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Published on Saturday, May 2, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Mortgaging the White House
Finally, here we are at the end of this week of a hundred days. As everyone in the western world probably knows by now, this benchmark for assessing presidencies goes back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who arrived at the White House in the depths of the Great Depression.
In his first hundred days, FDR came out swinging. He shut down the banks, threw the money lenders from the temple, cranked out so much legislation so fast he would shout to his secretary, Grace Tully, "Grace, take a law!" Will Rogers said Congress didn't pass bills anymore; it just waved as they went by.
President Obama's been busy, but contrary to many of the pundits, he's no FDR. Our new president got his political education in the world of Chicago ward politics, and seems to have adopted a strategy from the machine of that city's longtime boss, the late Richard J. Daley, father of the current mayor there. "Don't make no waves," one of Daley's henchmen used to advise, "don't back no losers."
Your opinion of Obama's first 100 days depends of course on your own vantage point. But we'd argue that as part of his bending over backwards to support the banks and avoid the losers, he has blundered mightily in his choice of economic advisers.
Last week, at a hearing of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) monitoring the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to correct AFL-CIO General Counsel Damon Silvers. "I've practiced law and you've been a banker," Silvers said. Never, Geithner replied, "I've only been in public service."
We beg to differ. Read Jo Becker and Gretchen Morgenson's front-page profile of Secretary Geithner in Monday's New York Times, and you'll see how Robert Rubin protégé Geithner, during the five years he was running the New York Federal Reserve, fell under the spell of the big barons of banking to whom he would one day help shovel overly generous sums of money at taxpayer expense.
During "an era of unbridled and ultimately disastrous risk-taking by the financial industry," the Times reported, "... He forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street's giant financial institutions.
"His actions, as a regulator and later a bailout king, often aligned with the industry's interests and desires, according to interviews with financiers, regulators and analysts and a review of Federal Reserve records."
Wined and dined at the Four Seasons, and in corporate dining rooms and fine homes by the very men whose greed and judgment helped bring on the Great Collapse, Geithner became so much a favorite of the Club that former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill talked with him about becoming the bank's CEO.
According to Becker and Morgenson, "Even as banks complain that the government has attached too many intrusive strings to its financial assistance, a range of critics -- lawmakers, economists and even former Federal Reserve colleagues -- say that the bailout Mr. Geithner has played such a central role in fashioning is overly generous to the financial industry at taxpayer expense."
The two reporters write that Geithner "repeatedly missed or overlooked signs" that the financial system was self-destructing. "When he did spot trouble, analysts say, his responses were too measured, or too late."
In choosing a man to manage the bailout of the banks who's so cozy with its players, and then installing as his White House economic adviser Larry Summers, who in the Clinton administration took a laissez-faire attitude toward the financial industry which would later enrich him, the president bought into the old fantasy that what's best for Wall Street is best for America.
With these two as his financial gatekeepers, President Obama's now in the position of Louis XVI being advised by Marie Antoinette to have another piece of cake until that rumble in the streets has passed on by.
In fact, other Wall Street insiders -- many of them big contributors to the Obama presidential campaign, and progressive in their concern for the public interest -- privately are expressing serious concerns that Geithner, Summers and their associates are leading the president and America's taxpayers down a path toward further economic disaster.
This week, as Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois unsuccessfully fought for a congressional amendment he said would have helped 1.7 million Americans save their homes from foreclosure, the senator told a radio station back home that, "The banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."
He could say the same of the White House.
In his first hundred days, FDR came out swinging. He shut down the banks, threw the money lenders from the temple, cranked out so much legislation so fast he would shout to his secretary, Grace Tully, "Grace, take a law!" Will Rogers said Congress didn't pass bills anymore; it just waved as they went by.
President Obama's been busy, but contrary to many of the pundits, he's no FDR. Our new president got his political education in the world of Chicago ward politics, and seems to have adopted a strategy from the machine of that city's longtime boss, the late Richard J. Daley, father of the current mayor there. "Don't make no waves," one of Daley's henchmen used to advise, "don't back no losers."
