The Covid19 virus was a game-changer that undermined Bernie’s campaign strengths and his chances of overcoming the battery of establishment cannons arrayed against him, the pressure of which would buckle most people half his age. And unlike Perez and Biden, whatever the latest tune they whistle, Bernie wouldn’t have people risking lives in primaries in a game of Covid19 Russian roulette.  Biden has a minefield of banana peels before him, but waiting for him to slip from the grasp of his army of handlers and do a face-plant is not a political strategy that inspires. It’s understandable that someone with Bernie’s integrity would focus instead on his ideals and proposals, which to anyone not in a coma or a special interest pocket make more sense with each passing day.

As Naomi Klein has observed, “…during times of crisis, people also are risk-averse. I think the timing of this was such, with the inability to continue campaigning in person, with people just reaching for something that looked and felt safe, I don’t think it was possible to translate that shift in openness to these kinds of policies with a huge electoral swing from Biden towards Bernie, although I was certainly hoping for it up until Bernie’s announcement last night. But while hoping for it, I was keenly aware that the polls were not reflecting it, that it wasn’t happening and that people are not up for that kind of political seesaw in this moment of tumult.”

There’ve been logical, solid analyses, as by the anchors of the online political show Rising, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, that the Democratic establishment will eventually blow off anyone not brandishing a ball bat with nails in it, that whatever promises Bernie might elicit from making nice, they’ll be written in sand washed away by the high tide of big donors. And no matter what Bernie says or does, he will be blamed again if Trump wins, as CNN is already about the business of. As in 2016, how dare Bernie practice democracy and provide the country with a choice and an awareness of issues best left concealed from view.

Some might despair that with Bernie stepping back, the progressive movement has lost its lynchpin. Bernie countered that nicely with accomplishments noted in his statement that he was suspending his campaign, (not cremating it, as many in the media have implied), while staying on the ballot to hold and earn delegates to influence the party. Progressive candidates inspired by Bernie certainly aren’t fading away. Charles Booker, running against Mitch McConnell, stated “…make no mistake: our fight for Medicare for All, racial justice, a Green New Deal, and an economy that works for all of us is nowhere close to over.” Mark Gamba, the mayor Milwaukee, Oregon, running against incumbent Blue Dog, Kuirt Schrader, reaffirmed his goals of changing the healthcare system, boldly addressing climate change and holding corporate interests accountable for damage they cause. The grassroots movements supporting such candidates aren’t fading away either.

Here’s Biden’s statement on Bernie stepping out of the race. Pre-canned by strategists for sure, but I’d have to say it’s not a bad statement from the point of view of conning people to fill in the blanks with whatever they hope Joe is saying about health care, etc…. Trump was masterful at letting people hear what they wanted. If he’s not too addled, he may be again. But maybe Joe can limp along for awhile on a lack of specificity and a media tossing him softballs, until Biden figures out the peril of not making solid, substantive commitments and standing by them.

Maybe Biden can ride to victory atop a platform of low expectations other than not being Trump. But if Biden wins with wishy-washy, he’ll have nothing resembling a mandate, only a load of disappointed people when he turns out to be Mr. Cellophane, moved about with puppet strings by big donors to whom Bernie, with his small donor cornucopia, must have looked like one of Eliot Ness’s Untouchables. Spurning the money of big donors and owing them nothing made Bernie a dangerous man.

Howie of Down with Tyranny has repeatedly contrasted Biden’s weaknesses and Bernie’s strengths, so I’ll just offer a couple glimpses that glare out.

Recently the Biden camp conferred with Eric Holder about Biden’s campaign and his vice-presidential pick. Holder who ushered, covertly from colleagues who’d have been aghast, the pardon of finance criminal fugitive Marc Rich for Bill Clinton’s signature on Clinton’s last day in office, after which Rich’s ex-wife donated huge sums to the Clinton library. Does anyone doubt that had that happened a year earlier Clinton would have been impeached, and properly so? Holder, who prosecuted whistleblowers like John Kiriakou, a top counterintelligence agent who exposed CIA torture, just to ruin him and to send a message to others, putting this hero in prison, initially with an effort to throw away the key. Holder, who let bankers off the legal hook laying the groundwork for his law firm, and therefore Holder, to reap fortunes servicing those banks. Read what Holder did to bank whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld on behalf of foreign banks hiding Americans’ money. That’s the short list.

