Arthur Schaper: Progressive Elizabeth Warren For President?
Email to a friend
Permalink
Friday, November 29, 2013
Arthur Christopher Schaper, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™
US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) won the 2012 election unseating Scott Brown, the first Republican US Senator to represent the Commonwealth in nearly four decades. She has a diverse (or divested) genetic pedigree. She is one part (per million) Native American, so she spread her Indian headdress to take on a position at Harvard Law as a Bankruptcy Professor: perfect. She also has pretended academic claims.
By the way, I am part Native-American. My great-great-great (. . .) grandfather was Samuel de Champlain in French Canada. He married a Huron princess, and so today I am part Native-American, unless I prick my thumbs and bleed, and thus lose all my Indian heritage.
As for the collegial background, Warren’s resume is impressive: Rutgers (her alma mater), University of Texas, Austin, Houston, Pennsylvania, and of course Harvard. She’s taught just about everywhere. Then again, a rolling professor gathers no moss, or respect, or anything else.
At any rate, Warren is a vocal consumer advocate, and she chaired a committee shortly after the TARP bailouts to ensure ethics and equity. Why she did not push for putting back all the funds in the US Treasury escapes me. The cry from Main Street, USA was “No Bailouts for Wall Street.” When will DC listen?
Warren won her Senate seat, and now she chairs the committee overseeing Dodd-Frank. If any legislation exposes the long-term failure of government intervention as consumer advocacy, look no further than former US Congressman Bwaney Fwank and former US Senator Christopher Dodd’s intense pressure to regulate banks, which has promoted the Big Banks and punished the local lenders. If TARP was all about protecting us from the Too Big To Fail financial institutions, how come I see a Chase Bank on nearly every corner in my neighborhood? Why are smaller banks getting bought out, and the little guy forced to pay to just to see a teller or keep a checking account open?
On another note, she represents one of the rising rifts within the Democratic Party, a movement beset by operational failures from Obamacare, plus an appeasement agreement with Iran over the stockpiling of Uranium. As one comic quipped, President Obama and his diplomatic corps basically said to Iranians: If you like your radioactive resources, you can keep them
The Democratic Party has been fracturing on the social issues. Conservative Democrats on these issues have reserved their outrage long enough. A former secret agent worked closely with Obama, and now votes Republican. Gun control measures have hurt Democrats in swing states (two recalls ousted Democrats in the Colorado state senate) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has enlisted millions behind gun-control candidates, only to watch them go down like cardboard ducks in a carnival game
The Democratic Party is now fracturing on the gender issue. Gay marriage has strengthened conservative opposition in certain states. North Carolina banned the transformation of the marriage sacrament 60-30, while Romney barely won the state by one percent.
UN Ambassador Susan Rice of Benghazi fame was pulled for Secretary of State. Former Harvard Law Chairman Lawrence Sumner was President Obama’s first choice for Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Leftist protests demanded the withdrawal of the old white guy, and now old white lady Janet Yellen (Go, Sister, Go!) will face questions. The gender wars are upsetting our schools, unsettling public bathrooms. Now they will decide our nation’s fiscal policy. Time to end the Fed!
And now the inevitable Hillary Clinton has risen again as the 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate for the White House. She was the unstoppable nominee in 2008, until she slowly lost one state delegation after another to neophyte state senator turned US Senator Barack Obama. She supported the war in Iraq. He did not. The progressive core of the new Democratic Party, which ostracized the pro-defense Joe Lieberman (D, then I-Connecticut), which forced the hands of a minority of centrists and Blue Dog Democrats on Obamacare (they voted against it because the legislation was too expansive and expensive) is now wringing its hands, writhing in the wind over George W. Obama, who has expounded the surveillance state into our private lives while pandering to special interests, transposing transparency to mean insularity with a heated hostility to free speech and the press, which would make Richard Nixon look like a William Randolph Hearst fan. President Obama tapped the same corporate cronies of the 2007-2008 Housing Crisis to run the financial recovery during his first term. United States armed forces remain in Afghanistan, while their withdrawal will spell doom for one more misplaced foreign policy venture.
The progressives are tired of war, tired of tax cuts for almost all of us, and the ongoing Guantanomo Bay, Cuba.
Here comes Elizabeth Warren: the Progressive Democrat to upend Hillary Clinton. The New Republic carried an intriguing cover with Americans of all backgrounds wearing Warren masks. Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is not Hillary’s biggest problem. She should worry about a Warren primary challenge from her left.
If Warren did run in 2016, she could ruin Clinton’s chances for Democratic nomination, or at least expose then temper the Democratic Party’s progressive self-destruction.
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a teacher-turned-writer on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A life-long Southern California resident, Arthur currently lives in Torrance.
