It is said that history gets written by the conquerors. A very post-modernist thought for an old saying, isn't it?
In my lifetime, I have watched the manipulation of history by those whose fates were ascendant: So Ronald Reagan was credited for the fall of the Soviet Union and neo-conservatives are now claiming Vietnam could have been won if we'd only been willing to spend more lives. Those are Big Lies. They affect our understanding of our own past, our ability to learn lessons provided.
I have also watched the power of the little lies: the Clintons had people murdered; Gore was a perpetual liar, and Kerry was a weak wimp. The little lies can change history, too, and have in devastating ways. But they are still little lies.
Obama is being besieged by little lies: He pals around with terrorists; he's non-christian and somehow exotic while at the same time being a typical Chicago pol, "a guy of the streets." I'm not even going to bother finding you links. You'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard it.
This time, because of Obama's incomparable grace, the little lies will not change history.
So I'm getting ready to leave town for a few days and I wanted to leave you chewing on a couple Big Lies floating around this season, lies directed mostly at poor people and those working on their behalf.
The first Big Lie is that poor people are responsible for the housing crisis and, by extension, the collapse of the entire global economy. Heard anyone mention the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)? The conservative talking heads are all over it. All the way back to Carter go the roots of the crisis in the storyline of this Big Lie. Too many poor people being given mortgages for houses they couldn't afford.
That is a ridiculous pile of crap. Look at where the highest rates of foreclosures are: Las Vegas? Miami? California? These are not houses that were bought by poor people.
And look at who issued the original paper behind most of this crap. Did neighborhood banking institutions issue the bulk of sub-prime mortgages? No, they did not. It is Countrywide and other non-bank lenders who peddled the garbage we now have to clean up.
We are compelled to educate ourselves so that we can smack this shit back. Instead of a bunch of links giving you the facts behind this Big Lie I give you one really good one.
The assault on ACORN is another Big Lie, just the latest in a long line of GOP voter suppression tactics. I can't believe the MSM is giving this so much air. (OK, yes I can.)
There is absolutely no evidence that voter fraud is a significant problem in this country, while there is plenty of evidence of GOP-erected obstacles designed to prevent poor people and minorities from voting. Go read this about that.
Traveling most of the next several days. Posting will be sketchy.
Big Lies and Little Lies
Progressive Solutions
There have been no shortage of economists who have declared their opposition to the now-failed bailout. Perhaps they helped make some more confident in opposing the measure than I was.
A few have put forward alternative solutions, and at least now they have time to be considered.
This post by Meteor Blades as DKos is a good place to start. He's done his homework and it's full of authoritative links.
The Leadership of John McCain
Where to start?
At the beginning, where the drama queen of the campaign pulled one of the most notable political stunts in history to place himself in the center of negotiations -- and had no small hand in causing them to fail?
Or in the middle, where he gave himself premature credit for having revived the deal he screwed up (via Politico).
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.
Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.
“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up.
“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior policy adviser, told reporters on a conference call that McCain "dedicated the past week" to addressing the problem but made "a conscious decision not to attract attention to John McCain."
Why not just start at the end, this afternoon, after the complete and abject failure of the Republican candidate to deliver on his brag. The master of chutzpah himself:
"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame, it's time to fix the problem."
Doesn't it just make your head spin? Only a Republican could deliver lines like that. Blame everything on your opponent and then admonish your audience not to assign blame!
Or maybe I just misunderstood. Maybe the "don't blame" time doesn't begin until all his campaign's press releases blaming Obama have been sent, or until after this:
(Warning! You are about to encounter the most nauseating pile of shit passing for spin that I have ever seen. Those taking high blood pressure medication may want to pass.)
Chickens Home Roosting
I have been unable to blog this week because I didn't even know what to say. Like many on the left, I have been outraged by this extortion of the US taxpayer by the fat, greedy pigs that created this mess, yet unsure if this so-called bailout wasn't, in fact, necessary.
Right or wrong, however, it's clear that the Bush Administration's chickens have come home to roost. The only rational explanation for what happened today is that the American people, and the majority of Congressional members, simply do not believe Bush when he declares a crisis.
This is the natural fallout from having shredded one's own credibility through eight years of lies.
I'm Back and Pissed
I have been on a self-imposed moratorium from the news for a week. Other than a quick glance at the NY Times front page at Starbucks one day, which sent me into immediate shrieks of rage, I refused to allow the outrage that masquerades as our government interfere with a planned vacation with the womenfriends of my life. My aforementioned reaction to what I did get a glimpse of only reinforced that decision.
So I leave gasping about the bailout of AIG, which came on the heels of the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which came of the heels of the bailout of Bear Stearns, and I come back to THIS?!
The legislation being moved forward by the Administration is breathtaking in the scope of power being shifted to the Secretary of the Treasury. The bill essentially undermines the entire "power of the purse" granted to the Legislative branch and cedes it to an Executive Appointee!
I will definitely have more the say about this when I've had a chance to catch up.
Hostage Taxpayers
I only occasionally post on economics, because I consider myself generally unqualified to have an intelligent opinion. And whenever I do, I always start with that disclaimer.
But the latest bailout of AIG, announced just tonight, has sent me over the edge. We are all standing around like deer with our eyes caught in the headlights while this Administration, on behalf of taxpayers for several generations, turns the economy of this country into some twisted kind of socialized capitalism: privatized gain and socialized risk.
Those 5%, who have gotten fat at the trough of the Bush Administration (the ones McCain will continue to favor,) are like terrorists standing in the middle of our public square wrapped in suicide vests. “Too big to fail” are the words on the suicide note. “You give me your money or I will kill you all.”
This really pisses me off.
Because of course we have to give in. And of course we can have no impact on these decisions because our Congressional leadership has abdicated all of that decision-making to the Treasury and Wall Street. And we are supposed to accept this because we aren’t qualified to have an opinion.
We are only qualified to pay the bill.
And maybe the “experts” are right. Maybe we are currently faced with no options, but I am sick of picking up the freaking bill while other people get rich. Where does it end?
This is going to cost us some of the best hopes for any upcoming administration. On top of the enormous financial pit dug by the current administration, and not even counting the “off books” cost of two wars, how in the world ANY next administration going to be able to afford to do anything?
And another thing……
Do you notice that another result of this debacle is that the companies that have survived are getting bigger?
So we can have even more companies that are too big to fail?
WTF?