Holder was Wall Street’s early Manchurian candidate for President. He fizzled like a wet fuse, but he’s been waiting in the wings if opportunity knocks, raising his profile with an anti-gerrymandering organization that’s run like a campaign. If Biden hadn’t already committed to a female vice-president, I’d bet Holder would pull a Cheney and recommend himself. He’ll certainly be influential in a Biden administration, again looking out for protecting his client bankers from facing serious consequences for misdeeds and greedy maneuvers that are again setting Americans — and the world — up for another fall.

My point is that no one had to worry about Bernie consulting with Eric Holder. Instead Bernie would be throwing a wrench in the revolving door to keep Holder’s ilk out of his administration. Bernie would never have floated the idea of Jamie Dimon as a swell potential member of an administration, perhaps Secretary of the Treasury, as Biden’s camp did. Want some intriguing reading? Read a bit on Dimon here, and on JPMorganChase, courtesy of Wall Street on Parade. I’m confident that after the election, when the revolving door starts spinning, Bernie will be shouting the dangers loud and clear, channeling public anger that Biden would be a fool not to pay attention to.

By the way, Wall Street called the shots on many of President Obama’s picks, including Holder for Attorney General and Hillary for Secretary of State. That insight came courtesy of WikiLeaks, so one can sense the establishment fervor to destroy Julian Assange. And Wall Street on Parade reports that in the 2020 presidential primaries one Wall Street firm was an instrumental supporter of five different Democratic candidates. Should that leave us wondering at the impressive orchestration of the Super Tuesday endorsements, that maybe some candidates, beyond shooting for Veep or major posts, were being jockeyed to derail progressives and elevate Biden?

Both of Bernie’s presidential campaigns laid bare the hapless state of much of mainstream, corporate media. Take the Washington Post. Does anyone think Jeff Bezos bought that paper because, like Citizen Kane, he thought it might be fun to run a newspaper. The man has a Washington agenda. The Bezos Brigaiders on the editorial pages and covering the campaign are well aware of how many newspapers have hit the skids, with major staff layoffs that leave many journalists scrambling to find public relations work. They don’t have to be geniuses to figure out what the world’s richest man doesn’t like. Bezos doesn’t like antitrust enforcement and close scrutiny and regulation of monopolies. He doesn’t care much for paying taxes. He doesn’t like to be embarrassed and pushed by potential legislation that would penalize him if he doesn’t raise wages and improve working conditions for expendable workers toiling in warehouses and grocery stores and delivering his goods. He doesn’t like unions. So none of the Bezos Brigaiders needs to be told he doesn’t like Bernie Sanders, whose major supporters include Amazon workers and who throws a spotlight on that company’s excesses. And so these members of the press decided squashing Bernie is worth shredding their journalistic credibility, continuing a pattern Thomas Frank wonderfully described in 2016 in a Harper’s magazine article, Swat Team.

The New York Times opinion page and campaign coverage has been as relentless whacking Bernie. One can only marvel at how the Gray Lady has become so in the tank for the Wall Street establishment it still won’t acknowledge the folly of Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin eliminating the Glass-Steagall Act, that had separated commercial and investment banking since FDR, becoming a major cause of the 2008 economic debacle. Both Clinton and Rubin were richly rewarded for that, from speaking fees and foundation contributions for Clinton to a job for Rubin with stunning compensation. In Washington, quid pro quo often takes its time, but it gets there.

Did it ever look to you like a contest between those two papers to find the most deranged and angry looking images they could of Bernie? Propaganda 101.

