Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Begging Obama to Turn on His Banker Friends
13 Mar 2013
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

A reformist group is petitioning President Obama to end his administration’s “too big to jail” policy. The petition assumes Obama actually wants to do the right thing, even though he has “placed corporate fat cats and their cold-blooded operatives throughout his administration from the very beginning, in positions where they can do the most harm.”

 

Begging Obama to Turn on His Banker Friends

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“Eric Holder admitted that the administration’s policy is to go soft on banker criminality.”

A petition is now circulating that calls for signatories to “tell Obama to end too big to jail.” It’s a project of the Campaign for a Fair Settlement, which grew out of the home mortgage robo-signing scandal. Like all the other crimes involving gangsterism by the Lords of Capital, the robo-signing scandal resulted in the incarceration of not a single Wall Street executive, much less a serious criminal prosecution of the banks involved. Instead, President Obama’s Justice Department went to great lengths to arrange monetary settlements that avoided criminalizing the corporate wrongdoers. The banks were fined, but much of the money never reached the people who had been harmed. Although robo-signing and the LIBOR interest rate manipulations were both referred to as “crimes of the century,” the corporate perpetrators shrugged off the fines as merely the price of doing criminal business.

The term “too big to jail” is derived from the U.S. Attorney General’s own statements. Eric Holder admitted that the administration’s policy is to go soft on banker criminality, for fear of causing an economic crisis. “I am concerned,” said Holder, “that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them.” The banks, said the president’s top lawyer, “have become too large” – too big to jail.

The petitioners call for an “end to the administration’s ‘too big to fail’ policy by taking immediate steps to break up the big banks and prosecute the criminals who used them to destroy our economy.”

“The concentrated capital of the financial class that represents a clear and present danger to all of humanity.”

First of all, the very act of petitioning Obama assumes that the president isn’t part of the criminal conspiracy, and that Eric Holder – who, as a corporate lawyer, defended the worst criminals that boardrooms can produce – really wants to put Wall Street’s Kings of the Universe in prison or to bring the banks down to some “manageable” size. In fact, Obama has placed corporate fat cats and their cold-blooded operatives throughout his administration from the very beginning, in positions where they can do the most harm. Attorney General Holder is using Obama’s now-familiar ploy, claiming that the administration wants to do the right thing, but is helpless against larger, sinister forces. Outfits like the Campaign for a Fair Settlement encourage this kind of delusional thinking, that Obama is the good guy who needs our help. The petitioners urge Obama to “secure his legacy as a champion of justice.”

There is no such thing as cutting the banks down to size. It is not the size of the banks, but the concentrated capital of the financial class that represents a clear and present danger to all of humanity. This class operates through a myriad of financial institutions, moving money at nearly the speed of light. Breaking up JPMorgan Chase into two or three banks does not prevent the same capitalists from using all three for the same nefarious purposes, and just as efficiently. Maybe more so, since the reformers will have convinced themselves that they’ve won.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

 



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130313_gf_BankPetition.mp3

More Stories


  • Exclusive: How Haiti’s Assassination Plot Unraveled, Minute by Minute and Text by Text
    David Adams , Jake Johnston
    Exclusive: How Haiti’s Assassination Plot Unraveled, Minute by Minute and Text by Text
    10 May 2023
    Messages and texts from those suspected of the plot to assassinate Haitian president Jovenel Moise make for fascinating reading. One of them communicated with Ariel Henry, who was named Prime…
  • ‘Anti-Black’ Claim Raised About Cuba As Solidarity Activists Stopped at U.S. Border & Black Socialists Arraigned in United States for Collaborating with Russia
    Julie Varughese
    ‘Anti-Black’ Claim Raised About Cuba As Solidarity Activists Stopped at U.S. Border & Black Socialists Arraigned in United States for Collaborating with Russia
    10 May 2023
    Claims of anti-Black racism in revolutionary countries should be treated with great skepticism. This trope is used as a tool to target countries for regime change plots and other attacks. While in…
  • Witnessing Afro Cubans and Social Change
    Austin Cole
    Witnessing Afro Cubans and Social Change
    10 May 2023
    There cannot be any discussion of Cuban politics that does not include perspectives from the African descended population. There is much to learn from people who are living in a revolutionary process…
  • This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City
    Micah Herskind
    This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City
    10 May 2023
    Cop City is the culmination of years of "Atlanta Way" neo-liberalism intended to advantage corporate interests and affluent white people. Black people have been pushed out and those that remain live…
  • Erasure vs. Sumud: How the Nakba Came to Define the Collective Palestinian Identity
    Ramzy Baroud
    Erasure vs. Sumud: How the Nakba Came to Define the Collective Palestinian Identity
    10 May 2023
    The catastrophe for the Palestinian people began 75 years ago and their struggle against the apartheid state continues.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us