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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">October 1 ,
2008<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Crisis Time for
Wall Street's Creatures in Congress</i> <br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">The
Last Hold Up</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By
GLEN FORD <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">I</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>n their role as mercenaries in service of
finance capital, three-fifths of Democrats joined one-third of
Republicans in a (temporarily) failed heist of $700 billion of the
people's funds - a nest-egg the public needs to hold onto to weather the
unfolding collapse of the Lords of Capital. In the aftermath of Monday's
bloody siege, it was difficult to tell who Wall Street guns-for-hire John
McCain and Barack Obama hated most: each other, or the citizens who
despite their outraged confusion had the presence of mind to bar the
doors to the national treasury.<br><br>
Understandably disoriented from having had to charge backwards -
pretending to lead the people while simultaneously assaulting them -
Obama peered across the field at the hastily-erected barricades that had
broken Hank Paulson's Charge. "I'm confident we're going to
get there," said the frustrated thief-enabler, "but it's going
to be rocky."<br>
To paraphrase
<a href="http://www.top40db.net/Lyrics/?SongID=74348&By=Year&Match=">
<u>Oscar Brown,
Jr</a></u>
<a href="http://www.top40db.net/Lyrics/?SongID=74348&By=Year&Match=">
.,</a> "What you mean <i>WE</i>, Obama-man?"<br><br>
The Illinois senator and his pretend-opponents in the other business
party just had their colluding asses kicked by the most motley,
disorganized crew imaginable: the American public, who bombarded their
legislators with threats of retaliation in November if they bowed to Wall
Street's extortionist demands.<br><br>
Never has Republican-Democratic co-subservience to finance capital been
on such naked display. But then, "We the People" have never
before been witness to the terminal unraveling of late-stage global
finance capital. When the <i>New York Times</i> features no less than
three articles declaring the nation's investment bankers ready for
burial, as did last Sunday's paper, it is time for the Democrats,
especially, to find another paymaster.<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>Black Caucus
Split</b></font></h1><font face="Verdana" size=2>Obama's party is wedded
to Wall Street. At the local level the Democrats have long been the party
of "developers" - the money bags who shape urban policy to fit
the needs of corporations. These gentrifiers are the "Renaissance
Men" that insist black politicians earn their campaign and graft
payments by helping to expel their own constituents from the cities, so
as to make them more congenial to business. Betrayal starts at
home. So it's not surprising to find Rep. Charles Rangel (NY), the
corporate-loving Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, among
the 18 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to vote with the
Bush-McCain-Obama Wall Street axis. Edolphus Towns (NY), Gregory Meeks
(NY), and Artur Davis (AL) are also in their element, reeking as they do
of corporate contributions. However, it is strange - and sad - to see
Maxine Waters (CA), Gwen Moore (WI) and other relatively progressive
members aligned with the rump end of the Black Caucus.<br><br>
Among the slim, 21-member majority of the CBC that defied Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's edicts, one finds more curious company. Voting alongside usually
reliable progressives such as Barbara Lee (CA), John Conyers (MI), Donna
Edwards (MD) and Bobby Scott (VA), are some of the Caucus's most
rightwing members: William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson (LA) and
David Scott (GA), once described as the "Worst Black
Congressman" in the House. Panic makes strange bedfellows.<br>
Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott summed up the "No" position:
"There's no point in spending all this money on worthless
assets" such as toxic mortgages. Detroit's Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick
said of the Paulson plan, "This helps the banks in their book of
mortgages. It doesn't help the little person who needs it."<br><br>
These are eminently good reasons to resist the bipartisan, flag-waving,
hyper-ventilating and increasingly ill-looking Wall Street mob, now
regrouping for another bum-rush of the Congress. However, the anxious
thieves are only a 12-vote switch away from consummating the Greatest
Theft Ever. Pelosi's wing of the Business Party is confident they can
assemble the blandishments and threats to do the trick.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>The Last
Hold-up</b> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The criminal-minded and mortally
wounded Lords of Capital believed, as
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/martens09302008.html">Pam
Martens</a> has written, that they could "loot and collapse a
200-year old financial system and...be rewarded with a fresh $700 billion
of public money to disperse among your cronies who aided and abetted in
the collapse."<br><br>
