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"My administration ... is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." -- President Barack Obama, March 27, 2009
On 3 April 2009, Politico bannered innocuously (and deceptively, given the shocking core that was buried here - Obama's statement), "Inside Obama's Bank CEOs Meeting." Eamon Javers reported Obama telling Wall Street's CEOs, inside the White House, "My administration ... is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." (This essentially secret meeting, and the comment itself, had occurred on 27 March 2009, but Javers failed to cite the date, which was indicated only under the accompanying AP wire photo of the CEOs coming out of this publicly unannounced event.) Obama's remark was implicitly analogizing here: he implied that he was protecting these people not from prosecutions for crimes (which he actually was), but instead from angry irrational mobs outside, who were driven by blind hatred (like the lynch mobs were in the Old South). Obama was metaphorically siding here with the plantation owners, not with the slaves; with the KKK, not with their victims. This elite Black was telling them that he would protect them from prosecution. He wasn't going to protect the public - which he here analogized to simply a hate-obsessed mob of bigots.
SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/obama-finally-lays-his-ca_b_3025743.html
Politico article referenced above: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20871.html
"We're all in this together." -- Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary
The thirteen bankers, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, were:
SOURCE: http://13bankers.com/title/
Why do I have a problem with that?
As a Democrat -- in every election since my first, 1976 -- I believe all people are created equal and no one is above the law, including the rich and powerful. For some reason, since Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, they get bailouts and We the People get called to pick up their tab.
On 3 April 2009, Politico bannered innocuously (and deceptively, given the shocking core that was buried here - Obama's statement), "Inside Obama's Bank CEOs Meeting." Eamon Javers reported Obama telling Wall Street's CEOs, inside the White House, "My administration ... is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." (This essentially secret meeting, and the comment itself, had occurred on 27 March 2009, but Javers failed to cite the date, which was indicated only under the accompanying AP wire photo of the CEOs coming out of this publicly unannounced event.) Obama's remark was implicitly analogizing here: he implied that he was protecting these people not from prosecutions for crimes (which he actually was), but instead from angry irrational mobs outside, who were driven by blind hatred (like the lynch mobs were in the Old South). Obama was metaphorically siding here with the plantation owners, not with the slaves; with the KKK, not with their victims. This elite Black was telling them that he would protect them from prosecution. He wasn't going to protect the public - which he here analogized to simply a hate-obsessed mob of bigots.
SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/obama-finally-lays-his-ca_b_3025743.html
Politico article referenced above: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20871.html
"We're all in this together." -- Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary
The thirteen bankers, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, were:
Ken Chenault, American Express
Ken Lewis, Bank of America
Robert Kelly, Bank of New York Mellon
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup
John Koskinen, Freddie Mac
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase
John Mack, Morgan Stanley
Rick Waddell, Northern Trust
James Rohr, PNC
Ronald Logue, State Street
Richard Davis, US Bank
John Stumpf, Wells Fargo
SOURCE: http://13bankers.com/title/
Why do I have a problem with that?
As a Democrat -- in every election since my first, 1976 -- I believe all people are created equal and no one is above the law, including the rich and powerful. For some reason, since Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, they get bailouts and We the People get called to pick up their tab.
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