This financial crisis and bailout has exposed the class war at its deepest roots...

This is what happens when the top 1% control 95% of the wealth....The economy becomes a game to be played and controlled by the rich, as they try to figure out how to take more and more and more and more...while giving less and less and less and less.


I saw the writing on the wall during the first days of the bail-out. Everyone agreed that something needed to be done. Yet, the top economists and analysts didn't think what WAS done would be any help. In fact, many wrote that it could make things worse. I spent three days reading every article and news source trying to piece together what was happening. And, I listed to the best of our democratic voices. Dennis Kucinich and Congresswoman Kaptaur were right out in front. They spoke feverently on the people's behalf. This video was the cry against the coming financial bloodbath...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7hekxOMliw

And, I watched our democratic Presidential candidate silently acquiesce. Yes, he made a few tepid statements stating his support was contigent upon the meaningless window dressing that did nothing more then give Americans' a false sense of protection. The day before the vote in the Senate, I called Obama's Senate office and pleaded with his office to please not support the bail-out in the current form. And, the staffer told me (verbatim) - I hate to ruin your day but Obama is going to vote for it. He was rude, he offered no counter of substance to any of the objective factual concerns I noted. It was a done deal. Now, if Obama truly faced a electoral threat from not supporting the bailout, I probably could have stomached his vote. I know political reality can be harsh, and I am not one for cutting one's nose off to spite their face. HOWEVER, the people were pretty much united against the bail-out. Dems, Repubs, Independents, Greens...whomever. People saw this for what it was - a mass theft of taxpayer money (it turns out the money hasn't been used for loans, but for the larger banks to purchase smaller banks, big fish eat little fish, they grew their company and didn't help the American people at all with OUR money. They simply took more power & now we have less choice and we are more subject to unethical fees and lending practices then ever). The American people knew they were being screwed, and I would bet a arm and a leg that if Obama had come out forcefully and decried this bill, in the same passionate way as Congresswoman Kaptaur, the American people would have stood up and given him a standing ovation. But, he didn't oppose it or demand TRUE oversight and conditions for its passage (other then the window dressing). And, to me, that spoke volumes about where the true power really lies. Not with the people, but with the very few who control the wealth. This bill wasn't for us at all. It was for them. And, Obama damn well knew it.

There are times of true test of leadership. The times that reveal where a person's loyalty and committment truly lie. This was one of those moments. Obama did have a choice. Change and leadership is not about going along with the establishment in times of great crisis. It is about challenging it and fighting back.

And, now, the people face a similiar challenge because Obama and the center right group of DLC cabinet choices are not going to do the work for us...We have to do it for ourselves. Obama is not a celebrity. He is a politician with a terribly tough job in front of him. And, he has massive pressure from powerful forces to appease corrupt forces that will do nothing but take and take and take until they have completely destroyed the country (in fact, we may already be there - Obama's chance to really help the financial crisis came as I described above. His acquiesence most likely has denied him the funds to implement much of what he wants to do. The huge elephant in the room is the one that no one ever speaks of - foreign countries refusing to finance our debt). I respect Obama's intent to govern in a bi-partisan manner, but this really is not the issue. This isn't about bringing dems and republicans together under one happy tent. This is about fighting corruption on a global scale, and excising the bought and sold politicians who work against ALL the American people. This is about stomping out propoganda that obfuscates the facts and stops real debate to find solutions before it even begins. It is about taking responsibility for our misdeeds and healing the wounds of the globe through accountability and honesty. It is a outrage beyond outrage that the criminal behavior of the Bush adminstration stands a very large chance of being absolved under an Obama administration.

The work hasn't stopped with Obama. It has just begun. Are we committed to standing up and showing up? Or, are we going to just hope Obama can fix this disaster and be given unquestioned leeway because of the D after his name?

We need to honestly examine what role we want our government to play and how best we can go about empowering ourselves and our fellow citizens of America and the globe. We need to speak out EVERY time our leaders fail to represent us. We need to show up at their offices and give mass campaign contributions to unseat every politician who fails us. We need to be relentless.

