One of the best reads of my college years was Robert Remini’s three-part biography of Andrew Jackson. There was a time that Andrew Jackson dominated American politics like no other. Until FDR he was the icon of the Democratic Party — the reason there are all those “Jefferson-Jackson Dinners”.
Of course, Jackson had gigantic faults. A slave-owner, a first-class racist (if there were more Asian-Americans then, he’d have had the bigot trifecta), a gigantic hot-head, a scofflaw, and the first real “hater” we had in the White House — he makes Nixon seem magnanimous.
But there was one thing that used to be considered a detriment that maybe, just maybe, had him ahead of the curve. He hated big banks, and unlike modern Democrats he was damn willing to do something about it.
Maybe we should have a bit of Andy Jackson in our modern politicians rather than his ironic placement on a $20 bill.
In the United States, three banks hold almost 34% of the nation’s deposits, four banks issue 50% of the country’s mortgages, and the five largest credit card lenders control 74% of the market. These companies have a stranglehold on our wallets. And as we’ve seen, when they make bad decisions, they can take the whole economy down with them.
Rather than give the banking industry trillions without real consequences, Jackson at least would have threatened the leaders of Goldman Sachs to a duel — and he’d mean it.
Related posts:
- MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD
- Chief Justice Roberts on Michael Jackson: Let Him Carry His Own Lantern
- Sheila Jackson Lee Will Oppose Health Care Bill with Triggers or Opt-Outs*
- Mike Farrell Thanks Progress Illinois, Jesse Jackson Jr., Phil Hare, Luis Gutierrez for Holding Line on Public Option
- Bye Bye, Michael Jackson
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
America and its banks have developed a somewhat more complex relationship over the years since Jackson. We will have to do this carefully.
Good morning, pups. It’s The Pasty Little Putz and Krugman today. The Pasty Little Putz is all agog over “Benedict’s Gambit,” and he gurgles that Christianity’s global encounter with a resurgent Islam could be the reason for Pope Benedict XVI’s outreach to Anglicans. He manages to pack a whole lot of his regular stupid into this, along with a staggering ignorance about Anglicanism. He’s a buffoon. Prof. Krugman, in “After Reform Passes,” says if the Massachusetts experience is any guide, health care reform will have broad public support once it’s in place.
Here they are.
The coffee and tea are ready, and the biscuits are out of the oven. Mondays are bad enough just on their own. I’m never going to forgive the Times for giving that moron the Monday slot… Have a great day.
Goldman would hire a slew of
lobbyistsgunslingers.Jackson was also responsible for locating the Treasury between the WH and the capitol, I have been told, so that he wouldn’t have to look at it.
The banks have too much of a stake in our economy for us to let them fall apart, no matter how much they deserve to. Stonepillow has a good take on the problem.
Um hmm. Yep. Just follow the money. Ben is going to try to bail out some more mess with a TARP to cover it all up. We have seen how the “too big to fail” folks have valued our aid. Seriously, they don’t give a rat’s ass. More money equals more power.
That sounds like Jackson. There was a lot repellent about Jackson, but nobody has ever had a stranger life and made it to the White House. Over the years people have wondered how Lincoln could handle the modern media, but it’s Jackson that would be the weirdest, he’s one guy that I don’t think could at all handle it. He could only have thrived in the age he lived in.
Occasionally, Harry Truman could be reminiscent of Jackson, as in the episode where he didn’t think a critic treated Margaret fairly. I have occasionally mused that it might be fun to watch for changes in the behavior radio & TV talk show hosts, former VP’s, and Republican congressmen, if duelling were legalized.
Welcome to the jobloss recovery.
Non-Goldman Sachsers will need to use the entrance formerly marked “Colored”.
Stephen ColbertFred Hiatt, arguing against the public optionin the viciously union-busting Washington Post:
Who knew the little devil had such a sly sense of humor?
Funny you reference Jackson when it comes to banks! Deprivation of life and Liberty is what Jefferson feared, by banks and corporations along with usurpation of individuals rights and liberties, under the color of law?
