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As a rule, I think political figures should be cautious about throwing around phrases like “un-American.” It’s one thing to use the line in reference to obviously offensive policies — “torture is un-American,” for example — but to describe Americans as un-American is generally an attack best left unsaid.
Someone might want to let Herman Cain know.
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain says the Occupy Wall Street protesters are un-American and against capitalism.
Speaking to The Associated Press during a book signing event Wednesday in St. Petersburg, Fla., Cain said the protesters shouldn’t rally against Wall Street bankers or brokers because “they’re the ones who create the jobs.”
This came the same day as Cain telling economic victims, “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!”
Right. In Herman Cain’s mind, if you’re outraged by corporate excesses, and Wall Street recklessness has left you in dire financial straits, you’re lazy and you’re unpatriotic.
Lee Fang’s reaction struck me as the right one.
[I]t’s not anti-capitalist to protest an industry that was saved by trillions of taxpayer dollars and returned the favor by fighting against common-sense regulations. Plus, contrary to Cain’s assertion, Wall Street bankers are in the business of making money, not creating jobs. Many private equity firms make billions by buying out companies, laying off employees, and re-selling the company once it begins generating more profit. Other hedge funds and investment banks simply speculate on a number of different aspects of the economy, such as the price of oil.
Some ultra-profitable Wall Street firms have even turned toward cannibalizing their own, laying off brokers and other employees to pad quarterly profits. And considering the fact that risky Wall Street bets plunged the financial system and caused an unemployment crisis, Cain might be a tad out of touch when he suggests that Americans should be thanking Wall Street.
Keep in mind, Cain’s not the only one. Larry Kudlow called the protestors “un-American,” Sean Hannity said they’re “anti-freedom,” and the right in general has done its very best to characterize Occupy Wall Street as villains.
It’s just bizarre. Americans who support economic justice, tax fairness, and responsible corporate conduct are apparently supposed to be seen as enemies. While Americans who took to the streets, at corporate lobbyists’ behest, to complain about their economic anxieties in 2009 were to be celebrated, we’re told, these Americans are to be mocked and dismissed.
There’s no reason for the right’s worldview to be quite this twisted.
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T2 on October 06, 2011 2:08 PM:
sure there's a reason. It's brown and lives in a White House.
Trinity on October 06, 2011 2:09 PM:
They honestly don't believe that this will come back and bite them in the ass. I hope every day that the GOP gets CRUSHED at the polls. I know they have rigged the game but I'm a dreamer. It could happen.
stormskies on October 06, 2011 2:10 PM:
And let's not forget that when the government gave the banks all the money they did so as to remain solvent there were supposed to use that money to also create loans in many different ways ...... they didn't of course. Instead they hoarded the money and bought up other assets like banks in order to make themselves even bigger. What we have now is an economy that is not much different than giant casinos operating on Wall Street. Nice to know the economic fortunes of our country are utterly linked to these giant casinos in which they are so cleaver that they can no longer even loose the bets they make.
eskeld on October 06, 2011 2:14 PM:
here's my prediction: somehow the movement will get focused (or co-opted) on a specific reform proposal, for example, not allowing BoA to to charge for debit transactions. But winning that proposal will take so much effort that, when it is won, the energy will be exhausted.
Don't let them make you into one voice, OWS!
Bob M on October 06, 2011 2:18 PM:
It's always a good sign when the other side calls you dumb names.
Davis X. Machina on October 06, 2011 2:24 PM:
There’s no reason for the right’s worldview to be quite this twisted.
Team spirit. Up heah in New England. Hatred of the Yankees is equally irrational, and equally fervid, but it at least is blissfully consequence-free.
The problem comes when you swap your Federalist Papers for a big foam "We're #1" finger, or cross out "We the people," replacing it with the political version of "Yankees suck."
Danp on October 06, 2011 2:25 PM:
Cain and Kudlow are among the 1%. They have a different concept of America. The pharaohs produced jobs, but doesn't that miss the point?
c u n d gulag on October 06, 2011 2:25 PM:
The reason is that like good little whores* who do what their pimps tell them, and like 'good' soldiers, the Republican politicians and MSM Conservative pundits are "Just Vollowing Zee Orderz!"
*My apologies to sex workers everywhere for sullying the term 'whore' by including it with Republican politicians and MSM Conservative pundits.
You didn't deserve that.
Sorry!
Grumpy on October 06, 2011 2:26 PM:
Capitalists who make their fortunes by doing nothing more than move money around don't create any jobs. Cain should ask Romney how that works.
Josef K on October 06, 2011 2:33 PM:
There’s no reason for the right’s worldview to be quite this twisted.
The only thing I can think of is mercury poisoning, but they aren't exhibiting other signs of neurological damage as you'd expect.
Guess we'll have to chalk this one up to simple human stupidity and greed, not to mention having no clue what the real world is like.