This is way past party loyalty. This is about stopping this nation's further descent into the status of a third world nation.

a chance- because that's the only real hope there is.

the pigmedia sure aint doing nuttin (to save the ham and chops and pork bellies etc!)
god damn the news media (noose media?)

without "us", "they" are nothing. "they" need to keep us confused and divided. "this" has already affected the soap opera industry.

we need to unite or be crushed

when it comes to real investigative journalism. And they won't.

the forces of reaction have always needed the news media to, if nothing else, create confusion in the public understanding (for example, local paper said the Congress gave '$25 million' to banks for bailout- but when i called and asked them why 'billions' became millions, they chuckled and said 'typooo!' sorry hahaha)...the point is that mistakes, while human, don't get drug traffickers off if they say they had no idea the pound of heroin was in their suitcase, put there by the girlfriend who took off to Brazil when she heard he was caught, or a farmer who had no idea pot was growing on the back 40, planted by biker neighbors) but to lie about what the idyet gov is up to, and get country into deeper billion dollar mess, hey that's quite alright...

the class war.

and fewer still know how to get out of it. I think Obama did the prudent thing then voting for the bailout. We had to try to at least stabilize the financial system -- clearly if that is not done nothing else matters. So far, the measures taken appear to have at least kept us from dropping off a cliff... but who know what lies ahead. I still remain hopeful that our brilliant new president and his team will figure out what to do. We should all be willing to give them some time and space. They will need it!

are we willing to "try". Looks to me like the rich have leveraged themselves to the max. and now they want our money to keep them in the gambling business. I say let the system go down. It will anyway. They are not using the trillions of middle class money to fix any thing on to line their pockets before the crash. They got themselves to big to fail, bs, let em fail.

I guess you would be ok with that. I would not. We would all suffer especially the poor and vulnerable.

Manufacturing is.

In the early 80s, finance represented less than 8% of the S&P 500. In 2008, it was 40%. And what did they contribute to our economy? Complex financial products which amounted to a shell game. Excessive fees for supposed analysis, which turned out to be highly dubious. Unholy amounts of leverage, used largely to create more flawed securities which they hawked to unsuspecting businesses and pension funds.

The financial collapse is inevitable. It's merely a question of whether we will allow the financial sector to bring the rest of us down with them or if we can finally break free of their stranglehold and rebuild a real economy.

collapse of historic proportions" as you suggest. Who sold you on that bill of goods. Sounds like extortion to me.
What we have is a mulit hundred trillion dollar pyramid scheme going. Paulson wants trillions to keep the pyramid from collapsing. But as we all know, pyramids eventually all collapse.

that President-elect Obama did not ask for more accountability as to where this money was going to go. He will pay for it in the long run for not standing up to these bunch of crooks in office.

He is not President and not a Kucinich (where Kucinich and others are lone voices out there railing against a massive tide and getting washed away). But voices like that do need to be there as the conscience just as people like Floyd Flake are the conscience of the fiscal repukes.

IMHO, at this point, it is starkly obvious to the public that the era of Raygun's deregulation is over. Even the nouveau wealthy who are still trying to find out how much they lost from Madoff's ponzi scheme, are now going to have to acknowledge that regulation of the entire industry MUST occur. Just the revelations in the last couple days will begin to seal the fate of the idiotic repukes who continue to demand "free markets" and "deregulation".

It is painful that the Democrats are left with a strategy of running out the clock of the failed 110th Congress and the hope is that when the new Congress gets in (and most particularly the Senate), they can begin to build a backbone for a change.

It was about preventing the economy from going into a complete collapse. Even liberal economists like Paul Krugman supported them.

The only part that was actually class warfare were the Republicans resistance to the auto bridge loans because of unions.

Aside from Krugman, who expressed extremely tepid support for the bailout, were there a lot of other liberal economists who thought that abandoning traditional debate and rushing through a trillion dollar bailout with no oversight and unlimited power to Paulson was a good idea?

strip the rich to give to the poor.