Your opinion of Obama's first 100 days depends of course on your own vantage point. But we'd argue that as part of his bending over backwards to support the banks and avoid the losers, he has blundered mightily in his choice of economic advisers.
Last week, at a hearing of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) monitoring the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to correct AFL-CIO General Counsel Damon Silvers. "I've practiced law and you've been a banker," Silvers said. Never, Geithner replied, "I've only been in public service."
We beg to differ. Read Jo Becker and Gretchen Morgenson's front-page profile of Secretary Geithner in Monday's New York Times, and you'll see how Robert Rubin protégé Geithner, during the five years he was running the New York Federal Reserve, fell under the spell of the big barons of banking to whom he would one day help shovel overly generous sums of money at taxpayer expense.
During "an era of unbridled and ultimately disastrous risk-taking by the financial industry," the Times reported, "... He forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street's giant financial institutions.
"His actions, as a regulator and later a bailout king, often aligned with the industry's interests and desires, according to interviews with financiers, regulators and analysts and a review of Federal Reserve records."
Wined and dined at the Four Seasons, and in corporate dining rooms and fine homes by the very men whose greed and judgment helped bring on the Great Collapse, Geithner became so much a favorite of the Club that former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill talked with him about becoming the bank's CEO.
According to Becker and Morgenson, "Even as banks complain that the government has attached too many intrusive strings to its financial assistance, a range of critics -- lawmakers, economists and even former Federal Reserve colleagues -- say that the bailout Mr. Geithner has played such a central role in fashioning is overly generous to the financial industry at taxpayer expense."
The two reporters write that Geithner "repeatedly missed or overlooked signs" that the financial system was self-destructing. "When he did spot trouble, analysts say, his responses were too measured, or too late."
In choosing a man to manage the bailout of the banks who's so cozy with its players, and then installing as his White House economic adviser Larry Summers, who in the Clinton administration took a laissez-faire attitude toward the financial industry which would later enrich him, the president bought into the old fantasy that what's best for Wall Street is best for America.
With these two as his financial gatekeepers, President Obama's now in the position of Louis XVI being advised by Marie Antoinette to have another piece of cake until that rumble in the streets has passed on by.
In fact, other Wall Street insiders -- many of them big contributors to the Obama presidential campaign, and progressive in their concern for the public interest -- privately are expressing serious concerns that Geithner, Summers and their associates are leading the president and America's taxpayers down a path toward further economic disaster.
This week, as Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois unsuccessfully fought for a congressional amendment he said would have helped 1.7 million Americans save their homes from foreclosure, the senator told a radio station back home that, "The banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."
He could say the same of the White House.
63 Comments so far
Show AllNothing new here. Kudos to Bill for holding Obama's feet to the fire. I never could figure out why Obama supported this bailout to begin with. It goes against everything he stood for.
Rest assured though: your best bet is to focus on securing local organic food supplies. The food system is going to collapse under its own weight. Some of us give it 3 - 6 years. Others say sooner or later.
None of the people I know are survivalists. Just practical people who are sick of their sick-causing non-nutrient dense food.
"We have the best Congress money can buy."
Mark Twain
… and with inflation factored in,
we get less and less
for
more and more dollar$
Namaste
There was no mystery about how obama would preside as president if elected as it became apparent that he would be the democrat nominee, he assured that nomination by stepping up to corporate america and the american izraeli public affairs committee and guaranteed the full support of america for both, all other priorities rescinded.
Just before that, I was sure I would vote for him but, after pulling out the nation's wallet, and the creeps in the senate and house, led by reid and pelosi respecitvely, both who sided with obama for those corporations and izraeli fundamentalist, that was when I knew I could never vote for either of the 2 parties which in reality is just one party, the corporatist/izraeli party.