We’ve been treated to the comic spectacle of Comcast media players like Chuck Todd, putting their Orwellian knives into Bernie and his health care proposals between commercials for health care insurance and pharmaceutical companies. And a number of NPR reporters and analysts behaved as if they’re auditioning for Comcast, putting words in interviewee’s mouths and cutting them short if what they said wasn’t supporting the narrative. They all ought get plaques engraved with “But How Will You Pay For It?” Particularly if the big banks start tumbling economic dominoes that most media has routinely ignored.

So we can thank Bernie for making the media fix so apparent that many of us now seek out alternative media voices, voices that often represent a much better use of one’s time.

Consider corporate media’s willingness to avert its gaze from a foreign power meddling in American elections. I’m not speaking of Russia, the influence of which on the 2016 election I think greatly over-played, to the detriment of focus on critical issues and on what the Trump grifter class is up to. Whatever Russia did I doubt it had much impact next to the tabloids in the grocery store checkout line, let alone our home-grown dark money networks of the Kochs, Mercers and others from the oligarch rogues gallery. More attention should have been paid to the influence of foreign companies’ American subsidiaries, including banks.

No, I’m speaking of Israel, whose confederates and advocates in the US spent fortunes running ads attacking Bernie in the primaries, supporting the narrative of Bernie being unelectable. Just imagine if it had been Russia, how quickly those covertly undermining our democracy on a behalf of a foreign power would earn the accusation of betraying our country. Just because Bernie called for decency and morality in the treatment of Palestinians systematically oppressed in every way imaginable. That oppression was often done with American indifference or complicity, which Bernie was perceived as a threat to.

Predictably, media was then complicit with ludicrous and flimsy intelligence claims — intelligence loosely defined — that Bernie topped Russia’s wish list.

Ironically, Bernie went along a bit with the Russia narrative, something for which he’s been criticized. I’ve no idea how much he really bought into that party orthodoxy. Some purists won’t like what I’m about to say. Things are relative, and running a presidential campaign isn’t the same as seeking sainthood. Look how fast media stood Bernie before a firing squad for giving a harmless nod to educational and medical accomplishments in Cuba, painting him as a fellow traveler to discredit him, particularly in Florida.

On balance, Bernie has given it to us straight more than any other candidate. Pardon what’s almost become a cliché, but his consistent drumbeat really has changed the conversation. On healthcare, 55% of voters now support single payer health care, only 35% oppose it. Major programs to counter climate change and develop related jobs are now a top priority of many, particularly younger voters. Bernie provided an articulation of the growing wealth gap that helped people better understand what they already sensed going on around them, and the campaign finance fix behind much of it. He provided hope that there was a way to do something about it. Where would the conversation be were it not for Bernie?

While I like and respect some of those who’ve been critical of Bernie over dis and dat, no offense to them but I think Noam Chomsky is better than most in assessing the immediacy of the big picture. (Here’s some of his comments on Bernie ending his presidential run.)

Chomsky on Democracy Now:

If Trump is reelected, it’s a indescribable disaster. It means that the policies of the past four years, which have been extremely destructive to the American population, to the world, will be continued and probably accelerated. What this is going to mean for health is bad enough… It will get worse. What this means for the environment or the threat of nuclear war, which no one is talking about but is extremely serious, is indescribable.

Suppose Biden is elected. I would anticipate it would be essentially a continuation of Obama — nothing very great, but at least not totally destructive, and opportunities for an organized public to change what is being done, to impose pressures.

It’s common to say now that the Sanders campaign failed. I think that’s a mistake. I think it was an extraordinary success, completely shifted the arena of debate and discussion. Issues that were unthinkable a couple years ago are now right in the middle of attention.

The worst crime he committed, in the eyes of the establishment, is not the policy he’s proposing; it’s the fact that he was able to inspire popular movements, which had already been developing — Occupy, Black Lives Matter, many others — and turn them into an activist movement, which doesn’t just show up every couple years to push a leader and then go home, but applies constant pressure, constant activism and so on. That could affect a Biden administration.

