The Time for Action is Now

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 decisive 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 now is 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 "peoples" 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 missions 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.” Author, Activist, Journalist, Naomi Klein, has spent the past month examining the loopholes and conflicts of interest embedded in the U.S. Treasury Department’s plans. She's just published feature articles in Rolling Stone, The New Trough, and her column in The Nation, 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.

Klein's best selling book, The Shock Doctrine details how 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. Wonder where Cheney's been since the "collapse"... busy busy busy...


But it’s not too late to halt the robbery in progress, though 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.

(lifted from Naomi Klein)

Disaster Capitalism

We’re seeing another very dramatic example of the Economic Shock-Thearapy right now with this extortionist kind of tactic playing out in Washington. BushCo says “Sign this blank check, or we’re all going down, Wall Street, your savings pensions and 401ks—you know, The Sky is Falling!!!”

Just like the days following 9/11 when BushCo pushed through the USA Patriot Act and forced Congress to vote on a (still hot from the duplicator machines) 597 page rewrite of the Constitution before noon that day! I think most every American can agree there are many parts of that "book" that turned out to not be in the best interests of freedom and democracy. But in his rhetoric, Bush said 'yer either with us or against us' and barring our own Russ Feingold it passed nearly unanimously.


Well here we are at the autumn of the Bush residency... and here again we're facing another "sky is falling—pass this by friday" shock doctrine. The game is the same, use fear to keep the flock in line. Scare America into doing the wrong thing because its their ONLY choice... and its gotta happen by tomorrow- or else!

So what is this Economic Shock-Therapy? Milton Friedman coined it as a way to bring about radical economic changes that would normally be highly controversial—Disaster Capitalism. Following a disaster, the citizens are softened up and rally behind perceived leadership. Precisely the time to slip-in radical changes (like torture, spying, wars, deregulation and consolidation) wrapped in the form of a security blanket (or flag).

Naome Klein has written a book detailing many historic examples of this technique and its use. The Shock Doctrine gives perhaps the blueprints for todays financial shock treatment delivered by Bush's Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

It’s interesting who Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is, he served as an assistant to Richard Nixon’s assistant, Watergate "plumber" John Ehrlichman. From there he moved right to Goldman Sachs, where he became the head of it.

BusinessWeek magazine ran an article just after Paulson was appointed by Bush in 2006, Mr Risk Goes to Washington, It says, “Think of Paulson as Mr. Risk. He’s one of the key architects of a more daring Wall Street, where securities firms are taking greater and greater chances in [their] pursuit of profits. By some key measures, the securities industry is more leveraged now than it was at the height of the 1990s boom." When Paulson took over Goldman Sachs in 1999, they had $20 billion in high-risk gambles—When he left, they had $100 billion.

Henry Paulson isn't speaking for Main Street, he's bailing out his colleagues for some of the very debts that he himself accumulated.

Last night the pResident addressed the nation urging Congress and the citizens to immediately accept and implement his Economic Plan. A plan he said his economic advisors have been working on for weeks. Well Folks, its all of three pages long.

Paulson said that he thought it would be presumptuous to put in clauses calling for regulation. But this is absolute nonsense. Section 2 of the same document talks about how they have the right to hire contractors to administer this huge operation, and we know that that means contracting with some of the very firms who are going to be bailed out. And then it says that it would be—they would be contracting them without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts.

Hello??? What are we, Iraq? This document grants complete immunity from oversight and prosecution that the contractors have in Iraq, if not more. Basically what they are saying is that Paulson can contract with private companies AND exempt those companies from the existing law. No conflict of interest, no whistleblowing, in fact way to prosecute them if we learn in six months that they've broken every law on the books.

...in times of crisis, when people are panicked, we’ve seen again and again the right push through radical pro-corporate policies, what they call “free market reforms,” precisely because it is in a crisis where the space for debate rapidly closes, and you can invoke this state of emergency to say we have no choice.

They’re getting this—they’re lobbying for this huge bailout, obviously, but this bailout is a kind of a time bomb, because it’s all these bad debts, and they are going to explode on the next administration. I mean, we know that the Bush administration has already left the next administration with huge debt and deficit problems. They’ve just exploded those, expanded them. And what that means is that whoever the next president is is going to be inheriting this economic crisis that is being exacerbated by this bailout.

Welcome to Disaster Capitalism -
and the next installment of The Shock Doctrine.