I have been waiting for the people to take to the streets literally for the last eight years. We have had moments over the years when I thought... for sure... people finally will take to the streets. It cannot stand...
So we are at one of those moments again. The last week the economy went into the kind of tailspin that many of us expected. It wasn't less painful when it finally happened, but the fundamentals of 1929 have been in place for a while. The last nail, in some ways, was the Gramm Beachley act, which replaced the Glass Steegal act. In effect, all the regulations put in place after that other disaster in 1929 were finally removed.
People are angry... you just have to go through the interwebs and find posts on this. It does not matter whether it is liberal sites, or conservative sites... people are angry. Anecdotally we have also seen in person. What is more, the Paulson Plan (they have to do something... not exactly what Paulson wants to do) is getting people's attention. Yet... people are not taking to the streets. Instead, we are seating in our living rooms, and not doing much.
Well here is the first thing I want you to do. I want you to contact your congressional delegation. It does not matter if they are republican or democratic, or blue dog or progressive... contact them. Here is the contact information:
http://www.house.gov /
And your Senators
http://www.senate.gov /
Tomorrow call them.
Now if you want to expand your range, call the members of the banking committee
http://banking.senate.gov/... /
And the House
http://financialservices.house.gov /
Also call Reid and Pelosi... even if they try to ignore you
Now here are some things you can use.
Bernie Sanders told us, if a company is too big to fail, well it is too big. Agreed... there are laws in the books to deal with this. So make sure you refer to the Sherman Antitrust Law
We need Congress to re-enact the Glass Steegal act, after modernizing it of course
The people need to renegotiate the loans with the people, we do own the banks, sure let's use the power
This will increase the deficit, but we need a WPA kind of a program to get the economy going. Reality is that this tightening of credit will make businesses fail, as most work on credit, no credit no operating funds. This is a reality regardless of what happens... and a return to basic Keinseyan economics will help us to get out of the hole.
We need to cap CEO salaries... but not only on Wall Street, in general. Pay differentials are down right obscene... at this point and a CEO should not make more than 40 times than a line worker, which right now is over 500 times.
We need living wages, again to get the economy going
And of course we need to return to a mixed economy and health care must be national and single payer
These are just some of the talking points you can use... but regardless the New Deal is just a starting point of where we must go to
Oh and that safety valve... get ready to take to the streets.
And I am not kidding when I say that.
They are trying hard to go Chicago on us,,, and as Naomi Kelin wrote, the best tool is not to succumb to the shock but to be informed and use it. Resistance is possible, but the time to act is NOW. Oh and regardless of what is done, we are in for tough years ahead.
Nadin