Those who helped rape and pillage America now sound the alarm. How long will we let them steal us blind?
For thirty years or thereabouts, those in Washington - no matter the party - have completely rolled over the supposed evils of FDR’s New Deal. “DEREGULATE!” Was the war cry of American corporations as they sensed the will of those who had helped form those FDR protections against these economic royalists begin to slacken. To make that cry more appealing lobbyists, already a bane on the nation’s capital, swept in with silk suits and fat silk purses full of campaign contributions, beginning in the 1970s.…
Article comments
26 - cuervodeluna
Marlowe,
WHAT, specifically, do you believe that I wrote that offended you so mightily?
I do not believe that your ethnicity was the question here.
Swaering, foaming at the mouth, personally attacking me and CR erased it before I even got to read it.
You have lost effing control, man. Tome las cosas con calma. No es mi culpa que Gringolandia ya se tronó.
27 - cuervodeluna
And just so you don't think you are such hot stuff, I am a Native American, so it was MY land before YOUR people showed up there.
No wonder Gringolandia is paddling its canoe over Niagara Falls--folks are effing irrational.
28 - MARLOWE
Native American huh? What tribe? I've spent the last 25 years working on quite a few Reservations. Where are your people located?
You might want to take a look at your next Mexican... The brown skin... Dead give away that they've NATIVE blood in them too. Or does "Native American" stop at the border for you?
29 - Clavos
Marlowe,
I, too, was born and raised in Mexico (Mexico City).
Since my parents were both American, I hold dual citizenship, but culturally am more Mexican than American, as I did not move to the US until after high school, and then only after a year or so in pre-Castro Cuba.
I spent more than 20 years working for a Mexican corporation (both in the US and Mexico, as well as in Texas), so like you, I'm comfortable on either side of the border.
30 - cuervodeluna
I am starting to lose patience with you, Marlowe.
My people are Waban-Aki. Google them. My family comes from the Quebec group.
And I have lived in an indigenous village here in Mexico for 15 years--with my adopted indigenous family.
[Edited]
31 - Jordan Richardson
I am a Native American, so it was MY land before YOUR people showed up there.
Yeah, and I collect apologies from the Great Potato Famine still. Y'know, cuz I had so much to do with it...
32 - MARLOWE
Wabanaki... which is the only way I've ever seen it spelled... That's roughly the Maine area... But you said Q'bec.
Now you're with your "adoptive" indigenous family.
Fine.
Having run security for many Native American events throughout the West and Midwest, including sundances and intercontinental indigenous peoples conferences I'm reminded of the time when I had to stop a fellow who "claimed" he was Native American and therefore should be allowed to enter the "Natives Only" portion of the consultation...
"Really?" I said, staring at the pasty skinned twenty-something with somewhat glazed eyes.
"And what tribe are you affiliated with?" I asked. He stared at me for a long moment, concentrating very hard and then proudly announced:
"Indian!"
I sent him packing...
Marlowe
33 - MARLOWE
BTW cuervodeluna you sound remarkably like a person who used to post here from down around your neck of the woods - "moonraven". Any chance you two know one another?
And I have to also say I am damn impressed with your "village's" internet connection! Your response times are AMAZING! They string a fiber optic all the way out there to the village?
Marlowe
34 - Clavos
They're the same person, Marlowe.
cuervodeluna means moonraven
35 - MARLOWE
I figured... I was trying to - ah... never mind. Thanks C...
M
36 - Baronius
Seems to me that when stupid people make high-risk loan deals - on either side of the equation - no one is to blame but them. I don't see what regulation has to do with it. I sure don't see what bailouts have to do with it.
People who can't pay their mortgages get kicked out of their houses. Banks who lose money go broke. Those aren't signs that the system is failing; quite the opposite. The failure comes when the government protects individuals or institutions from consequences.
37 - cuervodeluna
Marlowe:
If you do a google you will find Waban-Aki is the correct spelling and that there is a website.
Waban-Aki folks--also called Abenakis--are present in Quebec, Vermont and Maine.
For folks who have an interest in educating themselves about the folks who have lived here on Turtle Island for many thousands of years, there is a good documentary film on dvd from the Canadian Film Board called "Waban-Aki: People from Where the Sun Rises".
I am not at all sure what good does it do you to be part Mexican if you don't know any Spanish.
And yes, apparently racist person, there are obviously internet connections all over Mexico.
Carlos Slim Helu didn't get those 50 plus billions of dollars providing two cans and a string for phone service.
I don't know what caused that enormous conflagration in your lower gastrointestinal tract, but it has caused you to be placed at the top of my Ignore list.
Don't bother to try engaging me again. I am off to Arizona to see my uncle's latest group of warbonnets.
38 - bliffle
True, Baronius.
The justification that Paulson et Cie. advocate are using is that it is necessary to save the economy, and unfortunately we must first sin by saving the banks.
