Real Change Depends on Stopping the Bailout Profiteers
To understand the meaning of the U.S. election results, it is worth looking back to the moment when everything changed for the Obama campaign. It was, without question, the moment when the economic crisis hit Wall Street.
Up to that point, things weren't looking all that good for Barack Obama. The Democratic National Convention barely delivered a bump, while the appointment of Sarah Palin seemed to have shifted the momentum decisively over to John McCain.
Then, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, followed by insurance giant AIG, then Lehman Brothers. It was in this moment of economic vertigo that Obama found a new language. With tremendous clarity, he turned his campaign into a referendum into the deregulation and trickle down policies that have dominated mainstream economic discourse since Ronald Reagan. He said his opponent represented more of the same while he stood for a new direction, one that would rebuild the economy from the ground up, rather than the top down. Obama stayed on this message for the rest of the campaign and, as we just saw, it worked.
The question is now whether Obama will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy. Or, alternately, whether he will use the financial crisis to rationalize a move to what pundits call "the middle" (if there is one thing this election has proved, it is that the real middle is far to the left of its previously advertised address). Predictably, Obama is already coming under enormous pressure to break his election promises, particularly those relating to raising taxes on the wealthy and imposing real environmental regulations on polluters. All day on the business networks, we hear that, in light of the economic crisis, corporations need lower taxes, and fewer regulations - in other words, more of the same.
The new president's only hope of resisting this campaign being waged by the elites is if the remarkable grassroots movement that carried him to victory can somehow stay energized, networked, mobilized - and most of all, critical. Now that the election has been won, this movement's new mission should be clear: loudly holding Obama to his campaign promises, and letting the Democrats know that there will be consequences for betrayal.
The first order of business - and one that cannot wait until inauguration - must be halting the robbery-in-progress known as the "economic bailout." I have spent the past month examining the loopholes and conflicts of interest embedded in the U.S. Treasury Department's plans. The results of that research can be found in a just published feature article in Rolling Stone, The Bailout Profiteers as well as my most recent Nation column, Bush's Final Pillage.
Both these pieces argue that the $700-billion "rescue plan" should be regarded as the Bush Administration's final heist. Not only does it transfer billions of dollars of public wealth into the hands of politically connected corporations (a Bush specialty), but it passes on such an enormous debt burden to the next administration that it will make real investments in green infrastructure and universal health care close to impossible. If this final looting is not stopped (and yes, there is still time), we can forget about Obama making good on the more progressive aspects of his campaign platform, let alone the hope that he will offer the country some kind of grand Green New Deal.
Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that terrible thefts have a habit of taking place during periods of dramatic political transition. When societies are changing quickly, the media and the people are naturally focused on big "P" politics - who gets the top appointments, what was said in the most recent speech. Meanwhile, safe from public scrutiny, far reaching pro-corporate policies are locked into place, dramatically restricting future possibilities for real change.
It's not too late to halt the robbery in progress, but it cannot wait until inauguration. Several great initiatives to shift the nature of the bailout are already underway, including bailoutmainstreet.com. I added my name to the "Call to Action: Time for a 21st Century Green America" and invite you to do the same.
Stopping the bailout profiteers is about more than money. It is about democracy. Specifically, it is about whether Americans will be able to afford the change they have just voted for so conclusively.
Naomi Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, now out in paperback. To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org
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Perhaps a little economic wisdom was actually written in the bible under 'warning to rich oppressors'. The globalists have failed to pay the workers who plowed their fields of money and it wasn't the financial market workers though quite a few of them weren't paid the kazillions.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.
Thanks Naomi for elevating all the true nature of Friedmanite theory to the level you have. I couldn't read much of your book as it made me so upset though I feared much of this when Clinton signed NAFTA so many years ago. Since 2004, I put very little into my 401k (ultra conservative funds) and took after tax dollars (back by liars and massive debt, commonly known as faith and credit) and put into physical precious metals bullion. Now there are severe shortages of physical precious metals bullion or coins available everywhere. The predictions from a number of precious metals investor types on the web are COMEX will default on these 'commodities', formerly known as real money, as the disconnect between paper and physical precious metals continues to expand and futures traders starting demanding physical delivery from COMEX.
