The false financial crisis and the robbing of America September 20, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Society , add a commentThe events of this month have been very interesting from Hurricane Ike to the financial crisis to the unfolding of the election. While there were no obvious terrorist attacks on 9/11 this year the so-called financial crisis sure seems like a terrorist attack on our wallets. Many people have said that the apparent failure of these major financial institutions including Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG not to mention Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a few weeks ago reflects irresponsible capitalism and mismanagement by the federal government. Well I’m seeing it in a bit of a different light.
We’ve seen an accelerating policy of extremist capitalism for some time now which has included the erosion or outright repeal of many safeguards put in place during the New Deal. This especially includes the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which effectively separated investment banks and commercial banks that hold consumers personal accounts. We’ve also seen an almost complete lack of regulation and enforcement of conflicts of interest between financial companies such as the Bank of America acquisition of Merrill Lynch, two types of companies that were supposed to be explicitly forbidden from merging due to a conflict of interest in their missions and the resulting risk to individuals. Business on Wall Street has become so corrupt that you could honestly classify it as organized crime. That’s just the point; these companies have gone bankrupt due to the transfer of funds to the wealthy elite. But they are not being allowed to fail, instead the federal government is going to bail them out which of course means that you and I pay for it. The government bail out is said to exceed 700 Billion. The average American has skillfully and effectively been robbed blind and is seeing the government as a savior when it is really just the other side of the same criminal organization. It is a systematic transfer of wealth.
The current system is rotten to the core. Just like in 1929 because of the lack of separation between commercial banks and investment firms the average American’s assets are directly at risk from the corrupt practices of Wall Street speculators. We may be on the verge of another great depression but this is all engineered at a higher level. It’s a cyclical process of harvesting the wealth of the people and transferring it to an elite group. That’s what our economy essentially is. We’re manipulated with our desires and needs to buy into this process and then kept locked into it with fear, fear of losing what little security we think we’ve managed to create. It’s a false sense of security however because its based on something we ultimately have no control over and most likely don’t even understand and this is how it enslaves us.
We ultimately cannot blame the government however or even the crooks on Wall Street. The people share in the responsibility for this because we have allowed it to happen, we have allowed these thieves to take our money over and over again. We do it every time we pay the illegal federal income tax for which there is absolutely no law mandating. We do it by purchasing the garbage products that the corporations manipulate us into thinking we need or want. We do it by voting for politicians who support this whole mess. Most people don’t know what they are doing though. This is why the time has come to take back our power and to say no to this dysfunctional system. This is something we can do quite effectively and we don’t need any politician or leader to do it for us. We can vote with our money and our effort. We can buy local and boycott the corporations. We can support non-corporate candidates who see the corruption and want to truly fix it. We can cease paying illegal taxes that go into the pockets of the international bankers and demand the extortion around this stop. We can educate our friends and family as to what is going on and the effect it is having on them. We can change all of this we just need to take our power back and come together. Most importantly we can refuse to buy into the fear and instead focus our energy and attention on creating a more healthy supportive economic reality.
The timing of the present financial spectacle is also very interesting in terms of its correspondence with Hurricane Ike. In watching coverage of Hurricane Ike I noticed that it seemed to be covered fairly thoroughly by the corporate media before and just as the Hurricane hit. Just after the Hurricane it seemed to me that the degree of national coverage got diverted. I saw more coverage of the election than I would have imagined at a time of national disaster. I did learn about how cool Sarah Palin’s glasses were however. Then shortly thereafter, the financial crisis seemed to hijack the news further diverting coverage of the hurricane. I’ve heard from local news both corporate and independent as well as individuals down in Texas that the destruction is far worse than is being covered, as is the government’s response. Some are saying the media is being deliberately kept out of many areas and supplies are slow to come if at all. Sounds like Katrina to me and it also sounds convenient that there are so many distractions for the media so we don’t see the kind of coverage we saw of Katrina which was quite an embarrassment for the powers that be. The powers that be may not be able to create hurricanes but they certainly can control the timing of long standing problems in financial institutions becoming public.
There is a lot going on right now and I think we all need to pay close attention, look under the surface and see the interrelationships of all that is happening so we can be positive agents of change.