Related Slideshow: Selections from Boycott: The Art of Economic Activism
Prev
Next
Ernesto Yerena
Title: Alto Arizona (2010)
Origin: Los Angeles, CA
Medium:Offset
Description: Alto Arizona/Stop Arizona is a national boycott and protest movement opposing Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which its opponents allege, targets immigrants and encourages racial profiling.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Zan Studio
Title: Boycott Israel, Free Palestine (2005)
Origin: Palestine
Medium: Offset
Description: This is the first poster produced by the Palestinian Boycott National Committee to promote their call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Chandranandan
Title: Boycott Killer Carbide (1984)
Origin: Sivakasi, India
Medium: Offset
Description: This boycott was instituted in response to the world’s worst industrial disaster, which took place on December 2, 1984, at Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. The accident caused 93,000 pounds of toxic gases to sweep through the surrounding community, exposing 700,000 men, women, and children to nerve agents, carcinogens, and other toxic chemicals.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Xavier Viramontes
Title: Boycott Grapes (1973)
Origin: San Francisco, CA
Medium: Offset
Description: In September 1965, 1500 Filipino grape pickers in Delano, California, members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) went out on strike to protest years of poor pay and conditions.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Artist Unknown
Title: The Largest Rainforest Destroyer Mitsubishi (1993)
Origin: San Francisco, CA
Medium: Silkscreen
Description: In 1993, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an environmental advocacy group, declared Mitsubishi to be the leading destroyer of rainforests in the world, and began a five-year campaign against the company.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Kyle Goen
Title: Obama Apartheid Is Real (2010)
Origin: New York, NY
Medium: Silkscreen
Description: This poster was initially designed during the 2008 elections to stimulate a conversation with Obama about apartheid in Israel and Palestine, and to play off his involvement in the South African anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s. Two years later the poster was screen-printed by the artist and Existence is Resistance for the 2010 World Social Forum in Detroit, adding information in support of BDS.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Melanie Cervantes
Title: Boycott Walmart (2011)
Origin: Oakland, CA
Medium: Digital Print
Description: OUR Walmart (Organization United for Respect at Walmart), an organization of Walmart workers, formed in June 2011 to demand better hours and conditions at Walmart retail stores and warehouses throughout the United States.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Christine Ecarius
Title: Montgomery Honor Roll (2006)
Origin: Ann Arbor, MI
Medium: Offset
Description: In February 1956, 89 boycott leaders were arrested, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and Rosa Parks. The Montgomery Honor Roll poster shows some of the arrested boycott organizers and participants holding their booking numbers.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Rachael Romero
Origin: San Francisco, CA
Medium: Offset
Description: The Del Monte Corporation, one of the largest producers, distributors, and marketers of food and pet products in the U.S., was the target of a boycott campaign during the 1970s and 80s because of its involvement in the Namibian fishing industry. The Del Monte boycott campaign was initiated in response to a call by the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), which was the liberation movement pushing for Namibian independence from South African control.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Mary Sutton
Title: Divest (2001)
Origin: Minneapolis, MN
Medium: Silkscreen
Description: Divest is the opposite of invest. First implemented on a significant scale in the 1980s during the anti-apartheid campaign the divestment strategy encouraged individuals and institutions to sell their holdings in companies doing business in South Africa. This poster proposes using the same tactic against corporations making huge profits from the prison industry.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Doug Minkler
Title: Boycott Divestment Sanctions (2010)
Origin: Berkeley, CA
Medium: Digital Print
Description: In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Melanie Cervantes
Title: Dump the Prison Stock! (2012)
Origin: Oakland, CA
Medium: Digital Print
Description: Melanie Cervantes created this poster for Enlace, a coalition of low-wage worker centers, unions, and community organizations in Mexico and the U.S. working to hold transnational corporations accountable for the treatment of their workers.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Lincoln Cushing
Title: End Apartheid (1985)
Origin: Berkeley, CA
Medium: Offset
Description: In 1986, the U.S Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act over President Ronald Reagan’s veto, forbidding all new U.S. trade with South Africa or new investments in the country. The background of this poster contains names of companies doing business with South Africa.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Eric Lindroth
Title: The Grim Sneaker (2006)
Origin: Thousand Oaks, CA
Medium: Offset
Description: Nike is a major American supplier of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment and was subject to a boycott during the 1990s and early 2000s because of labor abuses at its produc- tion facilities.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Ricardo Levins Morales
Title: Liberation (2001)
Origin: Minneapolis, MN
Medium: Laser Print
Description: This statement is often attributed to Lilla Watson, Australian aboriginal elder, Murri visual artist, activist, writer, poet, and academic.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Rachael Romero
Title: Boycott Nestlé (1978)
Origin: San Francisco, CA
Medium: Offset
Description: From 1977 to 1984, an international boycott was conducted against Nestlé products to protest the company’s promotion and sale of infant baby formula in developing nations. The Nestlé boycott was the largest non union consumer boycott in history.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Common Threads Artist Grp
Title: Nobody Should Be a Slave to Fashion (1996)
Origin: Los Angeles, CA
Medium: Offset
Description: GUESS was on of the first companies to create designer jeans and was a popular brand during the 1980s, but began a downturn during the 1990s as a result of increasing competition, and growing criticism of their use of sweat- shops and sexist ads.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Frank Rowe
Title: Democratize Yellow Cab (1955)
Origin: San Francisco, CA
Medium: Linocut
Description: In 1955, the San Francisco chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) launched a boycott against the Yellow Cab Company for refusing
to hire African American drivers. This boycott, lasting two years with periodic picketing and demonstrations, was one of the NAACP’s Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work campaigns against employment discrimination.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Donnely/Colt
Title: Rosa Parks (1990)
Origin: Hampton, CT
Medium: Offset
Description: The day after Parks’ arrest, the Montgomery Women’s Political Council responded by calling for a one-day boycott of city buses. The boycott lasted more than a year and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Prev
Next
Danny Lyon
Title: Now (1963)
Origin: United States
Medium: Offset
Description: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded in 1960 by young people on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina–primarily black college students involved in the lunch counter sit-ins that were sweeping the South. Advocating nonviolent direct action, SNCC quickly became one of the most important organizations of the Civil Rights Movement.
Note: some images are details of larger works.
Enjoy this post? Share it with others.
Email to a friend
Permalink
Delivered Free Every
Follow us on Pinterest Google + Facebook Twitter See It Read It