Mitch on October 06, 2011 2:36 PM:
Basically in the mind of most conservatives anyone who is rich is a "job creator" even though many of them do nothing to create jobs at all. The wealthy may have half of the money in the nation, but they do not -and cannot- spend in equal proportion. I see it very strongly in the small-ish business that I help to run.
The "Trickle Down" hypothesis does not hold water. There is no evidence that it works at all. Quite the contrary, the healthiest times for our nation's economy (the post-Depression/post-WWII era) were characterized by high taxes on the wealthy, strong employee rights and a large amount of government funded public works.
But modern conservatives seem to feel that all you have to do is give the rich more money and it somehow magically makes everything better. It's a religion to them. Which is why they cannot understand the protests. They cannot be expected to question their own dogma.
siameese.cities on October 06, 2011 2:37 PM:
I'm sure Occupy and Tea Party tallies both featured anti-bailout signs. I'm amazed at the talent Fox has as painting one of those signs as patriotic and the other as socialist.
And the addition of unions won't help, if any NYFD or soldiers have a presence, they'll be brainwashed or traitors or whatever... the intellectual gymnastics of the right is truly astonishing, but the gullibility of their consumers is depressing.
golack on October 06, 2011 2:38 PM:
Lest not forget the Wall Street Tax. Wall Street is getting it's cut of the action off each transaction, so there are increasingly more transactions. It stifles small business and if there's a buyer for an idea will gleefully foreclose on a small company to sell that idea to a big firm (which may just want to kill it so it's own business is protected). It runs the economy into the ground and refuses to take any responsibility. "Risk management" is nothing more than passing around bad debts is a dangerous game of musical chairs--but doing that by spending other people's money, while profiting handsomely. Talk about being the takers.
Local bankers willing to invest in and build up their own community don't exist. Indeed true investment is an anathema to Wall Street. Collapse of capitalism. Was the Soviet threat the only thing that kept our system in order???
Ron Byers on October 06, 2011 2:38 PM:
I love it. Cain, Kudlow and the rest are acknowledging the protesters are having an impact. The next days could prove interesting. Right now the corporations are working their media people hard to shut down the movement. Can they do it? I don't think so. If not the next months could get interesting.
If the crowd isn't appeased in some way by spring we could have a really hot summer of 2012. What will it take to appease the crowd. Off hand nothing short of economic fairness and a lot of new jobs. The younger generation wants a shot at the American dream. Young Americans want jobs.
The Congressional Republicans are just too focused on things inside the beltway to see what is happening. I wonder if Congressional Democrats are just as blind.
Memekiller on October 06, 2011 2:41 PM:
Since 1992, American has been defined as "Republican" by e GOP. More disturbing is how many major media figs find this a very reasonable position, and those who don't as extreme.
bigtuna on October 06, 2011 2:47 PM:
The bullet points are easy to pick off - yesterday, I suggested the Leo Apotheker HP parachute for his driving HP further in the ground.
Today - I suggested the Koch bros. selling stuff to Iran.
Tomorrow - how about Mittster's fine job creation record at Bain?
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/romney/articles/part3_main/?page=8
So when Fox news asks a question, or Sean H. spews bullshit, answer with one of these points - so , tell me, why do we give millions to fired, disgraced CEOS ? How is that in the investors' best interests? Why is subsidizing job destruction a govt policy? Why do we not investigate US corps. that do business with Iran? Where did the billions in reconstruction $ in Iraq go? Why do we deny voting rights to Americans?
Hell, there are so many egregious examples of anti capitalism / anti Americanism from the corpocracy in the NY times, LA times, WSJ, etc., that one doesn't even have to go to Mother Jones for material.
keep up the good work.
dalloway on October 06, 2011 2:49 PM:
What drives me absolutely crazy is that not only did taxpayers bail out the banks when their casino business model collapsed, but THAT WAS WHAT TANKED THE ENTIRE ECONOMY. The ordinary Americans who were hurt didn't set out to get mortgages they couldn't afford -- the bubble created by the financial industry made them unaffordable by decimating the value of their homes when it popped. As a result, we're all much poorer. But Wall Street, thanks to us rescuing them, is much richer. That's why the protesters (and the rest of us) are so angry. Not only did the banks get bailed out when none of us did, but they were responsible for the catastrophe in the first place!
Krowe on October 06, 2011 2:51 PM:
"They are unanimous in their hatred for me, and I welcome their hatred"
ComradeAnon on October 06, 2011 2:52 PM:
Herb, Herb, Herb. You can't out crazy Sarah or Michelle. You just ain't got the tits to get away with it.
memekiller on October 06, 2011 2:54 PM:
If rage over the bailout spawned the Tea Party, why do the bailed out billionaires bankroll them?
mrgavel on October 06, 2011 2:54 PM:
Since the end of WWII Democrats have believed that the reforms of the New Deal had been accepted by both the American public and the Republican Party. They believed that because no credible Republican nominee campaigned from 1944 to 1964 on a platform that called for repealing the New Deal. Then, in 1964, Goldwater got crushed and the Democrats believed that there was a consensus in the United States about the social safety net.