In the end, we should appreciate Bernie for the enemies he’s chosen, domestic and foreign. And we should appreciate him for the voice he’ll provide as interesting times compound.

The post Appreciating Bernie in Our Era of Hobson’s Choices appeared first on Traveling Archive.

And no one should fear banks more than Iowans. They stand very naked, and very much at risk. My dad’s alma mater, Iowa State University, recently issued a report that Iowa farm finances are continuing to erode, with 44% of growers struggling to cover costs. Iowa farm dept hit $18.9 billion in the second quarter, the highest level in the country.As it is, government aid is now providing nearly 40% of US farm income.

Climate change isn’t helping prospects. Last year Iowa finished its wettest twelve months since records began, and it also had a rough drought. The most recent National Climate Assessment from the U.S. Global Change Research Program has nothing but grim news for the Midwest, including increased humidity and participation, eroded soils, rising temperature extremes, more pests and pathogens and major reductions in agricultural productivity. Worsening health conditions are also in the cards, with substantial loss of life by mid-century. Anyone for Medicare-for-All?

Now contemplate that the banks are about to do to us something similar to what they did to us in the Great Recession, from which many have still not fully recovered. If you don’t want to be blindsided, spend some time at Wall Street on Parade, where you can learn fun facts like a handful of banks are again up to their ears in derivatives exposure, are trading their own stocks in dark money pools, and that since Fall the New York Fed has funneled $6.6 TRILLION to trading houses on Wall Street in the form of of repurchase agreement (repo) loans, keeping the details opaque. There’s speculation by market watchers that the Fed is fueling a Ponzi-like rally in stocks. What could go wrong?

We’d never know that after the financial meltdown the Fed pumped in various bailouts the equivalent of over $29 trillion, if Bernie hadn’t hammered away until he finally got that information.

Banks pulled plenty of tricks pursuing their business model of taking what doesn’t belong to them. Recently Citibank, which foreclosed on homes under an alias, was quietly revealed to have illegally held homes of the market for more than five years while rents are rising dramatically from a shortage of affordable homes for purchase. It got a slap on the wrist.

The people Bernie will put in charge won’t just give a slap on the wrist. They won’t keep the public from knowing what’s going on behind the scenes, or be pushing for further bank deregulation, like Wall Street’s revolving door minions Trump has put in charge. Or the revolving door minions like Obama put in charge at the behest of Wall Street. There will be no Eric Holder put in charge of the Department of Justice to make sure bankers are protected from the consequences of their misdeeds.

I have found from personal experience in Iowa that inaction against bankers behaving badly is a seamless web between state and federal public offices. The tone is set at the top, and it flows down through all tangential government offices. One of Obama’s greatest failures was setting a tone that talked a good game but threw people under the bus on behalf of banks, which ushered in Trump, who of course has set that tone from day one.

How do I capsulize over a decade of horror stories, involving one bank that was shut down, and another bank that took it over, both of which used the same foreclosure artists? I’ll just give one little slice. I broke my back to pay off in full an unfair settlement that was forced on us, to the astonishment of everyone familiar with the case. I relied on a bank’s representations, both verbally and in emails, that it would cooperate with the payoff arrangement being structured. On the appointed day, it reneged on its promise, deliberately sabotaging my ability to pay it off in full by the agreed upon plan of having another lender buy the note. The bank knew there was no time for due diligence on another arrangement by the loan deadline. It refused to extend the deadline or modify the loan. It did so because my mom’s family farm, outside of Des Moines in a recreation area, was known to be worth far more than what was owed. The bank simply did not want to be paid off. So my mom, who lived with us in DC until we lost her a year ago at 101, had a very sad note at the end of a life that richly deserved much better. The loss of her farm, the family nest egg, and a great deal more. How does one begin to describe the wear and tear of a krap decade? How does one begin to describe the contempt with which I hold the bankers responsible, or the government officials who enabled them by averting their gaze?

