An exclusive report from Up With Chris Hayes exposes a lobbying firm pitching to the American Banking Association that the Occupy movement is dangerous, which must be killed in order for the Bankers to be safe.
The piece concerns a proposal written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association. The proposal (linked below) is pretty damning evidence of how worried officialdom is about the Occupy movement, and some of the strategizing. The proposal theorizes that the Obama campaign might attempt to join forces with the Occupy movement if Wall Street gets tarnished badly enough. It also suggests some Republicans might do so as well if the tarnishing gets bad enough. Never mind that all politicians are tainted with receiving huge sums from Wall Street.
The vision is that Occupy and Tea Party overlap in terms of being angered populist movements. The radical left and radical right are both channeling frustration about the economy into political action. Somehow in some weird parallel universe the two movements might join together to do something traumatic to Wall Street. At least that's the story GLGC spins to the Bankers.
Their proposal outlines some actions:- Polling in some key states (Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, and New Mexico) which are both states that Obama won, and states facing key issues in front of the electorate right now. For example, Nevada is described as "ground zero for the foreclosure crisis".
Next they'd do "opposition research" looking for the financial backers of the Occupy movement, presuming that there are deep pockets people like George Soros behind this. The idea will be to show these backers have "the same cynical motivation as a political opponent" to undermine the Occupy movement credibility. Maybe at this point they're showing a profound misunderstanding of what's going on?
Social media monitoring to anticipate future Occupy actions and messaging, as well as "identify extreme language and ideas that put its most ardent supporters at odds with mainstream Americans."
Coalition planning activities would demonstrate that the companies targeted by Occupy still have political strength and that making those companies into political targets will carry political risk.
The ultimate deliverable is identifying messages that will "move numbers" (polling numbers), combat Occupy messages, and "provide cover for political figures who defend the industry."
As Chris Hayes points out, two of the names on the proposal are former staffers of Speaker of the House John Boehner.
They also had an Obama campaign spokesperson on, Anita Dunn, to discuss this. One critique of the Obama campaign is that they've taken a huge pile of campaign contributions from Wall Street, so doesn't that tarnish the campaign? Ms. Dunn replied, sidestepping the question, that the majority of their contributions are small ones from individuals. Didn't really answer the question. She also said that the tough financial reforms against Wall Street were won by the Obama Administration, demonstrating that Obama isn't in the pocket of Wall Street.
Exclusive: Lobbying Firm's Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street (VIDEO)
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/CLGF-msnbc.pdf
Obama Campaign Responds to "Up" Exclusive on Lobbyist Plan to Take Down Occupy Wall Street
The piece concerns a proposal written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association. The proposal (linked below) is pretty damning evidence of how worried officialdom is about the Occupy movement, and some of the strategizing. The proposal theorizes that the Obama campaign might attempt to join forces with the Occupy movement if Wall Street gets tarnished badly enough. It also suggests some Republicans might do so as well if the tarnishing gets bad enough. Never mind that all politicians are tainted with receiving huge sums from Wall Street.
The vision is that Occupy and Tea Party overlap in terms of being angered populist movements. The radical left and radical right are both channeling frustration about the economy into political action. Somehow in some weird parallel universe the two movements might join together to do something traumatic to Wall Street. At least that's the story GLGC spins to the Bankers.
Their proposal outlines some actions:- Polling in some key states (Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, and New Mexico) which are both states that Obama won, and states facing key issues in front of the electorate right now. For example, Nevada is described as "ground zero for the foreclosure crisis".
Next they'd do "opposition research" looking for the financial backers of the Occupy movement, presuming that there are deep pockets people like George Soros behind this. The idea will be to show these backers have "the same cynical motivation as a political opponent" to undermine the Occupy movement credibility. Maybe at this point they're showing a profound misunderstanding of what's going on?
Social media monitoring to anticipate future Occupy actions and messaging, as well as "identify extreme language and ideas that put its most ardent supporters at odds with mainstream Americans."
Coalition planning activities would demonstrate that the companies targeted by Occupy still have political strength and that making those companies into political targets will carry political risk.
The ultimate deliverable is identifying messages that will "move numbers" (polling numbers), combat Occupy messages, and "provide cover for political figures who defend the industry."
As Chris Hayes points out, two of the names on the proposal are former staffers of Speaker of the House John Boehner.
They also had an Obama campaign spokesperson on, Anita Dunn, to discuss this. One critique of the Obama campaign is that they've taken a huge pile of campaign contributions from Wall Street, so doesn't that tarnish the campaign? Ms. Dunn replied, sidestepping the question, that the majority of their contributions are small ones from individuals. Didn't really answer the question. She also said that the tough financial reforms against Wall Street were won by the Obama Administration, demonstrating that Obama isn't in the pocket of Wall Street.
Exclusive: Lobbying Firm's Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street (VIDEO)
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/CLGF-msnbc.pdf
Obama Campaign Responds to "Up" Exclusive on Lobbyist Plan to Take Down Occupy Wall Street
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