Free Marketeers Rally On Capitol Hill (VIDEO)

Two new videos, presenting an interesting juxtaposition of reactions to the current financial crisis, from the American News Project:

Free Marketeers Rally on Capitol Hill

On October 10th, 2008, a day when the Washington Post asked if we face the "end of American capitalism," hundreds rallied at the U.S. Capitol to support free markets and deregulation. The Bush administration may be considering nationalizing banks, but members Americans for Prosperity, the group that organized the rally, cheered the slogan, "Free markets work every time, all the time."

Fallout on Main Street: Mailman Speaks His Mind

Patrick Carroll has been a mailman for 23 years and works in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. He spoke with the American News Project and McClatchy Newspapers about how the nation's financial crisis has impacted both his own life and the people he encounters everyday.

Comments

[mntleo2]

09:51 PM on 10/12/2008

Make these idiots go away. What a bunch of nimrods. I do not believe in free markets but even if I did, first of all this is not a "free market" this is a cronyism market. Second of all, the stock market is a joke, it is just pieces of paper flying around on the Internet that some people *think* are valuable ~ most people on Main Street did not make one red cent off these greedheads' "system" only they did. As usual the elite rob us using the law and We The People are criminalized if we try to take it back.

These "haves" rallying like they have a soul for others instead of themselves, is sickening. Go HOME to your gated, overpriced McMansions you entitled blockheads! Your gates are there for a reason ~ so real Americans who actually work and pay taxes don't have to see you. Go pet your poodles and get a pedicure or whatever you do and shut the HELL up!

Cat In Seattle

[jaundicedview]

09:08 AM on 10/12/2008

Free-Market capitalism is a myth. WHat we have has is a collective (THe government) intervening on behalf of another collective (the corporation) to rob the people of their wealth, and their access to the courts (tort reform) . Privatize the profits, socialize the risk.

THe above model is self correcting to an extent... it always fails. But the free market True Believers always dig it up, dust it off, and send the stinking corpse out in to the world again and again.

[GiovanniWorld]

10:20 PM on 10/11/2008

Thank you Americans for Prosperity for standing up against a push to turn this country into a Socialist state.

Please sign petition to stop the biggest fraud in history!
http://giovanniworld.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/biggest-voter-fraud-in-history-of-usa/

[dac253]

08:52 PM on 10/11/2008

My politics are as liberal as they come when it comes to social issues, but I'm a eager student of Pat Buchanan when it comes to economics. I'm taking an introductory economics class, so 'm definitely no expert, but Protectionism just makes so much more sense to me than sending our money to despots and dictators.
http://www.theamericancause.org/a-pjb-050418-freetrade.htm

[dadw5boys]

07:04 PM on 10/12/2008

Want to learn Economics ?

Fast and easy video's.

Start with this one the story of stuff !
http://www.pinkyshow.org/archives/presents/080410_stuff/

Learn how they externalize the cost and create many things for the consumerism society !

[nikto]

06:42 PM on 10/11/2008

Yes, nothing like hearing about the Truth of Capitalism like someone
working in the Public Sector like a Mailman.

He's a child, as are they all.

[SCG2]

06:36 PM on 10/11/2008

" The people of the United States suffer from periodical financial panics to a degree substantially unknown among the other nations which approach us in financial strength. There is no reason why we should suffer what they escape. It is of profound importance that our financial system should be promptly investigated, and so thoroughly and effectively revised as to make it certain that hereafter our currency will no longer fail at critical times to meet our needs. "

- Theodore Roosevelt Osawatomie, Kansas on August 31, 1910.

[dadw5boys]

06:10 PM on 10/11/2008

Bull they shopped at places that got special treatment because they spent money for zoning. Why can a local citizen bet the same zoning without spending thousands like chain businesses.

That is not free market the is CronieCapitalism !!!!!

The rich rule and the regular joe has not rights.

[WinslowLeach]

06:01 PM on 10/11/2008

I'm glad to see that some people think everything's fine
and dandy.

Ignorance is bliss.

[anniegirl9]

05:17 PM on 10/11/2008

As someone with a backgound in education, I have always been leary of business men/women involved in school reform. I can not count the times I have heard "If I ran my business the way you run your school..." in a critical tone. They were always oblivious to the unique challenges of education. As the only business man I ever heard speak that got it said, his company made award winning blueberry ice cream. If they got a shipment of anything but grade A blueberries, they sent them back. But schools take all the blueberries no matter what.

Maybe now we will hear "If I ran my school the way you ran your business..." in the same tone. It makes me wonder if businessmen have a place in politics other than advisory positions dealing only with economic issues. For too long, these are the people that have formed social policy with economic ends in mind. Their idea - free market - no regulation - privatize everything.!

It is time we understand that political ideology and economical idiology are not the same thing. We are a Republic anyway. We have never been a true democracy, and finding ways to help our citizens will not end that.

[nikto]

02:51 PM on 10/14/2008

anniegirl9,

Great Post!

It bears repeating:

As someone with a backgound in education, I have always been leary of business men/women involved in school reform. I can not count the times I have heard "If I ran my business the way you run your school..." in a critical tone. They were always oblivious to the unique challenges of education. As the only business man I ever heard speak that got it said, his company made award winning blueberry ice cream. If they got a shipment of anything but grade A blueberries, they sent them back. But schools take all the blueberries no matter what.

Maybe now we will hear "If I ran my school the way you ran your business..." in the same tone. It makes me wonder if businessmen have a place in politics other than advisory positions dealing only with economic issues. For too long, these are the people that have formed social policy with economic ends in mind. Their idea - free market - no regulation - privatize everything.!

========================================================================
I am a teacher as well.

I totally agree with you regarding the UNHEALTHINESS of the "advice" given to Public Education (i.e.DICTATED these days) by the Business Roundtable and other Big Biz groups----The SAME PEOPLE who championed the highly-toxic NCLB!!.

Talk about crony-Capitalism!!

[Oldbuck]

05:16 PM on 10/11/2008

I was watching C-Span the other day and one of the nuts was saying they should do away with FDIC where would we be today if they had their way. You can not let the fox guard the hen house. We have got to start all over again just like 1930. I could see this coming it took longer than I though. Please vote Obama and lets get this thing started on the road to recovery.

[pbley68]

04:53 PM on 10/11/2008

Burn in hell you f**king scum.

[pbley68]

04:50 PM on 10/11/2008

Three hundred years ago these a**holes would have been burnt at the stake.

[SCG2]

04:46 PM on 10/11/2008

.... When lobbyists erupt into protest.

[DavePotts]

05:52 PM on 10/11/2008

Lobbyists would never be in favor of the free market. What good would their influence be if government was powerless to regulate?

[shockmagog]

04:34 PM on 10/11/2008

AFP:

http://www.americansforprosperity.org/index.php?state=va

Clueless to the bitter end.

[DavePotts]

04:31 PM on 10/11/2008

The idiot protesters and the American left both suffer from the delusion that we've been operating under a free market to begin with. American "capitalism" is pro-business, and not pro-market. Anyone who can buy enough influence pumping dollars into K street firms knows that. Witness AIG being dubbed "too big to fail," or any number of ridiculous government subsidies to agriculture and industry. A true capitalist would never think a business is too big to fail. Cycles of failure and success are inherent to an actual free market. Unfortunately, we've all been brought up to believe that capitalism always equals prosperity, and that we can all buy anything we want at any given time.