With that being said, I dread to think but do believe the real 1000 year reich has been officially born. No make that the 2000 year reich, as in 2000 years the next ice age will start to build and even those sorry bastards won't be able to prevent that; hopefully they will die with their money, gold and gems stuffed in their mouths while trying to eat it to keep from starving.
Check out the movie "The Obama Deception". It's on youtube.
I did not like the Webster Tarpley portion of the movie but the rest was quite good and on the mark with the Wall Street takeover of the Whitehouse.
Don't be fooled by the small stuff.
Get a bigger picture, a paradigm shift of history.
It is not everyday that you read something and it changes your whole conceptualization of the world.
The two documents below do that.
The implications will challenge how you look at politics, economy, history, finance, war and terrorism. Many persons in the documents are well known; many are right now in pivotal positions of politics and finance. These people do shape YOUR life and that of our children right now. The details are researched and referenced. The consequences would be beyond belief.
The two documents are long and some parts not easy to follow and to digest. Don’t give up, just read on. They provide the most interesting information (and some parts read like a thriller) and at the end of the second part you might be able to make much more sense of what is happening with this world.
Read it. It's worth it.
It will be one of the most important reads you'll ever have.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9442970/Collateral-Damage-US-Covert-Operations-and-the-Terrorist-Attacks-on-...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9421535/Collateral-Damage-Part-2-The-Subprime-Crisis-and-the-Terrorist-Attac...
If systems of production-distribution-consumption (pdc) had never changed, all of us would be out there in what is left of the world's woods searching for berries and some of us would hunt for stray dogs and stray cats. The economically safest place would be the Amazon Rain Forest.
Pdc's do change however and there are numerous causes why they do. The two top causes are technological revolutions and increase of population density. If you can safely feed a dangerously increased tribal population with agriculture rather than with hunting-gathering, agriculture will eventually replace hunting-gathering. It may take a "people's-revolution", a change of thinking to outside the envelope.
Have salient technological revolutions occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries? Almost too many to list here. Let me restrict myself to two: nuclear weapons and personal computers. Obviously there could be pages and pages of additional ones.
Population density? It is beginning to dawn on "leaders" today that the population densities of numerous nations (today's unit of what was once a tribe) have become so large that they can neither fully control nor predict what their "subjects" want or will do even with the most sophisticated polls.
President Obama and his minions are the rear-guard of a pdc system destined to disappear. There is no question that the new system will preserve aspects of the old one but it will, nay must guarantee the feeding, clothing, housing, and health of all without the traumatic interruptions of capitalist collapses. The country that is the first to abandon capitalism as we know it and puts into place a new pdc system of this kind is guaranteed to become a world leader if not a world powerhouse.
Unless something drastic happens/changes in our country, we will not be that front-runner.
The Calvary isn't coming to save us. Were all on our own. God help us, because Obama and Co. sure as hell aren't going to.
Yups, I hope Obama will help us to get relief from the economic crisis,
KareenCancer Treatment Forums
Obama promised that if elected his presidency would not be business as usual, but that was then and he was still campaigning. And, while Obama also mentioned that he was looking forward to Hillary advising him as president, he somehow failed to mention that he was bringing back bubba's financial team too, the very same team that pulled the final cork out of the bottle setting the stage for the current financial debacle. The voters should have caught on the moment Obama cast a vote in favor of allowing at&t off the hook for spying, but people were so spooked by the possiblity of bush cheney being followed by a tortured man and wolf killing hockey mom wearing lipstick, that it didn't matter that at&t was not only let off the hook, but sponsored the denver convention. No, Obama, it was always business as usual with you.
" The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)
"He somehow failed to mention that [Obama] was bringing back [Clinton's] financial team too, the very same team that pulled the final cork out of the bottle setting the stage for the current financial debacle.'
This is dead wrong.
If you keep blaming the Democrats for Republican screw-ups, we're never going to get anywhere. ;)
The Clinton White House fought repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as hard as it could, but powerful Congressional Dems wanted to kill Glass-Steagall. The White House fought them as well as Gramm on this issue.
