. And yet he talks about advancing human dignity for all people abroad, and he never talks about a major human dignity initiative, the Occupy initiative, based on peaceful resistance to oligarchy and plutocracy. He’s a political coward. He’s got to repair back to the Oval Office and ask himself why he can’t stand for the people in this country who are really aware and trying to improve our democracy and advance justice and make government and corporations accountable.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph, you have written a new book called Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win. People may be listening to you right now and agreeing with a lot of what you are saying, and also saying, "What is the alternative here? Mitt Romney? Newt Gingrich?" What is your response to that?

RALPH NADER: Well, this is the book, and I’m going to drop it off at the White House soon. I think he should read it, because the left is not making any demands on Obama because they’re so freaked out by the Republicans and their crazed rhetoric on their debates. Well, if that is going to continue for 2012, that means the corporations are pulling on Obama and the Democratic Party. The Republicans are pulling on Obama and Democratic Party, because they’re getting all the media, because they have a vibrant primary process, and there’s no primary challenge to Obama, so the progressive agenda is not getting any media at all, week after week.

So the alternative, Amy, is for the left, such as they are — progressive, liberal people, I like to call them "justice seekers" — to make demands on Obama, to make demands for improving the rights of labor, improving the rights of small farmers, improving the rights of small business, the environmental demands that need to be made, the crackdown on corporate crime, a whole panoply of corporate reform agenda, the kind of crackdown on these global corporations that have abandoned America and shipped jobs and industries to fascist and communist regimes who know how to keep workers in their place.

But there is no pull, because they’re so freaked out by the Republicans. So, one can really say the Republicans could sit around in a smoke-filled room and say, "Let’s be even more crazed. Let’s be even more corporatist." This will create a good vacuum for the Democrats to move into, because both parties are dialing for the same corporate dollars, and it will bring the left to their knees, because they’ll say, "We’ve got nowhere to go."

Well, the reason why this speech was so failing, especially in foreign and military policy, the reason why it was so failing is because Obama doesn’t have to worry about tens of millions of people who call themselves progressives or liberals, because they have signaled to him that they got nowhere to go. Well, I think if they believe they got nowhere to go, that they don’t want to vote for a third party or Green Party, they can at least, in April, May, June, hold his feet to the fire and present him with a set of progressive demands, in order to tell him that they do have a place to go: they can stay home. And that’s what hurt the Democrats in 2010. People can just stay home.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, I want to thank you for being with us. His book is called Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win.


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