WALL STREET, BANKS, US AUTO INDUSTRY, HEALTHCRAE, INSURANCE?
All Corporate entities which gut Americans and undermine life and liberty, while lobbyist lobby and buy law for the protection of status of interests, at the people’s and republic’s expense!
Banks with taxpayer money failing to allow the people’s tax money to flow to inventors and risk takers, for the protection of status quo interests, and the executives who seem to have more in common with: a King and his corrupt cohorts on colonial crime, as they leveraged and raped the colonist many a time, for the benefit of an Imperialistic King? Leverage economic “Involuntary Servitude,” the enemy from within! AKA Corporate Servitude to corporate aristocrats? TO hell with leveraged monopolies, corporate aristocratic who act more like GODS and KINGS, than human beings……..
You mean we need someone to spend the first part of his life killing Indians and, with his son-in-law, speculate on Indian lands and then, after ascending to the White House, DEFY THE SUPREME COURT and be responsible for the deaths of thousands of Indians? Really? We need someone like that?
New currency being developed with United States of Goldman Sachs printed on it, as well as God Bless Goldman Sachs.
Seems America needs “Jackson” like we need a modern day slave owners?
“Of course, Jackson had gigantic faults. A slave-owner, a first-class racist (if there were more Asian-Americans then, he’d have had the bigot trifecta), a gigantic hot-head, a scofflaw, and the first real “hater” we had in the White House — he makes Nixon seem magnanimous”
I think the post was referring to the issues you mention without going into an actual three volume discussion. I think it was also somewhat- tongue-in cheek. It only says, it would be nice to have someone go after huge banks.
CNN is describing the rape of America by “CORPORATION!” Health insurance corporation??? Who or what is being protected here? Not Americans?????
Billionaires plunder then federal troops called in illegally
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/143485/after_the_billionaires_plundered_alabama_town,_troops_were_called_in_…_illegally
Go after bank? Talk about an understatement! The self serving myopic corporate maggots have decimated America in their lust for power and profit.
Banks and corporations have raped America just as Jefferson warned and silent Americans remain silent, just like silent Germans.
A suggestion….. quote Jefferson on banks, corporations, greed and the deleterious effects of myopic self interest and monopolies??????
Bingo.
I thought it was pretty obvious from the title “(somewhat) like” Andrew Jackson.
He was a huge historical figure with even more gigantic faults — I thought I was more than explicit enough.
You did read the paragraph in the post where that stuff was explicitly referred to right?
Sorry, but we try not to have 1000 word posts so I can spend paragraphs on Jackson’s well-known and horrendous faults. The purpose is to get to the point, which is Jackson’s war on the banks and how a little bit of it would be good right now.
Is that oversimplifying? You bet.
I guess there were bound to be descendants of Nicholas Biddle, Lord Pakenham, John Marshall, the Bentons, John C. Calhoun, the five civilized tribes, and a host of others with reason to dislike Jackson, among the commentors. :)
Try #6 on your list and add BA in history (emphasis in US-Native relations) and MA in humanities with emphasis in history.
As far as I am concerned, saying we should praise Jackson for the other things he did but ignore what he did to Native Peoples is a bit like saying we should let Hitler off the hook because he commissioned the Volkswagen (a really good car imo).
Wow, we have someone with a MASTERS! Clear the deck.
Raven, at least I know whereof I speak when it comes to this topic, which is why I mentioned it.
I get a little tired of people glossing over this horrendous history in order to praise Jackson. Further, I would think that, even if a one didn’t care about what happened to the Tribes, the issue of open defiance of the Supreme Court would be important. After all, if President Bush would have done so, especially with Jacksons’ frankness on the matter, people on the left would have been going just slightly insane in response.
Me, I always liked Andy Jackson’s response to the Nullification Crisis wherein he basically told Southern hotheads that if they didn’t quit their talk of nullifying federal laws he’d march the U.S. Army down there and hang the lot of them. They knew he meant it, too, because he did, and Jackson had never failed to hang someone he said he was going to. It sure would be interesting to see Obama say the same thing to the moron governors of South Carolina and Texas.