If gold isn't real money why does every private central bank in the world have it? (thought food for preponderance if we dare)
"What's most striking about Jeffery's résumé, however, is an item omitted when his new job was announced: He served as executive director of Paul Bremer's infamous Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, during the early days of the Iraq War. Part of his job was to hire civilian staff, which made him an integral part of the partisan machine that filled the Green Zone with Young Republicans, investment bankers and Dick Cheney interns."
Of Obama's candidates, who are the Perkinsian Economic Hit Men?
"Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane," Lutzenburger told Summers. "Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in... If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/lawrence-summers-africa-i_b_141706.html
Who are these 'economists,' and their brethren wolves in academic clothing? Who's giving them their marching orders?
PS: If you can't marry me, I'll get over it ;-] If Prometheus has a sister, I'll bet she's a lot like you.
D'oh! I forgot to ask: will you marry me?
Hey neighbor, thanks for the great post. I agree: now that we've broken the inertia, now that we're more energized than ever, we can't let up. We have to continue to insist on the change we demanded, or we'll get a repeat of the failures after the 2006 midterms that DIDN'T get us what we voted for.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your UChicago speech some time back. I've probably quoted you from that speech every single day since.
"And so, the Chicago Boys were born. And it was considered a success, and the Ford Foundation got in on the funding. And hundreds and hundreds of Latin American students, on full scholarships, came to the University of Chicago in the 1950s and '60s to study here to try to engage in what Juan Gabriel Valdes, Chile's foreign minister after the dictatorship finally ended, described as a project of deliberate ideological transfer, taking these extreme-right ideas, that were seen as marginal even in the United States, and transplanting them to Latin America. That was his phrase--that is his phrase."
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/6/naomi_klein
What a chilling project. I call it myth-jacking. It's the Bush-Apa Torture Doctrine of isolation and psycho-spiritual attacks.
It's obvious that was McCain's strategy. And Liddy Dole's infamous "godless" ad is a perfect case in point. My greatest hope for our post-election momentum is, to finally break this wicked spell.
Watching the presidential campaign and the message Obama carried gave me a similar but stronger feeling to watching Kevin Rudd's performance in our elections last year.
Being an Aussie who has lived in the US during an election (Clinton's first) and moved back to OZ it was interesting to view the parallels in both of the last national campaigns. Kevin Rudd was elected on a mandate of change. Rudd came up short in the parliament for the majority that would have made legislative passage a lot easier.
Move to now, Kevin Rudd is presently dealing with his election promises and the reality of the global meltdown and how he can revise his priorities domestically to ensure he minimises the global situation on main street (to use a US term). This is a challenge for anyone; no less a individual elected by a large majority, demonstrating a clear mandate (just ask KRudd)
I cant describe the feeling when I heard Obama's victory. All I can say was I am one of those foreigners that felt a deep feeling of hope . Furthermore, I want to believe he is up too the challenge and will part of the global solution (as Kevin Rudd will hopefully be); what the present political situation in Oz has shown is that it is a lot harder than we are told.
P.S. The present Mr President, recognise why the next president has been elected by your people and show restraint until the 20th of January, 2009.
I hope no one is forgetting that Democrats, even when they were in a position to resist, have gone along with just about every crime the Bush cabal has perpetrated. Obama voted for the bailout and he has many neoliberal economic advisors on his staff.
The battle to regain our Republic is far from won.
Thanks so much Ms. Klein. Your book was so informative. Let us know what we as concerned citizens can do. I've already called my representatives.
Excellent Ms. Klein, as usual.
I'm a big fan of yours and am so grateful to have a resource like you who can spell out the jumbled mess that has become our country.
Thank you for all of your had work.
Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, the president-elect was only to happy to go along with this robbery, proving he is just another corporate slave. Good thing the Obama fanatics don't care. How depressing.
Passing the bailout was just as necessary as the need to redirect the effort.
The bailout has made no improvement in the current condition, but it has minimized the bleeding, protected the wound and prevented the nation from going into shock. That's the nature of first aid, now it's time for some thoughtful surgery.
I suggest you use the bailoutmainstreet.com link in the article to see what healing looks like.
It's a little late to put the horse back in the barn after the doors have been opened. It really slays me that the outrage wasn't organised before the Barney Franks, and Nancy P. and other Dem leaders were shaking in their boots, to tell Bush & Co. no dice to 700 billion. After the deed was done, and the greedy banks, ran off with their cash, reality strikes hard. This Bush adminstration cant be coralled nor are they responsible to oversight. My thinking is kiss it off, it's a done deal. Obama is smart he wont bet America, when it could be the last hand of the game. Baillouts should be avoided like the plague, they are so devastating.
Remember, always, that Obama, without ever questioning it, voted for the bailout. Despite an overwhelming majority of Americans being against it. He's just another arrogant politician who serves his own interests. If you truly want change, it has to happen with the people, not the government. The only way the government can help is to get out of the way.
...of what?
As ever, Klein astutely analyzes what is taking on the ground. Her investigations are intensive and accurate.
However she is unaware of the "command and control" structure that directs and promotes the disaster capitalism events which she investigates.
A simple search of her website does not reveal any information on the 3 interlocked U.S. organizations that meet, plan and engineer this events. The financial crisis and bailouts in the G8 countries were just the latest contrived events and more such catastrophic events are planned for Obama's term.
Those organizations are The Bilderberg Group, The Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. The international power held in their memberships creates a powerful insider information organization that controls banking, all matters of State, stock markets, media and other key international control mechanisms.
Klein is to be congratulated for her investigations, particularly of the massive L-1 data mining program that is predicated on facial recognition software which was created within the labs of Rockefeller University.
If Klein only does a study of YouTube video's on David Rockefeller, she will suddenly see these the framework of these interlocked organizations in the deep background of the matters that she is investigating.
I'm still reading THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, but even so, I've developed a very deep respect for Naomi Klein's work, and I seriously doubt she has missed anything you bring up. But even if all that you report is true, I seriously doubt that such can be presented in a manner consistent with her high level of thorough and credible documentation.
IMO--which is, BTW, much influenced by Naomi Klein's research--the three institutions that need immediate action are the WTO, IMF & World Bank; it is high time that their faux programs to "help" poor nations be exposed for what they really are.
And as much as I agree with her assessment of the bailout situation, I cannot see congress undoing what they have already done--I mean, when has that ever happened?
The free market fundamentalists who are at the core of this mess haven't faded away, and even now there are such cretins decrying new efforts at regulating markets and insisting that fewer market distortions and less existing regulations are the real culprit of the financial meltdown.
The folks in the 1% club have made far too much money to just roll over and let Milton Friedman's efforts be cast aside.
once more
Once more--the short version;
You're right about those agencies. MyTake is right about his--AND they call the shots for the ones you mentioned!
All businesses collude, set prices, carve up territories and engage in Monopoly; from telcoms to grain merchants, to soap makers. It's business as usual, so why do we shy from seeing it in international banking, except to avoid the tin foil insult sure to come our way? Sure, Naomi knows enough not to muddy her message with going there, but I'll bet she sees and understands it better than anyone else.
Here's a quote--
"The boot print of the Rothschild formula is unmistakable across the graves of American soldiers on both sides (of the Civil War)."
- G. Edward Griffin
And it's been going on since we first printed our money in defiance of the British Crown and the Bank of England and found ourselves in a Revolution!
Research Chile, the IMF and Pepsi.
Obama cares nothing about the 3rd party voters, he said nothing in his speech to include us. My guess by his lack of inclusion tells me that he will do everything to snuff us out, or find a way to filter our blogs, or concerns. He will do what they did at his convention, jail reporters who report the concerns of the other "WE THE PEOPLE". As a reminder Mr. Obama, we are also part of America, you can choose to exclude us, but we will continue to raise our voice, because this is America, and it is our right. You can try to hush us, jail us, pass laws that will not allow us to speak, but in the end, we will not stop. You can put us on your watch lists, make our life a living hell, but we are still "WE THE PEOPLE" and we still have the right to be heard. You are to represent us, hear from us, acknowledge us, and treat us with respect as Americans with a different point of view. You have so far, refused to extend the olive branch, you want change... but only with your people, not with the 3rd party voters that are still part of "WE THE PEOPLE". Thanks, but now I see, you are not willing to be my President.
Faith McGary,
Bethlehem, PA
What in the heck are you talking about? WHO got jailed at one of his conventions? I do, however, know of reporters getting jailed at a McCain convention in CO.
You're just plain sad....and you do not stand for me or my beliefs. Aggression and insigation will get you nowhere. It's time to unite, not scream like a little child who doesn't get enough attention.
Grow up!
So far? 24 hours haven't passed. Take a chill pill.
Congress, controlled by democrats, passed the bailout bill.
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