If we are going to commit sin it should be in favor of citizens, not banks. For one thing, it's much cheaper. Let the existing banks die and new banks spring up from the bailouts of USA citizens and individuals. It costs a fraction of the amount, gets rid of the losers, and with new institutions we can have newer better regulations for banking.
For another thing it's simple justice: the first impulse of the crooks in Washington has been to dump all the blame on home buyers, who made the best deal they could in the face of the exigencies of the markets. We owe apologies to those people for slandering them.
39 - cuervodeluna
bliffle,
Good points.
From the emails I have been receiving today it appears that a middle-class groundswell is taking shape against the bailout.
40 - bliffle
There seems to be a large non-patrisan opposition to the proposed bailout. Some people see it as a flawed plan (rewarding the crooks), and some are resentful of being manipulated by crisis hysteria.
41 - bliffle
But our neo-Rulers are so wedded to the technique of demonizing ordinary Americans that they just can't stop.
42 - Cannonshop
#40
I don't think it'll go anywhere, though-see, people like ME oppose the bailout, and people like YOU oppose it, and that's oil-and-water, Bliffle. (I Have sent nastigrams to Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, and the rest of the Washington Congresscritters over this one, but I expect that's pissing in the wind mostly.) I figure they'll just give the evasive answers through their staff, or the nice, empty-of-content form letter (I figure a week or so to get mine, by snail-mail) thanking us for our concern and blowing us off. (sent yours yet? YOU might actually get listened to.)
43 - bliffle
Regardless, the Powers That Be will inleash their Mighty Bludgeon of Self-righteousness to beat little homeowners about the head and shoulders to shame them for creating sub-prime loans and seducing innocent billionaire bankers into providing those risky loans.
Then they'll take away their little homes as proper punishment and to provide balm for the injured feelings of our Financial Giants.
Two million more homeowners are expected to lose their homes.
44 - Don Jarrett
John MCain says that $700 billion would rebuild the entre infrastructure of the country.
Presumably, he was talking about the U.S.
He could also be talking about the infrastructure of Iraq, the one he voted to be responsible for in 2002.
Which country first?
He has shown which infrastructure is more important to him.
Country first? America first?
Just words.
45 - Baronius
Bliffle - Rewarding the crooks? Who committed crimes? You can't just label something a crime if you don't like it.
46 - Don Jarrett
"You can't just label something a crime if you don't like it."
The FBI is curently investigating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman, and AIG.
Does the FBI spend its time investigating things it doesn't like?
It's likely there will be crimes uncovered.
It's got to be more than something that just stinks.
47 - MARLOWE
There are crimes then there are "crimes". A lot of what's been happening in this country for decades has been perfectly "legal" because the crooks MADE IT legal... Just look at the wholesale re-engineering of our tax system to favor the top 1/10th of 1% in this country. Read DAVID K JOHNSTON'S books, FREE LUNCH and PERFECTLY LEGAL. (Johnston's a Pulitzer prize winner for the NYT).
The thieves and their lackeys across the nation, on right wing radio, in print, and even here on BC give a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile and shrug at this wholesale theft and say, "well, no LAWS have been broken!" Pointing out to them the unethical and immoral nature of what's been done will usually illicit a laugh...
All the way to the bank...
Marlowe
48 - Baronius
Don - So the existence of an FBI investigation is enough for you to convict. Following such reasoning, I suppose you want all Muslims, Communist screenwriters, and civil rights leaders in jail too.
Marlowe - I guess that makes me a lackey. But I'm not laughing off charges of immorality. Two people entering into a fair, legal agreement is perfectly moral. The immorality here is when the government comes in by force to violate those contracts or alter their outcome. Do you support government intervention? If so, how do you live with the immorality of that decision?
49 - Marlowe
Bar-Bar!
Surely you don't think this is a "hostile" government take over do you? Because Wall St., is thrilled, THRILLED I tell you to have its brother, Mr. Paulson, riding to the rescue!
There is a MASSIVE revolving door in Washington Bar. If I tried to list all those who WERE lobbyist but are NOW congressmen, or WERE senators but are NOW lobbyists or who WERE on the board of directors of this or that Fortune 100 I'd be typing intil the election.
There is no "barrier" to this flim-flam game man! Come on! You're no kid! This goes way beyond the spectacle of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - EVERYONE in Washington is swimming in the same filthy pool...
I've WORKED in the real estate industry and I've SEEN the predatory lending. Not one or two or twenty cases Bar-Bar but by HUNDREDS. And that was just what I saw. In my little neck of the woods!
Let's put away the old cold war "O my God its SOCIALISM!" hysterics and SEE THIS for what was and IS: GREED on a scale that literally cannot be measured!
Marlowe
50 - Baronius
Mar-Mar, we're all being coerced. You know that. That's the injustice here.
51 - Marlowe
Damn straight Bar-Bar... Too damn straight.
Mar