U.S. Chamber of Commerce lashes out at populists

Source: The News Journal

WASHINGTON -- Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone of the 2008 political campaign, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is set to issue a fiery promise to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business.

"We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed," Chamber President Tom Donohue said.

The warning from the nation's largest trade association came against a background of mounting popular concern over the condition of the economy. A weak record of job creation, the subprime mortgage crisis, declining home values and other problems have helped make the economy a major campaign issue.

Presidential candidates in particular have responded to the public concern. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has been the bluntest populist voice, but other front-running Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, also have called for change on behalf of middle-class voters.

Read more: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080109/BUSINESS/801090347/1003

They've been spending millions every election cycle to stop progressive judges and legislators for years. Or anyone else who won't let them run roughshod over the citizens.

Usually they work behind the scenes.

These guys are pissed the working classes have the audacity to speak out against their wealth parade.

The dominant ideological strain in this country has always celebrated wealth as a sign of natural grace and equated poverty with sin.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

The Powell Memo
(also known as the Powell Manifesto)


Print-friendly Page Powell Memo published August 23, 1971
This page and our introduction were published April 3, 2004

Introduction
In 1971, Lewis F. Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell's nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell's legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell "might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice...in behalf of business interests."

Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy.

MORE including the memo itself at the link

That eliminates the scoffers who say we're paranoid conspiracy mongers.

Nobody can claim to be ignorant, now.

He first whines that campaigns shouldn't be about middle class economic security and complains about candidates even talking about it, then declares:

Yeah, we know who creates the jobs, wealth and benefits - it's people. Corporations are just groups of people who have forgotten that the government derives its legitimacy from ALL the people.

My dictionary defines "The Populist Party (1891-1904), advocating free coinage of gold and silver, public ownership of utilities, an income tax, and support of labor and agriculture."

Wow, sounds pretty subversive now, eh? I'd rather have a country where the media and political processes are controlled by corporations that are controlled by fatcats in backrooms who skim billions and take us into endless wars run by the privatized defense complex run amok that overthrows governments to steal oil and stuff.:patriot:

their hostility to democracy. We've reached a new threshold here. Congrats to the GOP for enabling this!

FRIEND. The arrogance is astounding. Without the working man/woman/child this bastard would have no wealth to accumulate. They make their money off the sweat and labor of the workers.

I have a boss who thinks exactly like this. That's why I so hate anything that smacks of big business. They're the takers. And they expect the workers to give without making a peep.

It's time for another revolution. Thomas Jefferson recommended that it would be good for the country to have one every now and then. Well, this is now. This is then.

your energy, your heart and mind, your soul -- 24/7 -- and expect nothing in return.

It's astounding.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is,
the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. - John Kenneth Galbraith

America will not survive, as a Democracy, with ANY further conservative control of ANYTHING. - Phred42

The Chamber of Commerce is a Front for the transnational Corporate Oligarchy, not, a support group for American Small Business.

The Plutocracy planning war on the American People (translation for my Conservative friends: that's you and me).

"grass-roots" my ass. Their going to spend $60 million to keep anyone with the guts to challenge them out of office - They are scared to death of Edwards and a couple of the others. None of the Democratic Candidates are Anti-Business. Two of them are for Getting Corporations back under control - Edwards and Kucinich. THAT is who this $60 million is targeted against.

I love that one.

I wonder what Conservatives would say in debates if they were called out for all the Corporate Welfare they support and that was put in juxtaposition to the Social Welfare they rail against.

The numbers would be insane and their best "keeping jobs here" justification would be a stretch at the very minimum.

Rp

Great idea

as for my quote - Hey - I'm working on it :)

We all want to work. And we all want business to do well. What this idiot doesn't understand is that businesses are undermining themselves because they are out of sync with the needs of the people - the very base of a strong economy. The greatest economic prosperity in human history occurred during the 20th century and it went hand-in-hand with the prosperity of the middle class.

What about this doesn't he get -- The more people who can afford to buy things, the more things are bought.

The problem with his mentality is he believes a few people can carry the world. He's just another greedy son-of-a-bitch who will cut off his nose to spite his face. And capitalism under his guidance will yet again hang itself by its own rope.

the surface non-nuclear fleet via Annapolis, then for "career purposes" gone into submarines, and by extension, Admiral Rickover's finishing school aka Naval Nuclear Power School.

He could do not a whit of wrong in his own self-exalted eyes, until the Navigator stood proficiency watch under him and told him that he was on his own. He sat in the floor in maneuvering and let Mr. H. have his way. He insisted upon absolute silence in maneuvering, which is more boring than boring at ahead 1/3.

After an hour or so, I saw the XO sneaking up with his headphones. I knew it would be good. Mr. H. did not see him sneak back to shaft alley.