Clinton signed the bill because it had a veto-proof majority. The battle was over.
As blogger Joe Cannon notes, "Clinton fought to get the best deal that he could, but gale-force political winds were against him."
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2008/09/hard-times-blame-clinton.html
There you go. If the bankers ran our government, the Clinton Administration would not have fought repeal of Glass-Steagall.
This further suggests that--despite endlessly repeated claims to the contrary--our problem is not systemic. We just picked the wrong guy to be President.
["The Clinton White House fought repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as hard as it could, but powerful Congressional Dems wanted to kill Glass-Steagall. The White House fought them as well as Gramm on this issue.
Clinton signed the bill because it had a veto-proof majority. The battle was over."]
ah, yes, the classic "they forced me to do it" and "I didn't have a choice" defenses. And, I'm sure bubba's financial boys had to be forced kicking and screaming all the way to the bank with the millions in personal profit that they could not of course envision coming as a result of popping the cork, ha!
... more on this from Moyer's Journal > http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/bills_column/
Somehow I think we'll be seeing a lot more of these defenses being used in the near future.
"The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt," Kennedy. "They are accepting money from the same corporations. And of course, that is going to corrupt you." - RFK Jr.
duder, you really can't be that naive.
as someone pointed out on CD before elsewhere, if clinton's opposition was any more than for show, he would have vetoed it and forced a revote.
you do realize that presidents (and politicians) are "against (or for) things" all the time when it costs them nothing and their position is ineffectual anyway.
Everyone keeps saying this..I moaned out loud when I heard who Obama was picking (not that I supported him anyway).
If he was going to "get it", he would have by now.
If the poster shouldnt have voted for McKinney, who should they have voted for?
Far from not backing losers, Obama has surrounded himself with them and taken their advice. Geithner, Summers and Emanuel, et al., are part of the problem. Their cozy relationships with the swindlers who created the economic collapse with their greed and shortsightedness have led to hundreds of billions of dollars borrowed from Asia in the name of future American generations being poured into a black hole, enabling the crooks to continue with business as usual but not increasing credit availability, which was the justification for this massive corporate welfare. Obama's erstwhile, generous campaign donors from Wall Street made the best investment of their careers.
The money comes with few strings attached. There is no meaningful re-regulation and no requirement that they lend the money forked over to them. Obama has backed a loser with a very high price tag, and in the Democratic primaries of 2012 it will surely come back to haunt him.
The charade is over. The corporations control the government. It' time for the House and the Senate to pass the joint bill that changes our countries' name from USA to USA inc.
Don't forget our new theme song :
V I R U S A __ I n c .
[ __ Virus Я US __ ]
Thoughts on the comments, so far:
In California bait-and-switch advertising by retailers is illegal. Presidential candidates rarely live up to such a principle, Obama included.
White House to Whore House? Lighten up on whores. At least you know what you're getting. And they don't only serve (service?) the rich!
McKinney's a raving banshee.
http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com
STDDave wrote "McKinney's a raving banshee"...
Lighten up on Banshees...!
They are powerful women who shreik truth and justice in the face of callous somnambulists...
Empowered and successful and righteous women like Medea Benjamin, Amy Goodman, and Cynthia McKinney...
Their words and actions thrreaten the existing power structure on all levels... And their integrity and relentless struggle are examples to inspire and strive to emulate... I know how this can feel threatening to some people who are insecure or misinformed...
I usually just ignore the drive-by slurs of "bait & switch" self-promoting posts...
But the irony was too hilarious on this one...
I wonder if Bill is gonna cover the 2009 AIPAC Treason Fest, starting tomorrow.
"Marie Antoinette to have another piece of cake"
Actually, it's time to stand up for the lady. While this is a quote widely thought to have been from her, it was NOT. It was part of the propaganda used against her in an effort to discredit her...and, it worked. There is no reason, however, to perpetuate it. Where history can be corrected, it should be.