And yes, Jackson did hate banks, but I’m not sure we want to replicate the Panic of 1837 wherein money literally disappeared and the country basically had to go on the barter system for several years. Me, I’d settle for seeing some of the bastards who flushed the nation’s economy down the drain metaphorically swinging in the breeze in front of their respective places of employment at the ends of a ropes made by twisting derivative contracts together. When people complain about a potentially catastrophic loss of personnel should CEO compensation be slashed, I’m not sure they know the difference between a bug and a feature in the system. Why anyone would want to retain any of these criminal losers is a question historians (and criminal investigators) will have to answer, I guess.
If you are so tired of it log off.
Morning Swim is upstairs…
Looks like we are winning the “hearts and minds” of Afghans, just like we won the hearts and minds of, Vietnamese? DUMB! War is a racket, profit at life’s expense!
As someone (with a masters) who has also spent years working on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations I too am well aware of the horrific history of many of our deified former presidents including Jackson, Grant, Lincoln and many others. I believe everyone here is too. However, many of us were having a discussion about banks.
Raven, it isn’t just people here who do it. Apparently, since the Native Peoples represent such a tiny minority in this country, Americans trying to make a political point feel it is somehow morally justifiable to minimize what the US Government did to them. Absolutely nothing new about it. I just happened to notice it here.
Telling me to log off is a bit like telling me to shut up, which is also a response that commonly occurs when Americans are reminded of this unflattering history.
That would have been my guess.
I can understand if you strongly object to a post saying it would be nice to force a large group of people to move to Oklahoma, but that wasn’t what this one did. Would you have protested if, following Texas Governor Rick Perry’s mention of nullification, someone quoted Jackson’s statement about preserving the federal union? There are a host of characters I don’t care for, but I’m more seriously concerned, right now, that there are several generations who have no concept of the lessons we should have learned about the proper role of government in protecting the public interest. I wouldn’t criticize an article that made that point, if it happened to allude to Hitler’s supposed love of dogs.
Can we have a discussion about fuel-efficient cars and praise Hitler? Would that be an ethically sound thing to do?
Forget it, pissin up a slack rope.
Attaturk hardly praised Jackson just articulated his hatred for banks and if someone said even Hitler saw the benefit of efficient automobiles that does not heap praise at the tyrants feet.
But when I was in college I learned that. . . .
Now you’ve touched on something which, at my age, is a serious challenge.:)
Attaturk,
What’s wrong with quoting Jefferson and Madison? TO much “truth” for corporate America to handle? Corporate America has replaced the King and the corporate shell, identity is riding shotgun over life! The seeds of America’s next civil war are being sown here, just as Justice Taney sealed the fate of 500,000 Americans when the SJC determined “human beings” where property, and not entitled to protection of law, for the benefit of salve owners who would deny people protection of law because it cost to much, to compensate human beings for their toils. while the aristocrats reap the spoils of leveraged economic involuntary servitude?
There is no way to rationally discuss Jackson without talking about his disregard of the Supreme Court and his history of killing Indians and profiting off of dispossessed Indian lands.
It is also important to note that, aside from all of this, Jackson’s disregard for the law throughout his career indicated that he was law unto himself. In fact, many in this country feared that he would be an American version of Napoleon.
Idealizing Jackson is nothing new. And, there is no way to honestly say that anyone could publicly have a conversation of any kind which prised Hitler’s accomplishments in life without balancing them against his role in genocide, any more than we could talk about the KKK as a religious organization without mentioning what it did to blacks, Catholics and Jews. To say otherwise is patently dishonest.
Again, American Indians represent a tiny minority and, thus, it is relatively easy to disregard their part in American History in order to make a point. As food for thought, I would also add that, in more recent times, the Tribes have fared better under Republican presidents and yet Natives have largely voted Democratic. When I am naive enough to involve myself in a discussion like this and expect anyone to take a fresh look at this history, I sometimes wonder about the wisdom of my own voting pattern.
