This article was originally published at americanchronicle.com on Oct. 6th, 2008.
Were you paying attention? Did you hear them speaking? Did you listen to what they were saying? Perhaps you did, but I can say this, I don´t believe they listened to you. In fact, they more or less proved they don´t care about you one iota, unless you happen to be one of their wealthy friends.
The 700 billion dollar bailout congress passed on Oct. 3rd, 2008 has ballooned and will continue to do so. It will go to the banks and to the lobbyists who support the cabal in Washington, DC. Though it is your money to be stolen from you in the form of taxes, when it comes back to you it will do so in the form of loans where you will have to pay interest to borrow your own money. By the time these loans are paid back, the banks will have "earned" most likely many times the original amount in interest. The common man once again gets screwed. Our progeny has been sold out. Most of you likely already realized this. Most of us common folk realized this, judging from the amount of calls, emails, etc. received in the House of Representatives. Yet none of that mattered.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain proved that they were nothing more than yes men for the moneyed interests. Neither one of these so called men are leaders. If one of these men had been a leader, he´d have spoken out against this bill. If one had done that, he´d have likely sewn up the presidential election right there. Both these men are afraid of speaking out against these special interests. Both are afraid of challenging the power of the Fed and the various moneyed lobbyists. This latest incident, this "credit crisis" proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither one of these men is ready to deliver any kind of significant change. This incident makes any kind of comparison of Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy laughable. John F. Kennedy at least spoke out against the Fed, secret societies, and other powerful entities influencing government. Obama merely talks about "change" and "hope" as if simply talking about them will make things better and McCain simply parrots Obama and hides behind the skirts of a feisty woman in hopes she´ll win him the election. It breaks my heart to think 100 million honest, hard working people will waste their votes on one of these two undeserving men instead of voting for another choice.
The Senate showed just how despicable it was during this farce. They decided to override all proper legislative procedures and introduce into the house their version of the bill using a legislative "trick" to put pressure on the peoples´ representatives to pass a bad bill. Like Mr. Stranger Danger trying to entice a child into his car, they loaded the bill with a bunch of "treats" in an effort to get the people of this country to climb on board. Perhaps the common folk of this country weren´t foolish enough to climb into such a vehicle, we were taught better than to trust a stranger with candy, but the majority of our representatives apparently couldn´t resist the temptation.
On the other side of the coin, the banking industry was trying to frighten us into submission. They were threatening economic holocaust should the bill not pass. They were threatening a total collapse of our entire economy if the bill should fail. We were supposed to shake and quake in fear and submit to their demands. They acted as if the economy depended upon a few big banks distributing money. They acted as if they were the ones in control of the economy instead of the markets being free and left to obey the dictates of supply and demand. Perhaps they are right as they have built a fraudulent system predicated upon their ability to extend credit rather than a system based upon honest money that one has already earned. Though the people on Main Street America (a phrase those in power have recently been using) were not frightened by the scare tactics of the moneyed interests, our representatives apparently were.
Now I believe in the people of this great nation of ours and I believe that we would continue to do business with each other even if the credit system collapsed, but I´ve also no doubt that those in power with all that money could indeed do great damage to our economy if they so wished. If this is so, wouldn´t it make more sense to take the credit issuing system out of the hands of private interests like the Federal Reserve and integrate it back into the Treasury Department so at the very least the people don´t have to pay interest when they borrow their own money? The Constitution of this great nation spells out that the coinage of money is, after all, the purview of the House of Representatives. Why should we entrust our system of money and credit to those who would use it as a means to blackmail us?
But that is another point perhaps to be revisited upon on another day. Right now, I´m more concerned with the total breakdown of our system of governance. It starts with the leadership. We are supposed to take their advice into consideration. In this case, we did, and the people decided they didn´t like the advice they were being given by an administration that has constantly lied to us. It trickled down to the Senate whose members can perhaps get passes because it can be argued that they are supposed to be looking after the best interests of the state they represent, not necessarily the people of that state. It is a weak argument, but a valid one. It is in the House of Representatives, where the members are supposed to carry out the will of their constituents, not their own personal will, that the breakdown was most evident.
By all accounts, something happened in congress that was unprecedented during the last few days. Many people actually took the time to write, email or phone their congress critters in the hopes that this time their voices would be heard and someone would pay attention to them. The people of this country overwhelmingly told their congressmen to vote against this bailout bill. They did what they were supposed to do. They participated in the system that is supposed to represent the will of the people. But instead of being listened to, the people found that their pleas fell upon too many deaf ears. Even the Representatives in the people´s house no longer care what the people have to say. Even they are beholden to the moneyed interests.
Perhaps Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, best illustrates the disdain for the people these Representatives seem to have. The powerful, magnificent, all knowing Nancy Pelosi reportedly said that the people of her district were uninformed when asked about the overwhelming numbers who had taken the time to write, email or phone her concerned that she would vote "yes" for a bailout bill and asking that she vote "no." She didn´t care what the people of her district thought or felt. This almighty, omnipotent being knew better than her lowly, uninformed subjects. She wasn´t going to put aside her own feelings and vote the will of the people she represents, which is supposed to be her job. She wasn´t even going to try to slow down the passage of the bill so that she could explain to the people in her district why she felt the bill was necessary and try to change their minds. To her, it wasn´t important that they understand, as long as she did. No, she´d simply vote against the will of the people of her district and call them ignorant. The same was true for all the other congressmen who followed her lead and voted for the bailout.
I hope you were paying attention. I hope everyone was paying attention. It became obvious to me years and perhaps even decades ago that voting, especially at the federal level, didn´t much matter in the grander scheme of things and that it seemed no matter who ran for office only puppets of the moneyed interests somehow managed to gain office. Whenever a principled politician ran against an establishment candidate it seemed the game was rigged in favor of the establishment candidate. Somehow, despite years of abuse and obvious power brokering, a vast majority of incumbents manage to get re-elected. I´m hoping against hope it will be different this year. I´m hoping to see every congress critter who voted for this bill voted out of office, no matter his party, no matter how you feel about party politics. It would be nice to see such vacancies taken by principled men and women of third parties, but simply voting out those 263 members who voted for this bill against the will of the people of their districts would send a very powerful message, and I have the feeling that in order to accomplish this they will have to be overwhelmingly voted out.
Watching the events of last week has given me hope, and I believe it has given many other freedom loving individuals hope as well. Even though we seemingly lost a very important battle, I at least have seen some encouraging happenings. The people of this great nation of ours are awakening. They have grown sick and tired of the very powerful and the very wealthy manipulating our system of government. They have shown they want to take the government back and make it fairer for all. They have shown they want to take part in the decision making processes. They have shown they care. They did things the way they were supposed to do things in order to create peaceful change, and they were still frustrated, so now it becomes necessary to speak at the voting both. I can only hope the polls aren´t rigged. If they are, then God help us all.
In 1962 in a speech at the White House, John F. Kennedy said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Let us hope his words are not prophetic. Let us hope that there is no one behind the scenes making peaceful revolution impossible.
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