And, we look forward to the time when Obama shall awake and correct his most obvious mistakeS-- the Wall Street buy-outs who are pouring our taxpayer money into this STILL UNREGULATED financial debacle AND our LARGELY UNQUESTIONED entry into yet another war.
WHY WAS it that NO ONE even questioned him on this during the 100 Days speech? What has become of the reporters who are left? Are we do understand that they are so cowered as to not even ask the question now?
lindasutton, this is like talking about the 'mistakes' GWB made. He didn't make any. He did exactly what he set out to do - turn your life into hell on earth while locking you down and giving richfilth animals the run of the yard. BHO is the same and he hasn't made any 'mistakes' either. A 'mistake' would have been helping the mortgage holders and NOT the banksters. That would have been a 'mistake' of epic proportions and might have gotten him killed or a coup. In the same way when he murders SSI/Medicare, kills off the last of the unions, and makes debt inheritable like wealth, that won't be a mistake, nor will it be a betrayal - he never intended to work for you, that was just advertising and like Nike claimed in court, they're entitled to lie...
peece.
times up for the havemores.
Really? Fooled me. Obama has been handing the havemores trillions last time I looked. He's tossed a few pennies out here for the rest of us @ this pt. Hell, BV$H tossed more last yr. Obama has a winning way and great smile, beyond that so far he's just been another Corp. flunky.
BEST IDEA HEARD IN A LONG, LONG TIME !!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Members of Congress should be
compelled to wear uniforms
just like NASCAR drivers
so we could identify their corporate sponsors.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Members of Congress should be compelled to wear uniforms"
Yes, orange in color with black hoods.
Yah, they could be pimped up real nice!
There's only one possible solution to the constant interference in, and buying off of, our government by special interests. LOBBYING our congressional and government personnel in any form from which they gain a personal benefit must be OUTLAWED and made into a CRIMINAL OFFENSE!
It's the only way to return our country to a "government by the people and for the people." Our congressional personnel are currently operating under a distorted belief that they are both the masters and beneficiaries of a "government by the elite and for the elite" (special interests) of which they are, de facto, a part.
Our political leaders are not stupid - "you don't bite the hand that feeds you." And they are constantly being fed plenty (in the form of money, privileges, and notoriety by every special interest imaginable). When are we going to wake up and DEMAND a return to the government that was fashioned by our founding fathers (who were common people) - a government by the people and for the people?????
Creating a third party is NOT the solution. It would be only a matter of time (and probably a very short time) before that third party would be just as dirty as the others.
MAKE LOBBYING A CRIMINAL OFFENSE!!!! (It unfairly robs American Citizens of the right to be treated “equally!”)
minitrue, I love it. If someone who can photoshop took pictures of Senators and Congressmen, and stuck corporate logos of their biggest contributors on them, with their names and the bills they voted against underneath and posted them on UTube! Make them ridiculous. That would be so cool a way to inform people. It could be called The Skunk List.
Kathy
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
M I N I T R U E
Very well spoken and seriously creative revelation.
Or instead of just visual clues, …
How about they keep labeled marbles in their mouths
proportionate in size to the payoffs.
This would take the wind out of their verbose sails.
OR
Actually place Members of Congress in 'race vehicles'
that are dragging behind hooked weights
proportionate in size to the payoffs.
Their votes then could be proportionate to how far around the track that they could move .
Namaste
Senate Defeats Measure to Aid Homeowners: "President Obama had publicly supported the proposal but refused to actively lobby for its approval." http://www.democracynow.org/2009...5/1/ headlines#8 - Now I'm shocked and horrified. Oh my, whatever shall we do. I know, like Captain Jack Sparrow, we can pretend its all just a bad dream....
it's always been a bad dream - the American one.
The Sickness is systemic. The White House is only a more dramaitic & overtly visible symptom. When FDR took a scythe to the diseased wheat it was new growth. Now though the field Obama stands in is rooted, sickened for generations and calcified.