Again, please show me WHERE Jackson was idolized?
A slave-owner, a first-class racist (if there were more Asian-Americans then, he’d have had the bigot trifecta), a gigantic hot-head, a scofflaw, and the first real “hater” we had in the White House — he makes Nixon seem magnanimous.‘
The racist-trifecta line and the “scofflaw” link both deal with his racism toward Native Americans and his flouting of a Supreme Court Order.
“….killing Indians and profiting off of dispossessed Indian lands.”
Yes the premature death of Americans and profiting off of the dispossessed property, of American who cannot afford health insurance, to have access to healthcare, because corporate health insurers discriminate for profit like slave owners and segregationist discriminate. Legalized discrimination, under the color of law? Skin color or genetic predispositions, what is the fucking difference? NONE!
Many NA recognize the advances that were made during the Nixon era. However since that time the demos have been much more assistance.
The perspective that Am Indians have (at least Plains Indians) towards good and evil is very enlightening. It is their belief that evil coexists with good and one comes with the other. This is opposed to the traditional american view that it is either /or.
or more to the point, while there are many Native cultures, one thing that is similar among all of them is the value of what is best for the community, as opposed to what is best for the individual. This is why (and I am not the only one who says this) that the Native vote tends to run Democratic.
It is my opinion that you did not give his propensity to ignore the law throughout his life and his attitudes on race, as well as the consequences of those attitudes and actions, adequate emphasis. Don’t feel too badly about it. Writers have been doing all of those things for a good, long time.
Jackson’s disregard of the Supreme Court influences decisions to this day. The Court, like the Wizard of Oz, is smoke and mirrors. They rely on the kindness of strangers. That’s why they don’t involve themselves in the wars our executive branch wages now and then. They fear they will issue an order and no one will pay them heed. They weighed in on the side of constitutional rights for Gitmo prisoners and that issue, after some years, as a practical matter remains in doubt.
But getting back to the topic..The assumption is some institutions are “too big to fail”. I am not sure this is correct especially if the government covers small depositors.
“too big to fail” BULLSHIT Corporate Welfare and protectionism for dysfunctional ways of doing business not in line with economic natural selection! Lets protect the cancer which diseases one’s liver, for the benefit of the cancer?
Anything built or designed by humans can and will fail. It’s just that with organizations like the Big Banks, the failures and rot are still given a patina of health via the actions of the governments.
Silent Germans??
If you read Attaturk’s piece, you’ll see that he would want a Jackson minus his racism, but with the courage to attack big banks and their defenders.
He heavily qualified his take on Jackson (starting with the title), and made sure he started off with a rundown of Jackson’s many faults (faults shared by a non-trivial number of his contemporaries, by the way — Jackson was very much a man of his time) before he got to discussing the one thing Jackson had that he wished modern politicians had (namely, a willingness to take on “too big to fail” banks).
What more do you want Attaturk to do, go to the Hermitage and take a dump in the flower garden?
Apparently pointing out the one thing he possessed (namely, the will to take on big banks) that modern pols should emulate is EXACTLY THE SAME as 100% utterly uncritical and worshipful adulation. Who knew?
Reminds me of the people who freak out over letting their kids read Huckleberry Finn yet have no problem with rappers dropping the N-bomb.
Damn PW that’s funny!
The concept of going after big banks is spot on, but you weren’t the first to hit the third rail referencing Andrew Jackson. I was at a democratic fundraiser in Montana and Sen Jim Webb was the guest speaker. He made almost the same argument with the best intentions. The Governor of Montana got up right after him and let him know, in front of the crowd, that he appreciated the comments on banks, but that the native Americans in the crowd and all Montanans, do not consider Andrew Jackson to be any kind of a hero. (Superintendent of Public Instruction is native American as well as many legislators)An audible gasp was heard in the room. Gov Schweitzer continued with the rest of his speech and everyone carried on.