While Democrats still believe that to be the case, recent events have shown us that this consensus is now over. Today's Republican Party wants to do away with much of the New Deal, the entire Great Society, and replace it with the kind of economic order that existed in the 1920s and 1930s before the election of FDR.
They truly believe that people who are wealthy are "better" than those who aren't wealthy. Their kids "deserve" better lives than the kids of people who aren't wealthy. They deserve to live in much better surroundings than those who aren't wealthy. They shouldn't have to fight America's wars, wars that their class supports, because they are too "good" for such things.
Seen from that perspective, it is obvious that they are going to react they way they are reacting. If you want this group to give up power, then you are going to have to take it from them. That is the only way it will happen.
JW on October 06, 2011 3:00 PM:
Same old same old. Loyalty oaths were little more than a declaration that the "pre-mature anti-fascist" crowd (and fellow traveling New Dealers) were The Domestic Enemy.
g on October 06, 2011 3:00 PM:
So let me see if I have this right.
Spontaneous, grassroots protesters living in parks under tarpaulins, challenging the power of corporate control of our political system = Anti-American.
Costumed, signwaving protesters charter-bussed in by corporate lobby groups, calling for toppling the duly elected President and Congress of the United States = "patriotic."
TCinLA on October 06, 2011 3:37 PM:
There’s no reason for the right’s worldview to be quite this twisted.
What planet do you live on in which alternative universe, where such a statement would be accurate???
Of course the right's worldview is "this twisted"!! It's why they're the Right!!
Geez loweez
kevo on October 06, 2011 3:48 PM:
Hey Herman - what do you think? Were you on your side of the equation when Dr. M.L. King Jr. was called UnAmerican? If so, what do you think now of Dr. King's efforts?
Hey Herman - you are treading on dangerous territory when you accuse your fellow Americans of something unbecoming when all they are doing is exercising their Constitutional rights!
Hey Herman - Who the Fool, Fool? -Kevo
Doug on October 06, 2011 8:46 PM:
"While Democrats still believe that to be the case(a consensus concerning the social safety net), recent events have shown us that this consensus is now over." mrgavel @ 2:54 PM.
I have to partially disagree. True, PARTY consensus seems to have disappeared, but while Republican activists are committed against the social safety net, that can't be said of many of those voting for those same Republican candidates.
That the consensus DOES remain, among Republican voters if not among Republican officeholders, has been shown by poll after poll; as well as being demonstrated in special elections where radical Republicans have to run against "regular" Republicans (often to the benefit of the Democratic candidates).
The current Republican dividion between an activist base that supports extremely right-wing anti-government aims and the remaining mass, and majority of "Republican" voters, absolutely necessary for victory at the polls, doesn't make for good Republican electoral odds, MSM notwithstanding.
Your points about what Republican voters "believe" are probably accurate. One's personal status/position in a hierarchical "society" (as opposed to "Society") and the maintenance of that status/position, have been a major drawing point for Republican supporters since TR bolted the party in 1912. The pity of it is that the election of Romney, Perry, or whoever would actually INCREASE the strains that causing such rapid shifts in status/position, but the "believers" can't accept that.
I almost feel sorry for them...
Robert Waldmann on October 07, 2011 3:09 AM:
Cain is crazy. I know that some people believe that the money you make is proportional to the jobs you create, but I wouldn't have expected any of them to be a successful businessman. You are very right that a lot of super rich people who work on Wall Street are like Casino owners except that Casinos employ people dealing the cards and spinning the roulette wheel.
However, I disagree with Lee Fang on one key point. Wall Street "was saved by trillions of taxpayer dollars and returned the favor by" repaying loans with extremely high interest. The US Federal Government made a profit saving the banksters (counting the Fed's huge profits and the small profits from the bank saving parts of TARP which add up to more than the estimated cost of saving Fannie and Freddie (which is much greater than the expected value of the cost of saving Fannie and Freddie conditional on currently available information)).
The case against the bankers is that banking is very important and they did it very badly causing the great recession. But the bank bailout didn't cost trillions of dollars. It didn't cost zero dollars. It cost less than zero dollars.
This is very important, because it shows that while banking is vital to the economy, the Treasury can do it much better than the banks. This isn't because Treasury secretary Hank Paulson is smarter than Goldman Sacks CEO Hank Paulson. It is because when you are diversifying risk, bigger is better. Simlarly, banks are useful even if bankers are not particularly smart. The crisis showed two things -- banks are very useful and bankers are very bad at banking.
Yes, in case you asked, I am advocating socialism. Not public ownership of everything, but public ownership of risky assets. The past 3 years proved that this move towards socialism increases economic efficiency.
Involuntarily unemployed on October 08, 2011 10:04 AM:
Good article! Kudoz to Benen, and to Lee Fang.... well said! I have an idea! Lets "inundate" the Internet with articles like this one, let's make this the "Internet Revolution Against American Greed", against those that are the real unpatriotic and un-American, the ones that took the taxpayers money to make themselves richer without any consideration to those that were losing their jobs and their homes!