Or, as <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09292008.html">Mike
Whitney</a> puts it:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>"...the $700 billion is just part of a massive ‘pump and dump'
scheme engineered with the tacit approval of the US Treasury and the
Federal Reserve. Once the banksters have offloaded their fraudulent
securities and crappy paper on Uncle Sam, they will do whatever they need
to do to pad the bottom line and drive their stocks up. That means they
will shovel capital into hard assets, foreign currencies, gold, interest
rate swaps, carry trade swindles, and Swiss bank accounts. The notion
that they will recapitalize so they can provide loans to US consumers and
businesses in a slumping economy is a pipedream."<br><br>
</dl>Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his designated wrecking crew
have but one objective: theft. Their own world is doomed - "The
system is de-leveraging and nothing can stop it," says Whitney - so
they are pulling off one last, mega-heist before it sinks beneath the
waves.<br><br>
The rest of us must fashion new institutions to perform the societal
tasks that were purportedly the domain of the now-extinct investment
bankers: to gather large amounts of capital for projects of social value
- for example, a Marshall-type Plan for the cities, a nationwide
infrastructure makeover, and fulfillment of the 70-year old federal
commitment to provide truly affordable housing for everyone. And of
course, jobs, jobs, jobs.<br><br>
We have many other uses for that $700 billion - what Barack Obama called
"our last bullet," although intending to make it a gift to
mega-thieves - for instance, to provide relief to current and future
homeowner (and rental) victims of the housing bubble that will take years
to fully deflate, as prices (and rents) decrease to levels consistent
with wages and other social factors.<br><br>
In a perverse way, Henry Paulson and his co-conspirators have done the
public a great favor. He has told us that, Yes, the federal government
can</i> come up with $700-plus billion, in an instant, if the health of
the nation demands it. He has expanded the fiscal scope of the domestic
political debate, so that it may encompass projects of transformational
size. Never again can the corporate class speak of socially valuable
projects being so large as to "break the bank" or the budget.
Popular forces are now free to think large, too, without being ridiculed
from the corporate Right.<br><br>
The demise of finance capital's premiere institutions, and the brutal
arrogance with which their servants moved to strip the commonweal of
every squeezable drop of cash, has alerted vast sectors of the citizenry
to the reality of capitalism-in-crisis in ways that no amount of Left
agitation could have accomplished.<br><br>
Technical public "ownership" of previously "private"
institutions has been thrust upon us by the capitalists, themselves. But
this is merely an opening for the great debates and struggles that must
follow. Power does not devolve to "the people" by simple virtue
of majority shares in failing institutions or even outright
nationalization. And "the people" have no need of institutions
that serve no purpose but as creatures of capital.<br><br>
The second casualty of the current crisis, after the collapse of the
financial sector, is surely the twin-party game of musical chairs that
served to legitimize the rule of capital. The obscenity of a
Democrat-Republican syndicate arrayed against the roaring, raging
sentiments of citizens of all self-described political persuasions,
cannot be erased from the collective national memory - even if
congressional party leaders succeed in whipping their members into line,
later this week.<br><br>
When catastrophe hits, radicals must be ready. Recent events have proven
Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente to be amazingly prescient in their
belief that the Green Party can be - I emphasize can</i> be - a vehicle
for presenting and popularizing a truly transformational program for
social change. (See McKinney
"<a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=795&Itemid=1">
The Financial Crisis: Seize the Time!</a></u>" BAR September 24.)
McKinney and Clemente always intended that the Green Party become a nexus
for the roiling social currents set in motion by the decomposition of
ruling class institutions. The Democratic and Republican Parties,
creatures of capital, are decomposing in full view, as witnessed by the
events of this week. As the crisis deepens, the parties will crack - at a
pace dictated by the increasing frequency of convulsions.<br><br>
When we are confronted with the surreal spectacle of John McCain and
Barack Obama attempting to destroy each other even as they rush to
deliver nearly a trillion dollars to the same master, while the people
scream at both of them to "Stop!" - we know that
"change" is coming. But not the kind the Democrats or
Republicans anticipate.<br><br>
Glen Ford</b> is executive editor of Black Agenda Report, where this
article also appears. He can be contacted at
<a href="mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com">
Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com</a>. <br><br>
<br><br>
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