The final result of allowing corporations to bribe politcians legally. Campaign donations. PAC's. Lobbyists. Pols targeted for defeat if they buck Israel.
Until now The Sickness is Systemic. From dumb Christians who now don't follow Christ's teachings but want Armageddon? To the drug addicted child molesting "rush" "thinking" for 1/2 this country. To every pol an Israeli pol.
To every corporation bragging about "their man" in DC.
The Sickness is Systemic.
And the Viral Agent is Greed,
Ancient, wheezened, grasping,
Now sucking the life out of
Mother Earth Herself.
A cure looms, a la 1917.
Wall Street is a name left over from the days of New Amsterdam, as is so much of New York.
In old Amsterdam the financial district was also located on De Wallen (the walls).
It is now the red light district.
We need to alter the Constitution to allow titles , again. Not the inherited type though. We could sell titles to the uber-rich and then we'd all know whose really who in America. Guys like Trump or Gates would pay millions to be called LORD TRUMP or BARON GATES etc. Their kids will pay to keep the titles as well. This idea that America is a middle class society is wearing thin. It's the BIG LIE. Let's let our masters have their titles like in old England and France. Just let them pay big time for them. Is it really any different then the creative License plates many States sell these days?
Imagine the prices a Fed. auction would garner for the title of BARON or BARONESS of NYC or Chicago. Prince of NY or LORD of Calif. It could raise billions from these egotistical pricks.
Actually this reminds me of one Conrad Black.
He was a press baron and a crooked one at that who was fascinated with the Idea of being titled a Lord like the Canaidan Press baron Lord beavorbrook before him.
The problem was that the British Crown could not confer said title on Mr Black unless the Canadian Government agreed and our Government would not do so.
Mr Black then renounced his Canadian Citizenship and moved to The United Kingdom where he was granted the title and made a LORD.
Now a few years later he is up on trial in the United States for all manner of wrongdoings. His lawyers point out that if he had Canadian Citizenship rather then British Citizenship , he would have more protections in the Courts. Just as example he could ask to serve his sentence in a Canadian prison and the Governmnet of Canada would likley grant him parole far earlier then the one in the USA.
So our Good Mr Black has a change of heart and tries to regain his Canadian Citizenship.
americans live like peasants for the most part
no health care, lousy schools, worn out highways, dangerous bridges and a run down tired and corrupt political system that would make mugabe blush at the avarice and greed of the controllers
the congress and senate - bought and paid for - ironically with our own money
there is a scam of herculean proportion
get the sheeple to pay for their own destruction
major thanks to the corporate media - they couldn't have done it without you
the republic now has an advanced case of syphilis, complete with dementia and rotting gums
insane and inane
the world would be a much better place without us
simple as that
You should add our Imperial military everywhere enforcing the Pax Americana Corp. style. Oh and how about we don't torture..LOL. It's sad to have had to watch this once proud land decline my whole life. We've allowed ourselves to be taken over by scammers and swindlers. Bernie Madoff's by the bus load. The ONLY thing that matters in this dark land today is $$. If you have it then you are among the saved. If you don't your fucked and your told over and over again, it's 100% your own fault. The Gov't is run and for the Corp. elite and the people that work for it. The rest of us matter little.
I believe this is the right time to start a new party. The Republican party is on the verge of collapse. There are many honorable people on the right who have no place within it's ranks. As well, civil libertarians have no place in either party. There are many people who are deeply worried by the imperial policies of the current administration. People who actually believe in our Constitution, in justice, need our own party because we have no place as Republicans or Democrats. We have one corporate party with two slightly different wings. We need the Constitution party. I think it is the only chance we have of rebuilding out of the current economic, foreign policy and civil liberty disaster that defines our present situation.
I see some interest in this, but I wonder how we deal with the split between the Ron Paul-style libertarian folks who might well secede from the Republican Party, given their profound disagreements with both the Christian right and especially the neo-cons.
