Begging Obama to Turn on His Banker Friends | Black Agenda Report

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.

listen

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

More Stories

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
China, Covid Origins, and War Propaganda
15 Mar 2023
A human cause of covid-19 is possible, but anti-China rhetoric is war propaganda, not scientific evidence.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
INTERVIEW: A Talk with Sylvia Woods, 1974
15 Mar 2023
An inspiring interview with Sylvia Woods highlights the role of Black women in labor organizing and demonstrates that Black women should always be at the forefront.
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
On the Twentieth Anniversary of Invasion of Iraq It Must Be Clear: The U.S. is the Greatest Threat To World Peace and Collective Humanity
15 Mar 2023
History teaches that the greatest threat to peace today is the United States. No other nation creates dangers as great as those emanating from the U.S. commitment to the doctrine of Full…
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Forever Wars vs. Armageddon
15 Mar 2023
The call for the U.S. to end military involvements is often made in order to advocate for new wars against more powerful countries. It appears that the only choices are forever wars or the end of the…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Will Boss Tweet run for exercise at Lompoc or Leavenworth?
15 Mar 2023