As the impact of the citizen propelled revolt against the failed US House of Representatives $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street crashed markets around the world, Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tisked our interference in his markets and urged Congress to get on with it. Off with you, Cheerio, and all that. In so doing Rudd joined the wrongheaded chorus of leaders stunned by the fact the people remembered the fact they have the right to speak.
What Rudd was complaining about is Americans actually taking the time to run their own flipping country. As is typical the rich and powerful complain that the citizenry have no will and no voice, until we show some and then they say we have no brains. Sure, we hear the powerful condemn the people, but still we do not hear about how much Rudd or Britain's Gordon Brown are offering to help pay for the bailout they are insisting we Americans must tolerate having to pay for.Meanwhile back at home challenging our security, the US Senate is preparing for round two of the bailout battle and intending to roll out a similar bailout proposal except with the extra added bell and whistle of--come on, guess. You got it! More tax breaks for business! As reported by Yahoo, "Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., [has] called it '-a brilliant move' that will '-help pick up votes on both sides of the aisle."- Will the people call out again against this Congressional boondoggle of robbing the poor to further the rich, or will we once again succumb to the Neo-Con drug of choice, the tax break?
And if we resist, will we be heard? Or is the actual question, how loudly will we have to speak to be heard, if it comes to that.
The way the bailout reads, banks around the world are already lining up for the gravy train, while no real provisions are made to help those millions of Americans already suffering real, not inflated, losses. For all the damages the markets have done to real people throughout the years, I say let them collapse all the way back to zero like the credit houses did at the end of Fight Club. Know what the third rule of Fight Club? No, your profit margin is not more important than me feeding my family.
Remember: Wall Street is a game, a sham, a pack of lies agreed upon. The "money"- Wall Street generates is based on speculation, not actual goods or services produced. It is largely about people buying and selling each other ideas about wealth: the value of the image of a company, a bank's line of credit not the investors life savings, a housing market not a real house, the future value of pork parts. The market does not have to behave the way it does. It's a choice. The GOP did not have to deregulate and allow them to be as nasty as they want to be either. That was also a choice.
Just as nobody is forcing the banks to tighten credit on each other except the government, just because predatory practices have become the norm, it doesn't mean that is the only way you are allowed to act. On Tuesday, following the fabled Market plunge of one point two trillion in value, when everyone should have been cautious and could have been considerate, they were back in business, buying, selling and screwing each other over as usual as often as they could, once again licking their lips in anticipation of the upcoming government paid for golden parachute.
If only the people would shut their mouths and keep quiet.
Meanwhile Congress and the President shove Wall Street in our faces and try to tell us that their artificial markets with their artificial rules should have the right to take real food our of our mouths and throw us in the streets for the plutocracy's continued comfort. And yet, we see that the crisis, as oh so terrible as it is supposed to be, wasn't actually important enough for congress to work through a holiday for. Oh, how important Congress was this weekend when they "burnt the midnight oil" Saturday because of the "crisis."- No wonder they took Sunday off to let the aides type stuff up. But come Monday they had to act right away or else the markets would be lost. And then when their scheme fell through because all America roared, "HELL NO!" suddenly the crisis wasn't important enough to work through Tuesday.I know it's a religious holiday, but hey, we've been working through Ramadan. Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas. People do stuff during the holidays ... when it's really important.
Well folks, this one really is that important, and We-the-People all need to keep working. It doesn't matter which Naomi you lust or listen to, Naomi Wolf or Naomi Klein, America is at the edge of dictatorship. The Bilderbergs are only guaranteed to win if we don't shove back. Every anti-Bush issue across the spectrum is embodied in this bailout. This is the outrageously diabolical Bush world paradigm cratering under its own weight of lies.
This is the whole kill--billions for trillions in oil profits that has us in so much hot water over global warming. This is the war bought as freedom, but sold for money; and so willing middleclass thugs could go torture and destroy brown-skinned people for god and country. This is the Department of Interior partying it up with sex, drugs and oil company lobbyists as they rape the environment for their buddies in big business and terrorize hippies at the Rainbow Gatherings because of a smell in the air. This is every freedom we've traded for a scrap of security,deserving neither.
Realize this: if the best possible scenarios being woven actually occur, the same Uncle Sam we've allowed to usurp near dictatorial powers, will, by necessity, "forced by the mechanisms of the market,"- end up being the owner of the homes and businesses of millions. If that happens then the terrorist really have won and they've done it while waving a US flag.
This is still our chance. This is still our country. Time to show we still deserve it.
-mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ
