The US Economy is in a mess. That pile of crap has been correctly identified by any and all observers not suffering from olfactory fatigue of the worst kind. What has not been correctly identified by all the news cowboys out there is which bovine dropped this particular pile of crap in the middle of our living room.
There are a lot of reasons not to pass the “bailout plan” that Congress rejected once and the Senate approved (plus a load of pork). There may still be some good reasons for passing it, but I have not heard or read any of those so far. The part that makes me nervous is the language being used. Congress’s rejection of the “bailout” is being called a “catastrophe” a “dire mistake” that is going to freeze up the American Economy and force us all to roam the desert with crossbows fighting over the last tanker trucks full of gasoline, aka Mad Max.
The fact is that the Bush Administration wants this “bailout”. The Congressional and Senate Leadership wants this “bailout”. But lots of citizens and some brave representatives like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb and a bunch of old-school conservatives as well have declared this plan a farce and an unmitigated power grab. In other words the Corporate Politicians want this bill despite what citizens want. And Corporate Lobbyists and their representatives want to push this bill through under the threat of dire catastrophic consequences.
The Leadership is claiming their failure was not controlling the language being used to describe the bill. They aren’t changing the bill, they just want to use better marketing terms to get us to swallow. And they say their biggest mistake was calling for a vote in Congress before they knew it was going to pass. In other words, never call for a vote if you don’t already know the outcome. Makes you wonder if the outcome of our vote in November is already known by the Leadership?
Every time the Corporate Politicians and the Bush Administration in particular start saying “You must pass bill X or horrible catastrophic things will happen.” We should all become very suspicious. Especially when the timing puts the vote right before an election. Previous examples of X include: Authorization to invade Iraq; the Patriot Act; Authorization to bailout Fanny and Freddy; off-shore oil drilling. In each case something horrible was going to happen if the bill wasn’t passed, huge amounts of power were shifted to a handful of individuals or agencies, and promises were made that they would never actually do any of the excessive and dangerous things that critics were warning about. In each case the bill was passed, the threats turned out to be overblown, the power was firmly seized and used, and all the things critics warned about happened. We invaded Iraq, we conduct warrantless surveillance of US citizens, we bailed out Fanny and Freddy, and we repealed off-shore drilling bans. Have no doubt, if this “bailout” passes the Treasury Secretary will become one of the most powerful men in the world, he will use that power, and he will cause many of the problems we are being warned about now.
This is Catastrophe Capitalism at its worst. Scare the hell out the population to get power you could never claim on a calm day, power that rational and informed people would never give up normally. Use the shock and awe of a disaster to take advantage of victims and potential victims. Naomi Kline has outlined this pattern powerfully in her book,
The Shock Doctrine.
I’m just hoping we don’t have to repeat the cycle again. But only an informed population of active citizens and honest representatives can stop this power grab. And realistically, I don’t see that yet. There are still a lot of Catastrophe Capitalists out there. The have lots of Lobbyists. They have bought a lot of politicians. And lots of citizens are still woefully uninformed. So we have a lot of work to do.
This particular pile of crap comes from a predictable source, so we either need to corral these bulls or start wearing taller boots. Or we can just keep forgetting the lessons of history. Look into the flashy news device please...
