William Greider never really went away, but I find that I read his great political and economic screeds much more frequently when he was writing for Rolling Stone than I do now that he has landed at The Nation. Blame it on my slacker socialization -- music always trumps politics. I only supported Greenpeace in the 1980s because Michael Stipe said I should.
At any rate, Greider showed up in the pages of the Washington Post this morning and -- as usual ("usual" meaning "just like when he was writing about Bill Clinton's nascent campaign for the presidency") -- he makes some astute observations.
How things have changed since Election Day. It takes a Bill Greider to remind us of the very thing Barack Obama used to coast his way to a historic victory.
Something fundamental has been altered in American politics. Encouraged by Obama's message of hope, agitated by darkening economic prospects, many people have thrown off sullen passivity and are trying to reclaim their role as citizens. This disturbs the routines of Washington but has great potential for restoring a functioning democracy. Timely intervention by the people could save the country from some truly bad ideas now circulating in Washington and on Wall Street. Ideas that could lead to the creation of a corporate state, legitimized by government and financed by everyone else. Once people understand the concept, expect a lot more outrage.
Obama rode the change train into office. It's less clear today whether he knows how to maintain a firm grip on the reins of that change as it shifts from hope for the future to a whole lotta angst and frustration and outrage.
And while it's become quite the fashion in the media business to label the outrage as "populist anger," it's hardly reached the game-changing fervor required of populism. In fact, outside of the anger at AIG executives, it's hardly clear that the American public genuinely gets the magnitude of the economic jiu-jitsu match we're in the throes of.
The magnitude is made all the more pronounced by the massive trust gap that sits squarely between the government of the United States and its people. Obama won the White House because he sat on the people's side of the gap. It's not entirely unfair to begin asking whose side he's really on, and Greider essentially does ask that very question:
A new regulatory regime that puts the secretive central bank in charge of everything would sanctify the policy of "too big to fail" that Fed officials have long followed but never honestly acknowledged. It would also revive the Wall Street club, albeit smaller than before, with which the Fed has been so cozy. If the largest bank holding companies are given privileged proximity to the source of government protection, then everyone in finance and commerce will want to become a bank holding company, too. We are already seeing this happening as former investment houses like Goldman Sachs and non-bank financial firms decide to join the system. Why not General Electric and Microsoft? Where does this end? What does it mean for smaller enterprises that lack the scale and influence?
Whatever the intentions, this "reform" would effectively legitimize the existence of a corporate state. This concentrated power would be neither socialism nor capitalism, but a grotesque hybrid that combines the worst qualities of both systems. Government and politics would become even more responsive to big money, but also able to tamper intimately with private enterprise, picking winners and losers based on political loyalties, not on performance. Capitalism with its inherent tendency toward monopoly would have the means to monopolize democracy.
Barack Obama can resist all this, if he chooses, but he seems conflicted. Obama's approach so far is devoted to restoring Wall Street's famous names, and his economic advisers tell him this is the "responsible" imperative, no matter that it might offend the unwashed public. Obama evidently agrees. He does not seem to grasp that the tone-deaf technocrats are leading him into a dead-end.
The president needs to hear a second opinion -- millions of them.
People are angry, but they want this president to succeed. Mobilized citizens can help him to prevail. If he goes with the other side, they will bring him down.
