NO BLANK CHECK BAILOUT WITHOUT PROTECTIONS FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Former Labor Secretary (under Clinton) Robert Reich has posted 3 excellent posts on his blog providing key perspective and suggestions for responding to the current crisis:

We tell poor nations they have to make their financial markets transparent before capital will flow to them. Now it's our turn. Lacking adequate regulation or oversight, our financial markets have become a snare and a delusion. Government only has two choices now: Either continue to bail them out, or regulate them in order to keep them honest. I vote for the latter.

Especially valuable right now--as our Congressional leaders rush like a flock of lemmings to embrace in fear whatever the Republican administration hands them, in a new application of the Shock Doctrine to our entire nation--are Reich's recommendations for the basic principles that should be incorporated into the coming Congressional "Bailout of All Bailout" Bills:

1. The government (i.e. taxpayers) gets an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.

2. Wall Street executives and directors of Wall Street firms relinquish their current stock options and this year’s other forms of compensation, and agree to future compensation linked to a rolling five-year average of firm profitability...

3. All Wall Street executives immediately cease making campaign contributions to any candidate for public office in this election cycle or next, all Wall Street PACs be closed, and Wall Street lobbyists curtail their activities unless specifically asked for information by policymakers...

4. Wall Street firms agree to comply with new regulations over disclosure, capital requirements, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation. The regulations will emerge in ninety days from a bi-partisan working group, to be convened immediately. After all, inadequate regulation and lack of oversight got us into this mess.

5. Wall Street agrees to give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, so homeowners have a fighting chance to keep their homes. Why should distressed homeowners lose their homes when Wall Streeters receive taxpayer money that helps them keep their fancy ones?

If Congress is truly interested in being responsible to their primary obligations to the American people, instead of doing (as usual) whatever is quickest and easiest so they can get out of Washington according to schedule for their long election vacation, they will avoid passing any Blank Check Mega-Bailout Bill that does not incorporate Reich's key principles.

Indeed, if the Republican administration balks at a bill that adds these provisions, then the Democratic Congress should be committed to keeping Congress in session as long as it takes-- right up to the election, if necessary--to keep this most important of all issues front and center before all the American people for discussion as people consider who they will be voting for in this election.

In this "once-in-a-century" crisis (according to Greenspan), the future of the nation and the world depends on the details of the Mega-Bailout Bill that Congress hands to the American people and the world in the coming days. So we all should not only hope but call our Congresspeople and demand that this time our Congressional representatives put the destiny of the nation and world in front of its own petty interest in getting out of Washington as quickly as possible for another long vacation, while the world's financial system collapses around us.

We All Must Join Obama in Saying to the Republicans: ENOUGH!

Finally, Barack Obama has issued the call to action that this country has long needed to hear from the Democratic Party. His nomination acceptance speech has made the choice for the citizens of this country clear: Either the citizens of this country choose to continue more of the same by voting for McCain, or choose Obama so that we will all have the opportunity to bring about the kinds of change Obama clearly outlined in his speech last night.

While the corporate media, which works for the corporations that hope to continue to control the levers of political power in Washington, will continue to try to cloud the issues, and is already at work dismissing the pivotal significance of Obama's speech last night, all patriotic citizens of this country must recognize the task at hand, and act.

Anything less than this is a betrayal of both the promise and the future of America.

So now the REAL QUESTION is whether the American people will rise up to the challenge and the call that Barack Obama has so clearly placed before them:

As he emphasized, this election is not about him, which is what the Republicans and the corporate media would like us to think. This election is about us, and what we want from our country, what we want our future to be like.

If we want a continuing decline into poverty, frustration, and despair for the majority of our fellow citizens, then we may choose McCain. But if we want the opportunity to work with Obama as President to renew the Promise of America for ourselves and all our fellow citizens, then our choice is clear.

The only question now is whether we, as citizens, will take responsibility for our own government, and rise up through this election to take our government back from the corporate media and lobbyists that now control it.

The Democratic Campaign Descends into Nightmare

As a previous and potential Democratic voter, I am devastated and horrified to see the campaign of two amazing Democratic candidates descend into the abyss. These two candidates showed so much promise, several months ago, to offer us hope and a way out of the mess Bush has gotten us into. But now the same old politics that places personal gain and advantage over the common good seems to be at work to destroy what otherwise could have been a relatively easy victory for Democrats in November, given the state of the economy and public feelings about the war.

I can hardly believe what once seemed so promising has descended so quickly into a nightmare, and that people like the Clintons and their supporters, as well as some of Obama's advisors, seem not to care what happens in November. They now seem willing to sacrifice the battle against the Republicans in order to win the primary at any cost! Shame, shame, and more shame on the political structure, values, and candidate campaigns that seem to be dedicated to driving all possibility of hope out of our political process.....

THE CHOICE BEFORE US

How will we face the present?

With resignation or action?

With courage and imagination, or with fear and submission to the status quo?

With honesty, or with deception of self and others?

How we face the present will determine what others have to face in the future.

While no political party is perfect, the fact that the Republican Party represents deception, betrayal, and fundamental disregard for the well-being of most Americans should now be clear after eight years of misrule.

The question is: Will America's citizens have the vision and the will to reject this misrule, and turn the tide so that a different course toward the future may begin?

Waiting for the End of the World

Why does it feel like we're just waiting for the end of the world?

While some scientists predict that the world might become unlivable by the end of this century due to global warming and the inability of humanity to change its ways, the politics of the US election cycle seems to be dedicated to proving the inevitable correctness of this prediction. The three presidential candidates are carrying out their battle for the election as if there were nothing to be concerned about this year except the usual battle for supremacy at any cost. Bill Clinton said a few days ago that this is what we should expect of politics. And that is the attitude that will one day make us all witnesses to the end of the world.

Unless we act to dramatically transform our politics and the ways we live, work, and run our economies and governments within the next ten years, the climate change tipping point will be reached within the next decade, and we will all be converted into mere spectators with front seats from which to watch the global disaster play itself out, beginning with the present generation, and continuing into the next and the next, which in watching the world come to an end will curse our generation for not having done what was necessary when it was necessary to act to save the world. By 2020, the tipping point will have been reached, and there seems to be little sign that humanity will have the will or the wisdom to turn itself around before its too late.

Meanwhile the leaders and people of the United States are behaving as if this election year-- probably the most important for determining the future of this century and the potential of humanity to turn the tide--were just like any other. As if there is plenty of time to allow Hillary and Obama fight with each other over the scraps of political power, while the Wilkins ice shelf collapses and the conditions of the world climate and economy continue to worsen. If we fail to act within the next ten years to do what is necessary to turn the tide of global carbon dioxide production, history will care little which President won this election. Those around fifty years from now, will care only that our generation, THIS GENERATION betrayed the future of all humanity, and condemned its past to meaninglessness and forgetfulness--as the great libraries in coastal urban centers around the world begin to be swallowed by the rising ocean.