A few minutes later, "Torpedo in the water! Snap shot Tube 4!" over the loud speaker. Mr. H. froze. No immediate actions. I said, "Engineering officer of the watch, are you in charge of the maneuvering room?" No answer. My reply, "Attention in maneuvering, the reactor operator is relieving the EOOW for cause, ahead flank!" Then rang up the bell myself and coached the throttleman to 100% reactor power while shifting the main coolant pumps to fast speed and announcing the flank bell over the engineering circuit, and driving control rods inward to control power.

I then called forward, "The EOOW has been relieved for cause, send a qualified EOOW to the maneuvering room ASAP."

Less than a minute after the stunned look on his face the Navigator and XO took one look at him and said, "Mr. H. come to my stateroom. How dare you refer to the people who run this submarine as scum and insist they sit in silence for your own purposes of self aggrandisement."

His sin: as the Navigator told us after he left with head hung low: "That sorry SOB dissed everyone of you and said that you were cogs in a machine and easily replaced at lunch today. The XO and I had a little plan cooked up for him. Now what were we talking about before H's little adventure in supervising scum, oh, yes, condors."

We then got back onto our discussion on the size of condors and the effect that DDT had had on their eggs.

He won his gold dolphins and was transferred as the pilot came onboard as we were transiting back into port!

Say Weeeee!!!

Weee

Louder!!!!

WEEEE!!!

Say it again!!!

WEEEEE!!

Squeal, you evil piece of shit!!!

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

Yeah, Mr. Donohue, that might work.


Except that having shipped all the good jobs overseas, denied us a healthcare plan, stolen our pensions, and disappeared people's equity and savings into one finance-created bubble after another, you've already destroyed the things that you once used as leverage to force us to appease you.

So your new strategy is to threaten us with the loss of things that we've already lost?

in order.

Many members proudly put their CofC emblem on the door of their establishment.

Tell them how you feel and how their dues are being used against working people and the middle class. Spread the word to your friends to do the same.

Each chamber is an individual entity. They may or may not agree with the USCoC.

USCoC members are all Big Corporations. Same with the state CoCs.
Many chambers are made up of local small businesses. I worked for a time as an office manager for one such small chamber.

maybe it's just me...

It's all bullshit and propaganda.

They depend on dues from their members to operate. It's like the businessman's' version of the NRA.

Just like the NRA, the try to make the little guy think they're working for them, but the real clout goes for the big manufacturers.

"we plan to build a grass-roots PEOPLES organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed".

Right back at you, corporate asshats!

We are MILLIONS more than you!

no business, no survival, no dues for the Chamber of Commerce.

time for the head cases who are wealthy to come down a notch.

:rofl:

Damn, can't they be original in anything? They've got to rely on the populists even for their vocabulary.

As someone already mentioned, "WHAT BUSINESS?"

Their greed has brought their own downfall, now they imagine they'll simply plot against some Democrats and that will solve the problem.

They don't seem to grasp that if they hope to be successful as parasites living off the labor of others, they can't kill the workers, or they'll be lost. Sheesh.

http://media3.washingtonpost.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-dyn/content/photo/2005/11/30/PH2005113002033.jpg http://media3.washingtonpost.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-dyn/content/photo/2007/02/05/PH2007020501300.jpg

Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue

This idea that the economy will tank unless power -- and wealth -- is concentrated in the hands of the few really needs to be dismantled.

Jan 9, 4:25 PM EST

Huckabee Pitches Economic Populism in Ad

TITLE: "Understanding"

LENGTH: 30 seconds

AIRING: Michigan

SCRIPT: Huckabee on camera: "When you grow up and life's a struggle, you have a whole different understanding of what most people are going through."

Huckabee voice-over: "We're losing manufacturing jobs. Homeowners face a credit crisis. High fuel costs are spiraling. And families are hurting. I cut taxes, built highways, reformed health care and education and achieved record job growth.

"I'm Mike Huckabee, and I approved this message, because I believe most Americans want their next president to remind them of the guy they work with - not the guy who laid them off."

KEY IMAGES: Huckabee, wearing a dark blue button-down shirt, talks into the camera before the ad switches to images of a troubled economy, including a for-sale sign and a sad-looking couple surrounded by moving boxes. The ad shows Huckabee greeting supporters on the campaign trail, mugging with a baby, speaking the night of his victory in the Iowa caucuses.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HUCKABEE_ADWATCH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-01-09-16-25-52

I always knew the Chamber of Commerce was a bunch of fascist pigs! What can we do to shut this bunch up...? Oh, I got it - VOTE progressive! Then, have our elected officials put Michael Moore in charge!

This shitty organization has participated in the destruction of small businesse and shops and little American manufacturing concerns in a way that is criminal.

It is a vampire that whores itself out for multinationals.

It is a testament to how worried they are about populist thinking that they would issue this statement. They are scared.

they see it as the people versus business. Apparently they think that if it benefits people it's bad for business.

One can pretty well bank on the fact that any policy this bunch supports will end up being bad for small businesses AND the overall economy.