Ever since Ronald Reagan began redistributing wealth to the rich and regulating democracy back in the 1980's, Wall Street has run everything! They not only control our economy, they dictate our laws, manipulate our military and they own our politicians. Up till now, every president since Reagan has not only allowed this hijacking of democracy, they have nurtured it.
President Obama is correct when he says in this current crisis we have an opportunity here, but depending on what he means by that means everything. Wall Street has been affectively running everything for the past thirty odd years! They are even more powerful than their depression bringing forefathers because back then there was no military industrial complex under their wings.
If anyone is wondering what on earth I'm talking about then they should go back to recent history and recall what General Tommy Franks had to say right after 9/11 in the event another terrorist attack like 9/11 should happen. He said the military would have to take control of the government. Now was this just wishful thinking on the general's part or was it a controlled contingency plan already on the drawing boards?
Of course George W. Bush took the role of the military and ran with it, bringing us ever closer to that dangerous possibility when he pushed "his" agenda that was rubber stamped by congress giving him the unitary executive privilege that among other things, enabled him control over the governors concerning the deployment of the National Guard. It was called The Catastrophic Emergency Plan, a plan in itself that if enabled would be catastophic. Another example is when he nationalized all of our police agencies and put them under the single, solitary roof of the The Department of Homeland Security.
Not since Hitler have we seen the likes of a Nationalized police force. Back then it was called the Gestapo! Your local police now take their orders from the Homeland Security Czar, not your mayors and city councilmen, not your governors or state legislators, not even your congressional or senatorial representatives. And since major industrial wealth joined forces with the military back in 1960 and became one entity, Wall Street has been manipulating complete authoritative rule over the Pentagon. Hell! It is the Pentagon!
We can futher examine things mentioned by David Sirota's article concerning this entire Czar system, be it the Czar of the War on Drugs, the education Czar or the Secretary of the Treasury becoming the bail out Czar, having more power then congress or anyone when it came to handing billions of our tax dollars over to Wall Street without oversight, without accountability or even without the power to investigate where that money was going or how it was going to be used! And as Sirota pointed out, "We the People," although we are virtually buying bank shares in the form of the bailout of Wall Street, unlike its board members or CEO's, we get no vote on how that money, our money is to be used. At least we haven't yet.
So indeed we do have an opportunity here just as our newly elected president said. In fact I would call it a mandate and I certainly hope he sees it that way. Without powerful oversight of Wall Street, along with independent and indepth investigations into their business practices, at this point we can kiss even the illusion of democracy goodbye, because the illusion people for the past thirty years has been the only thing left of democracy.
Now for the record, let me say that I like president Obama. He is an intelligent, rational man. I believe he understands what is wrong with America and he wants to fix it. I am happy to see him beginning to fulfill some of the many promises he made during his campaign. IE the promised end to torture and extreme rendition, the closure of Guantanamo, the pull out from Iraq, the restoration of Habeas Corpus, the push for more open and transparent government. I am all for open and transparent government. But without the same rules applied to Wall Street, it won't matter how transparent government is.
Wall Street must be investigated with a fine tooth comb and the best and toughest regulators are called for. As Davis Sirota said on Bill Moyers the other night, they are out there! Once the hounds of democracy are let loose on the Wall Street foxes, the malignancies that have led us to this terrible tragedy that could get far worse, must be surgically removed and flushed from the system forever. Here is the only real action and the only real solution. Anything short of it I believe will lead to an inevitable complete military takeover just as Tommy Franks mentioned, forever changing what was once a land of freedom for all, into a permanent example of what it has now become, a free for all for a small and petty pitence of greedy, powermad hatters.
