from OurFuture.org:
Congress Writes A Goodbye Cruel World Diary to AmericaBy David Sirota
October 1st, 2008 - 7:36pm ET
Watch:
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008104001/congress-writes-goodbye-cruel-world-diary-americaFollowing a noontime anti-bailout rally on the steps of the Denver Federal Reserve Bank, I was on CNN this afternoon discussing the bailout. I followed Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) regurgitating various lies about this bill and how it is supposedly a substantial improvement over the original Paulson plan, when in fact, the Treasury Department is secretly telling traders many of the "improvements" were written to be unenforceable. I made this point as succinctly as I could, and by the time I got home from the appearance, my email box was filled with various "amens" from viewers.
Nonetheless, I feel somewhat demoralized at this point, both because of this bill, and because the progressive movement's larger demoralization has worn off on me.
The facts of this bailout are very clear. Though there were scores of solid alternatives that took cues from our own history and that of industrialized countries like Sweden, our Congress is rushing full-bore towards handing 5 percent of our economy to speculators, no strings attached. Good progressives like Paul Krugman openly admit that "to this day
have never been able to explain clearly why buying up bad mortgage assets at market prices will solve the credit crunch" - and yet leading voices like Krugman have used their platforms not to aggressively advocate for a real solution, but to instead play armchair political strategist, telling us that this is the best we can get from the current Congress.
Though we know that simply adding a $700 billion tab to the national debt will help raise the very interest rates we are supposedly trying to keep down with this bailout, the U.S. Senate will allow only an rigged, politburo-style "vote" on an amendment that would actually pay for this bailout with any kind of tax.
Meanwhile, as Free Press's Josh Silver points out, the national media debate is dominated - like it was in the march to the Iraq War - almost exclusively by voices who say that A) anyone, including the hundreds of award-winning economists, who opposes this bailout is a Luddite know-nothings who are too stupid to even know how to balance their own checkbooks and B) we must do exactly what the White House says or end up looking at the smoking gun of an economic mushroom cloud. And perhaps worst of all, many of the major institutions on the left have sat on the sidelines, as one of the century's most significant economic decisions is made - a decision that will have lasting ramifications for a generation. ......(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008104001/congress-writes-goodbye-cruel-world-diary-america