(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
The following was posted on Daily Kos today, calling on Obama to reveal where his campaign funds are deposited, and demanding that those funds be transferred from the megabanks to community-based credit unions:
My campaign to challenge Barack Obama in the Democratic primary season is moving swiftly now. This week, the focus is on raising the last $300+ to be able to file for the New Hampshire primary by October 24.
At the same time, President Obama’s flood of emails tout that his campaign is approaching one million small donors: “None of us can do this alone. We’ve always relied on each other, not Washington lobbyists or corporate interests, to build our campaign.” See, he wants us to believe that he’s running a “people” campaign, unlike those nasty corporate-supported Republicans.
But while the media reports on the fundraising horse race (Obama has raised about $100 million) and Obama’s fundraising on Wall Street (whether it’s more or less than he raised in 2008, or more from Wall Street than Romney has raked in, etc), one story is shockingly unreported: not where Obama’s money is coming from, but where is it going?
And I don’t mean the $87 million in operating costs Obama has spent, according to the Times. What I want to know is, what bank (or banks) is Obama’s campaign war chest being stashed?
I know where mine is going
For years now, I have had my personal accounts at Summit Credit Union, based in my community here in Madison, Wisconsin. From here, the money in its possession supports local businesses, assists homeowners and sustains the community. Because of this simple fact, I opened my campaign’s account at the same institution, knowing that in doing so I was avoiding forcing my donors to support one of the mega-banks with their money. I refuse to feed the coffers of the very financial behemoths who have gutted our economy, by giving them more money to move into the hands of the top 1% and their CEOs via their speculative ventures.
So, truly, where is Obama’s money going? One of the main challenges posed by the Occupy movement is to the major banks. In response to the latest anemic regulations capping how much they can gouge local store owners who process debit cards, the financial titans like Citibank have turned to soaking account holders who don’t hold an arbitrary minimum balance, or in the case of Chase, even daring to make purchases with their debit cards.
This past Saturday, Citibank locked dozens of Occupy protesters inside a New York branch office and ordered the police to arrest them – for the crime of trying to close their accounts.
My challenge
Obama says he “understands our frustration.” He can prove it. I challenge him to disclose in which banks his campaign funds are held. And should it be the (likely) case that it is stashed away in the vaults of the “malefactors of great wealth,” then he must transfer those funds to local credit unions and community-based banks around our great nation. There, the money would be loaned out to improve the lives of the 99% via real community development. That would be real stimulus.
Please forward this challenge everywhere, until we know the President has seen it. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with framing himself as some champion of the people while forcing them to put their millions in the hands of the very banks that have greedily screwed us all. Not when he could use this campaign largesse to benefit We the People.
America Changes Today,
Aldous C. Tyler
http://americachangestoday.com/