Nader's poll results showed that he scored as well with Republican as Democratic voters in most places. This suggests that even though libertarians are frighteningly regressive in terms of any kind of social program or regulation of industry, many can vote a genuinely progressive ticket, at least on a least-worst basis.
I would argue that the Republican Party represents these people even worse than the Democrats represent progressives. Imagine registering Republican because you thought of yourself as a "small government" person, then being presented with a Reagan or Bush candidacy -- or worse, with a Reagan or Bush budget!
Those people have to be awfully unhappy these days.
The quickly evolving fascist version of the Republicans is the only "new" party in the United States. Having shed almost all of their so-called "moderates", they are skippingly on their way to becoming American National Socialists. They await their Hitler, as they once awaited their Reagan. They are a cancer and no political radiation or chemo is going to kill them off, or even put them in remission.
"Don't make no waves," one of Daley's henchmen used to advise, "don't back no losers."
The double negatives make me nervous. Does Obysmal talk like this when he's alone with Top Ramen Emanuel?
With these two as his financial gatekeepers, President Obama's now in the position of Louis XVI being advised by Marie Antoinette to have another piece of cake until that rumble in the streets has passed on by.
Obama's own corruption will eat him alive, just as George Wanker Bush's did.
They should just rename the White House to Whore House.
I've referred to it as the Shite House for more than 40 years.
42 of them come monday, may 4th.
Wall Street is a name left over from the days of New Amsterdam, as is so much of New York.
In old Amsterdam the financial district was also located on De Wallen (the walls).
It is now the red light district.
Then Senators who voted against the mortgage bill should be called what they are: pimps.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
It has a nice ring, a ring of truth, to it. But I've thought about this, and technically they aren't whores. They aren't so much selling themselves as they are selling us. It might be more accurate to call it the Pimp House or refer to the hired help in Washington as "Madams" since we are the ones being sold and screwed. They're just collecting a nice fee for it.
We've Been Pimped on! Say the Jolly Banksters.
sat in in English Tavern and they decided to have another failure.
Excellent idea!
No,
giving whores a bad name
does nothing to solve our deeply entrenched problems
Yah, they are honest compared to politicians. At least they provide a service for the money they receive.
Obama bringing in Geithner and Summers to run the economy was like Bush bringing Cheney to run the energy programs. Congress has long rejected the concept of conflict of interests. Recent presidents are simply following that lead. And both Congress and the Administration have become so obscenely brazen in flaunting their rejection of that concept that one must conclude that they are now one with the top echelons of the top 1% who account for 95% of the wealth in this country. America can now be truly classified as an oligarchy.
[from Wikepedia]
Oligarchy (Greek Ὀλιγαρχία, Oligarkhía) is a form of government where power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or religious hegemony. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for "few" (ὀλίγος olígos) and "rule" (ἀρχή arkhē). Such states are often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned and mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy.[citation needed] Oligarchies have been tyrannical throughout history, being completely reliant on public servitude to exist.
The last sentence in this definition perfectly exemplified by the above article. Socialism is evil, except when bailing out your comrades. The rule of power becomes the rule of law. The term 'land of the free and home of the brave' refers to the freedom to take capitalism to it logical conclusion, and the braveness to take it there with total impunity.
Should anyone be surprised by the current state of affairs in this country, they need only review the behavior of its founders. The Europeans who first came to America were an oligarchy in relation to the indigenous peoples. The present is merely the seeds of the past come to fruition. The fruit is ripe for picking, and indeed is being picked like there will be no tomorrow. But there will be a tomorrow. And if the gluttons have not filled their bellies to the point where they are unable to run away from the barren trees, their bellies will be slit and the food therein will be taken. But alas, it will not be taken be the servants, as their dignity has been eclipsed by their apathy. No, it will be taken by the next oligarchy. In the same way that oil used to be the oligarchy in America, its belly is at this very moment being cut open. The auto manufacturers are now the servants of the financial oligarchy whose public relations division is Congress and the Executive branch.
