January 8, 2008 (LPAC)--This past weekend's media-hyped "non-partisan" or "national unity" gathering (there was no official name for the event) at the University of Oklahoma issued a statement yesterday, and today started a media blitz to soft-sell bankers' fascism. In Washington, D.C. this morning, "The Diane Rehm" program interviewed the co-host of the Oklahoma confab, former Sen. David Boren (D); and two attendees former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach (R), and Christine Todd Whitman (R), former Governor of New Jersey. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) of Nebraska was also interviewed on radio in Omaha.
Boren has been a promoter of the candidacy of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg since the first Bloomberg-Boren meeting at the University of Oklahoma a year ago, gave birth to the "Bloomberg-Boren" ticket speculation. Boren is President of the University of Oklahoma, and a leader of the Rhodes Scholarship selection process. Leach, a British-style liberal, is now President of the Institute of Politics at Harvard's (Harriman/British) Kennedy School of Government. Christy Todd Whitman, former EPA Administrator, is now a "patrician green" lobbyist. Whitman co-chairs the "Republican Leadership Council," the counterpart to the Rohatyn-Steinhardt-Lieberman DLC. The other co-chairs of the RLC are John Danforth (who attended the U. of Oklahoma meeting) and former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele.
Boren said in today's interview that America needs what was done in Britain in World War II: a national unity government. He stressed the same analogy in his C-Span Newsmakers interview broadcast Jan. 6.
He and the others interviewed emphasized that the next step is for the MEDIA to exert strong pressure on existing candidates, to forego partisanship and work towards such a national unity government. Likewise, the group's Jan. 7 statement was full of rhetoric about urging "our fellow citizens, including the news media, to join us in asking the candidates" to address problems together. But behind the bi-partisan rhetoric, the statement implied all the hallmark corporativist economics points about "prioritizing" resources for infrastructure--i.e., fierce austerity; and such present day demands, as acting on climate change. Translated: 'We can make the trains run on time, with no people in them.'
Boren called on the current candidates for President, to agree to appoint "working groups" to shape the government of national unity, and that the media must pressure them on this point. Boren has a new book to come out next month, called, A Letter to America, from University of Oklahoma Press. Diane Rehm asked, is the potential $11 billion Bloomberg candidacy put forward as a shot across the bow of the current candidates, a warning that they must go for "non-partisan" or else?
Leach praised Bloomberg and said we will see how the two parties do. It's not fair to say this was a warning shot. Boren said, it IS a "healthy" threat, that the third party is a visible option. The hope is in the two party system. There are signs that the candidates ARE responding. We must have a "time-out." Boren said that historically the two parties have "adjusted" by moving toward the center.
At the very end of the interview Boren pulled out the Fascist membership card, identifying America's greatest problems as such: we must defeat terrorism, overcome budget deficits, and rein in entitlements.