I know what it’s like to go up against a bank on the bank’s home turf, where every decision is like rolling the dice on the cost of a college education. I know what it’s like to encounter the bipartisan fix for political darlings like family-owned and so-called community banks. And I include judges in the mix, because in Iowa they gather campaign contributions to run for retention elections. Over time that’s a recipe for courting pro-business decisions to the disadvantage of individuals. Judges know where the money’s at as well as Willie Sutton did. They can make a seemingly minor unexpected ruling a bank wants that in practicality throws the game. You like judges with a tin cup? Go to Iowa.

At every government level I encountered indifferent if not complicit public officials. It’s a hard education nobody should want, but I have enough stories to fill a book. And may yet do it. Public servants and in particular local prosecutors will claim to be overwhelmed and under-resourced. If you’re not a big headline providing political glory, and you don’t have local political backing and connected lawyers, you can forget about getting a measure of justice on anything that isn’t penny-ante.  Prosecutors also fundraise from banks and their lawyers. If you’re an out-of-towner, a centenarian widow half way across the country, just have a laugh.

Consider the regulation of banks in Iowa, a state not known for robust consumer protections in the banking arena. The top bank regulator, at the Iowa Division of Banking, is appointed by the governor. The regulator who recently ended his term was a former bank CEO and was formerly the top state bank lobbyist – Chairman of the Iowa Bankers Association – and worked with government relations for the American Bankers Association. The top regulator before that fulfilled his role while serving as chairman of a state bank. The new top regulator was a president and CEO of a financial services holding company, a former chairman of the American Bankers Association and a former chairman of the Iowa Bankers Association, and I gather he will continue on various bank boards.

These are the people who are to protect Iowans from predatory and deceitful banks. Except that they are all about protecting bankers. They all know each other, it’s a tight little club in Iowa.

Several years ago I sent a well-documented history of my experience to the top regulator. His general counsel responded with a note that said “Mr. Kaltenheuser, you’ve made some very serious allegations.” It had that sort of legal attitude of “wouldn’t you really like to back off and not say those things about a bank?” I responded that “…yes, I think they’re very serious allegations. But tell me, which ones do you find to be the most serious?” Crickets. Several followups asked the same question of both the chief regulator and his general counsel. Nothing but crickets. The regulator has a lot of power. If he finds something serious, like deceptive practices or fraud, he’s supposed to lift the bank’s license. Well, they’re not very keen on doing that to their buddies. So look away, don’t look close.

But what of the “people’s lawyer”, State Attorney General Tom Miller, famed for heading up the multi-state investigation of foreclosure fraud against major banks for misleading or fraudulent statements to evict struggling homeowners from their homes? A top finance writer, David Dayen, summed up the result, “…Miller, the attorney general of Iowa, ran the 50-state investigation of foreclosure fraud, which investigated nothing and moved directly to a weak settlement that delivered shortage of affordable homes for purchase (hyperlink shortage of affordable homes for purchase.”

It paid off well for Miller, though. According to Dayen, “Within days of being announced as the lead investigator, we learned that Miller received $261,000 from banking interests for his re-election campaign – 88 times more than he ever took in the previous decade – and that he personally asked bank lawyers for contributions. Miller then famously told community groups in Iowa that ‘we will put people in jail’ for foreclosure fraud, only days later his office backtracked and said they weren’t referring to foreclosure fraud but some separate mortgage fraud investigation in Iowa (which he didn’t put people in jail for either), and then days after that he called the case ‘inherently civil,’ and days after that he appeared at the Senate Banking Committee and admitted he had two settlement negotiations with Bank of America within the first month of the vaunted investigation.

In other words he’s a phony, he’s for sale, and you can’t afford him. Miller just endorsed another bankers’ favorite for President, Joe Biden, who’s long carried the water for the finance sector and its most onerous abuses.

Bernie will set a very different tone at the top, and if Iowans miss the opportunity to help him set it, they do so at their peril.

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