I'm using the "double-tap" metaphor to illustrate the level of depravity and rapacious greed the political-corporate ruling class has reached. And so, just like the (war crime) act of employing killer drones "double-tap" methods to bomb a target multiple times in rapid succession, now the Wall Street criminal racketeering cartel is engaging in a second round of looting of pension funds, after having depleted them by almost $1 trillion the first time around (during the 2008 financial crisis).
In his latest exposé of Wall Street crimes, "Looting the Pension Funds - All across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers," published by RollingStone, Matt Taibbi reports on how slick corporatist hucksters with full collaboration of the political class have managed to not only continue to raid pension funds, but sell the big lie about hard-working public employees being responsible for the underfunding of the pensions.
This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker epilogue to the crisis era. Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the collapse of our economy. The resultant loss of tax revenue plunged states everywhere into spiraling fiscal crises, and local governments suffered huge losses in their retirement portfolios – remember, these public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed securities in the pre-crash years.
Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions. This war isn't just about money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it's also about blame. In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America's states and cities.
Not only did these middle-class workers already lose huge chunks of retirement money to huckster financiers in the crash, and not only are they now being asked to take the long-term hit for those years of greed and speculative excess, but in many cases they're also being forced to sit by and watch helplessly as Gordon Gekko wanna-be's like Loeb or scorched-earth takeover artists like Bain Capital are put in charge of their retirement savings.
The emphasis is mine
Taibbi of course states the obvious about this latest Wall Street scam being of an "almost unmatchable balls and cruelty, accomplished with the aid of some singularly spineless politicians."
I highly recommend people read the entire article, as it clearly explains the process by which these racketeering enterprises manage to continue their reign of of crime, unmolested, and with total impunity.
As I read one more account of the debased criminality of the system, something that comes to mind is Chris Hedges interview by Paul Jay from The Real News Network: Chris Hedges: The Liberal Elite has Betrayed the People They Claim to Defend
Why is that? It's because there's been a divorce of radical movements from the working class and radical ideologies from the working class. And the way that divorce came about is that those who had these kind of broad social visions which challenged the primacy of corporate capitalism got pushed out of the system. They're not there anymore. And so now at a moment of crisis--and we are certainly in a moment of crisis--we lack the movements which can give expression to the suffering of our underclass, and our liberal elites which once responded to those movements have been eviscerated and essentially are corporate stooges.
The emphasis is mine
In "The Treason of The Intellectuals," published by truthdig, Hedges expands on the damage the liberal elite has done to the movement for social justice:
The power elite, especially the liberal elite, has always been willing to sacrifice integrity and truth for power, personal advancement, foundation grants, awards, tenured professorships, columns, book contracts, television appearances, generous lecture fees and social status. They know what they need to say. They know which ideology they have to serve. They know what lies must be told—the biggest being that they take moral stances on issues that aren’t safe and anodyne. They have been at this game a long time. And they will, should their careers require it, happily sell us out again.
The emphasis is mine
The looting, the abuse, will continue until people decide they've had enough and bring back into the mix the radical ideologies of those with the kind of broad social visions challenging the primacy of corporate capitalism.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
- Frederick Douglass
The emphasis is mine
And there are those who are answering the call, their civic duties as citizens: Popular Resistance - Daily Movement News and Resources.
PopularResistance.Org is designed in accordance with the two-prong strategy of resistance and creation, and in the belief that there is greater strength and opportunity for success if there is solidarity in the work for peace and social, economic and environmental justice.
We can no longer sit on the sidelines, stay on the fence hoping that somebody else is going to step in and stop the corruption, the abuse, the criminality. We can all do something, even if small, even if it takes a few minutes a week. What we can't do is look the other way, apologize for the system, ignore the wrongdoing.
Let's tune in to the movement!
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