Who, you might ask, will that next oligarchy be????
Some will claim that this revolving door of oligarchies has been going in circles forever, and will simply continue to revolve. I would claim that it is not revolving, but spiraling, and nearing the top. A financial oligarchy is the queen of oligarchies. It produces nothing tangible, and has only a single tenet, as was expressed by Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, when asked if, having $50B, isn't that enough. His response was was, in a somber- even sad tone "It will never be enough." The only worthy opponent of this queen is Mother Earth, herself. Even though she is being gang-banged into oblivion, she WILL survive. SHE will be that next oligarchy. And the corpses of humanity will be her servants.
Mother is speaking loudly but the oligarchs and technological triumphalists are deaf to her words. It would be good if people would remember that it may not be about us, it may be about the rocks!
"...But we'd argue that as part of his bending over backwards to support the banks and avoid the losers, he has blundered mightily in his choice of economic advisers..."
- NO. It is not a "blunder." Obama was perfectly well aware of what Summers & Geithner represented when he picked them. He did it deliberately, & supports what they're doing.
"...the president bought into the old fantasy that what's best for Wall Street is best for America..."
- Again, it's intentional. That's precisely Obama's viewpoint. He's the bankers' man.
Dave, once Obama realizes that the financial system in America is a myth, he will float like a butterfly to the real economy, but too late to be taken seriously.
That 13 T. is being ladled out to keep the BIG Int'l Corp. power structure sound and intact, not just America. America we most all remember is just one state in an Int'l Corp. system these folks run. The American military is it's police force and Wall st. and now the U.S. treasury it's bankers. The rest of us are just it's pawns, nothing more. Obama, will throw a few scraps from the table over the next 4 yrs. to keep the masses ( pawns) in check but the best pieces of pork will always go to the guys/gals of the top 1%. ( the new largely untitled Aristocracy.)
What we are is what we think we are. My life is increasingly absent contact with banks and corporations. They cannot survive on people like me. I am already living in the new economy and can survive the demise of the old one. I have no interest in Washington. Their policies do not control my life. My future is local.
Not a lot of new information or perspective in this piece from Moyers.
Just a reminder: Bernanke and the Fed has given away 10x's the amount to the financial industry that the Treasury has.
Also...
For those of you keeping score at home: 13 Trillion $$ has been given away to the Banks, 900 Billion $$ to the People (Obama's economic stimulus package).
That's a ratio of 13 to 1 in favor of the banks.
Considering that 72% of GDP comes from the economic activity of the people shouldn't these numbers be switched around?
This is trickle down on steroids that would have Milton Friedman dancing the jig...all courtesy of our liberal president and his well-meaning economic team.
That's right Cygnus, Obama is practicing trickle down economics while his rhetoric states that trickle down was a failure. That stretch is well beyond realistic even for the nuanced. The Orwellian spirit lives in Obama.
Did you perhaps mean "trickle-up economics"?
Unlike you, Bill, I voted for Mckinney. Why not put your rhetoric in confulence with your vote next time?
First you need to organize to win... Nobody really believed Mckinney like many other candidates could win.
Elections are about getting political power for the majority of voters.
There are plenty of 3rd parties... They don't seem to ever get together on a candidate.
Coalitions is how they do it in a parliamentary system... so third parties need to stop with this "we are the only and the best" and unite for truth and justice and Peace.
Splitting votes among the Outsiders is how the Big Jolly Bankers control at the polls.
Are these tactical truths outside Bill Moyer's range to promote?. It is for the people to organize for political power.
It takes 50 million votes to have a chance in the real world of hard ball politics.
There were about a dozen or more presidential candidates on the ballot in Florida... How many in your state?
McKinney spoke of reparations for Blacks as important. She did not mention Native Americans or ending the quiet genocide in America that continues to this day. No thanks, McKinney does not have the balance needed for a President.
This tired saw really needs to get put to rest once and for all. Vote your conscience, and stop making excuses!