In the summer of 2001, the Bush Administration failed to heed the many warnings of an impending terrorist strike. In the wake of the 9/11 strikes they quickly rammed through Congress the most serious abridgement of our Constitutional rights since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
They also used the fear sowed by the strikes to launch the nation into a costly and unnecessary war in Iraq.
Fast forward. The Administration has again sat idly by, ignoring all the warning signs, as a financial 9/11 hit the country. But back to their old tricks, BushCo takes to heart the old notion that crisis and opportunity walk in the door, hand-in-hand.
This time they're pushing through – quickly now – a $700 billion dollar bail-out. This is the single largest Congressional appropriation ever. And it goes for what – schools, homeowners, homeland security, war? No, it’s to be thrown at banks. That’s right banks.
What’s worse is that Treasury Secretary doesn’t even want you to know what he’s doing with the money and doesn’t want to be held accountable for how it’s spent and there's wiggle room for it to go higher than $700 billion.
Yes, BushCo is trying to stall until the November election. But if you focus on that you’ll loose the bigger picture. This crisis/opportunity is about busting the treasury so they can steal your Social Security. It’s happened before.
After Argentina’s 2001 meltdown, the government confiscated individual retirement accounts to pay back creditors. These weren’t even government pensions – they were the "private" accounts – similar to 401K’s – that had replaced that nation’s Social Security-like system years earlier.
Absurd, you say. They’d never get away with that here, you say. Oh they can, they’ve spent years telling us how we should invest for own retirement and not trust the government. What better way to prove it than to throw it all at Wall Street. As Will Rogers used to say, "Republicans don’t believe government works, so they get elected and prove it".
Social Security is more than a retirement account. It’s a widow-and-orphans account, a shit-hits-the-fan account and a live-to-be-105 account.
Social Security works because it leverages small donations into a larger pool that acts as a buffer for all of us. In other words, it makes us all our brother’s (and sister’s) keepers. Its collectivism, it works and the right hates that. Their wealth and privilege is kept by telling us that their capital and "expertise" is needed to "create" jobs, technology and progress. It’s horseshit. It’s the hard-work of millions of Americans who built this country – the houses, the farms, the dams, the schools, the hospitals – not the fraudulent monitor blips of Wall Street vampires, nor their political stooges, nor their sewage-spewing media cartels.
So channel Toto here. That little dog wasn’t fooled by the smoke and colored lights. He paid attention to the man behind the curtain. This bailout quacks like a rip-off for good reason.
Let there be no ambiguity about recession or housing prices or your 401K. The bailout will not change any of those. Japan tried TWICE to bailout its banks and it didn’t work. They went into a long depression; their housing prices cratered; their stock market fell and never recovered.
The only thing accomplished by this, is that a massive amount of your money will be stolen from you and given to Wall Street.
So say it loud, say it proud, "NO BAILOUT"!
This is no time to stand watch for the death of the Republic, brothers and sisters. I want you to get angry, as angry as Lou Dobbs is about Mexicans, as angry as James Dobson is about gays, as angry as Sarah Palin is about wolves.
Again, "NO BAILOUT"!
Throw you’re bemused irony in the trash bin, flush your world-weariness down the toilet, crumple up your sophisticated ennui and set it on fire. Your brothers and sisters need you. They have no time for adolescent posturing.
So, I repeat, "NO BAILOUT"!