STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 25 January 2012

[Demeter]

22. How to Turn Up the Heat on Democrats Occupy Obama by JOHN STAUBER FROM OCTOBER

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/21/occupy-obama/

President Barack Obama is no longer running unchallenged in all the major primary states, thanks to activists in Iowa who are focusing their Occupy Wall Street activism onto the headquarters of the Obama for President campaign office Saturday, October 22, in Des Moines. The “Occupy Obama” event is being organized in part by veteran rabble rouser Hugh Espey and his highly effective Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, a grassroots force that has been fighting for economic and social justice since the 1970s. CCI members are already participating in Occupy Wall Street actions in nine Iowa towns. Occupy Obama seems a logical next step to escalate the movement further into national view and create the potential for debate and organizing within the Iowa presidential caucuses in January.

Espey criticized Obama by name in a Des Moines Register guest editorial of October 6, 2011 announcing CCI’s support for Occupy Wall Street actions in Iowa. “Our political leaders are too busy asking big banks and Wall Street corporations for campaign contributions to push the ‘put people first’ policies that this nation needs,” he wrote. CCI will march on Obama’s campaign headquarters in Des Moines on Saturday. This Occupy Obama action could catch fire nationally, especially given the frustration widely voiced that not one prominent Democrat is willing to oppose Obama in the Democratic Party’s primary races. Occupy Obama could partly fill that void. “We’ll deliver a simple, powerful message to Obama staffers, and do a speak-out as well. We want regular folks telling the Obama staffers what they think. We want Obama to understand that the 99% demand action from him to put communities before corporations and people before profits,” says CCI.

Obama’s social and economic justice rhetoric, and his opposition to the war in Iraq, won him the 2008 Democratic nomination and the presidency. Millions of independents, young and ethnically diverse voters found him a compelling agent for the “Change” and “Hope” he extolled as a mantra. But the failure of Obama’s policies to adhere to his campaign rhetoric should not really be surprising. Candidate Obama in 2008 beat every other Democrat in collecting the most campaign contributions from the wealthiest funders of the Democratic Party, the 1% as opposed to the 99%, aka Wall Street. He has announced his goal for 2012 of raising one billion dollars which again will require the firm support of the very wealthiest Democratic Party interests.

President Obama has been a huge disappointment on issues across the board, yet he was running unchallenged in the primaries until CCI announced its Occupy Obama action. Don’t be surprised if this Des Moines event is the start of a successful nation-wide Occupy Obama movement. In Iowa an Occupy Obama movement has real potential because it could choose to become a player in the Iowa caucuses in a way that is much more than symbolic. Occupy Obama activists could show up at the caucus meetings in January, for instance, and organize support for an Uncommitted slate of Occupy Obama convention activists. These Uncommitted delegates could provide a critical voice on the floor of the Obama convention in the summer of 2012...

INTERESTING SPECULATIONS AND PREDICTIONS FOLLOW...