The CEOs of eight major banking institutions sat before Barney Frank's House Committee today and seemed shocked - shocked! - that anyone would think they had anything to do with the end of capitalism we are now witnessing. It was black comedy without parallel.
Meanwhile, President Obama continues to push a "stimulus" program that simply does
not address directly the meanest aspects of the current financial chaos
: mortgage foreclosures. Until this issue is confronted by re-financing mortgages, making cash payments to keep people in their homes, forgiveness of missed payments --
whatever it takes -- this crisis will continue and worsen.
Yes, there are other issues left behind by the Bush Crime Family that are slowly rotting the core of this country. (Was there any area of governance the Bush thugs did not corrupt, destroy, make toxic?) Demanding immediate attention are the critical issues of the evaporating job market, the enormous deficit, the incomprehensible national debt, the failure of every regulatory agency in government to do its job, an ever-growing mountain of credit-card debt that simply will not be paid.
The list is endless and it cannot be repaired. It cannot be repaired. No matter how much money is thrown at these crises, the system cannot be repaired .The system itself must be replaced, beginning with an end to the rapacious banking and predatory financial service con games that, together, have destroyed capitalism sooner than it would have destroyed itself.
Why is this reality not being addressed? What needs to happen here to drive home the essential point that capitalism as it has been known for the past two centuries is dead. Do we have to experience a national catastrophe so profound it will make the iconic Great Depression seem like an historic blip on the global economic continuum? Apparently, we do. And the crashing of the U.S. economy we are now both witnessing and being absorbed by will viciously accommodate.
And our political leaders? It's astonishing the depth of their denial, the theatrics of their hearings, and the futility of the legislation the Republican swine attack as "liberal," and the Democratic "centrists" fervently advocate as the only alternative to "catastrophe."
Until we truly face the reality that the system cannot be repaired we are going nowhere. We are a snake swallowing its own tail. We are a blind man lost in a coal mine at midnight.
It may be time to follow Thomas Jefferson's suggestion regarding the tree of liberty.
Ya' think?
Mike Malloy is a former writer and producer for CNN (1984-87) and CNN-International (2000). His professional experience includes newspaper columnist and editor, writer, rock concert producer and actor. He is the only radio talk show host in America to have received the A.I.R (Achievement in Radio) Award in both (
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