Bill Moyers, Simon Johnson and US Rep. Marcy Kaptur

[Video]:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/watch.html
[Transcript]:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/transcript1.html

Excerpts:

MICHAEL MOORE: We're here to get the money back for the American People. Do you think it's too harsh to call what has happened here a coup d'état? A financial coup d'état?

MARCY KAPTUR: That's, no. Because I think that's what's happened. Um, a financial coup d'état?

MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah.

MARCY KAPTUR: I could agree with that. I could agree with that. Because the people here really aren't in charge. Wall Street is in charge.

...

MARCY KAPTUR: Let me give you a reality from ground zero in Toledo, Ohio. Our foreclosures have gone up 94 percent. A few months ago, I met with our realtors. And I said, 'What should I know?' They said, 'Well, first of all, you should know the worst companies that are doing this to us.'

I said, 'Well, give me the top one.' They said, 'J.P. Morgan Chase.' I went back to Washington that night. And one of my colleagues said, 'You want to come to dinner?' I said, 'Well, what is it?' He said, 'Well, it's a meeting with Jamie Dimon, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase.' I said, 'Wow, yes. I really do.' So, I go to this meeting in a fancy hotel, fancy dinner, and everyone is complimenting him. I mean, it was just like a love fest.

They finally got to me, and my point to ask a question. I said, 'Well, I don't want to speak out of turn here, Mr. Dimon.' I said, 'But your company is the largest forecloser in my district. And our Realtors just said to me this morning that your people don't return phone calls.' I said, 'We can't do work outs.' And he looked at me, he said, 'Do you know that I talk to your Governor all the time?' He said, 'Our company employs 10,000 people in Ohio.'

And I'm thinking, 'What is that? A threat?' And he said, 'I speak to the Mayor of Columbus.' I said, 'Why don't you come further north?' I said, 'Toledo, Cleveland, where the foreclosures are just skyrocketing.' He said, 'Well, we'll have someone call you.' And he gave me a card. And they never did. For two weeks, we tried to reach them. And finally, I was on a national news show. And I told this story. They called within ten minutes. And they said, 'Oh, we'll work with you. We'll try to do some workouts in your area.'

We planned the first one after working with them for weeks and weeks and weeks. Their people never showed up. And it was a Friday. Our people had taken off work. They'd driven from all these locations to come. We kept calling J.P. Morgan Chase saying, 'Where's your person? Where's your person?' And they finally sent somebody down from Detroit by 3:00 in the afternoon. But out people had been waiting all morning and a lot of people that's how they treat our people.

...

MARCY KAPTUR: Think about what these banks have done. They have taken very imprudent behavior, irresponsible. They have really gambled, all right? And in many cases, been involved in fraudulent activity. And then when they lost, they shifted their losses to the taxpayer. So, if you look at an instrumentality like the F.H.A., the Federal Housing Administration. They used to insure one of every 50 mortgages in the country. Now it's one out of four.

Because what they're doing is they're taking their mistakes and they're dumping them on the taxpayer. So, you and I, and the long term debt of our country and our children and grandchildren. It's all at risk because of their behavior. We aren't reigning them in. The laws of Congress passed last year in terms of housing, were hollow. Were hollow.

Foreclosures in my area have gone up 94 percent. And we know the basic rules of economics. Housing leads us to recovery. Housing was the precipitating factor in this economic downturn. Unless you dealing with the housing sector, you aren't going to have growth in this

...

MARCY KAPTUR: Congress has really shut down. I'm disappointed in both chambers, because wouldn't you think, with the largest financial crisis in American history, in the largest transfer of wealth from the American people to the biggest banks in this country, that every committee of Congress would be involved in hearings, that this would be on the news, that people would be engaged in this. What we're seeing is-- tangential hearings on very arcane aspects of financial reform. For example, now we're going to have a consumer protection agency to help the poor consumer, who doesn't understand all of this, rather than hearings on the fundamental new architecture of reforming the American financial system, so that we have prudent lending, capital accumulation at the local level again; that we encourage savings and limit debt by the American people. Our country needs this. Those aren't the hearings that are happening.

If you want a marker at the Federal level of how serious we are to get justice out of this financial crisis, look at the F.B.I. Look at the number of people who are really prosecuting and investigation mortgage fraud and securities fraud. It is so small

I've been one of the Members of Congress trying to increase by ten times the agents to get at the justice issues for the American people. For companies that have been hurt. For shareholders that have been hurt. Our government isn't doing it. That it's very easy to look at the budget of the F.B.I. in mortgage fraud and securities fraud and say, 'How serious is the government?' And until those numbers increase, we will not begin to get justice.

...

SIMON JOHNSON: Well, the final end of the last vestige of Glass-Steagall came in just now in August. Unnoted, but I think very significant. Goldman Sachs, you remember, was an investment bank, a securities company. Not allowed to be a commercial bank; didn't have access to the Federal Reserve and this ability to tap into the money supply of the country. Until September of last year, when the crisis broke, they were allowed a very short notice to convert to being a bank holding company. This was what saved Goldman Sachs in my opinion. Also Morgan Stanley. Which meant they could stay in the securities business. And they could also have access to the Federal Reserve. In August, just now, they converted to what's called a financial holding company. That may seem like a technical detail to you, but this means they can borrow from the Fed, at essentially zero interest rate now.

They can invest in, I mean, as far as we can see, from the outside, looking at their portfolio, anything they want, including, you're going to love this one, they just bought some stock, big chunk of stock in a Chinese automotive company. Okay? So, that's your money, that's your Federal Reserve, financing a highly speculative investment. And if it goes well, they get the upside. And if it goes badly, that's another one for us.

...

BILL MOYERS: Does President Obama get it?

MARCY KAPTUR: I don't think President Obama has the right people around him. The poor man inherited a total mess, globally and domestically. I think some of the people that he trusted haven't delivered. I urge him to get new generals. It's time.

SIMON JOHNSON: Louis the Fourteenth of France, a very powerful monarch, was famous for having many bad things, you know, happen under his rule. And people would always say, 'If only Louis the Fourteenth knew. I'm sure he doesn't know. If we could just tell him, he'd sort it out.' You know. I'm skeptical.

------

Exactly. As always with Moyers - dead on target. And Kaptur was a revelation! I don't know much about her, but to me she comes across as intelligent and full of passion for her work as a legislator. Johnson always worries me a little because of his IMF background, but he pulls no punches here.

And I'm skeptical also. I think Obama gets "IT." He just has a different agenda than you and I. He's a corporatist operative - politicians are all of a kind - and we are the disenfranchised.

I am a radical liberal.

We are in a post-constitutional era. By which I simply mean that we don't really have a rule book any longer. We are in the era of government by "winging it."

I am a champion of a hybrid economy because I think capitalism as we imagine it is utterly broken - and even if it wasn't broken it would be wholly inadequate to the task of being the economy for the future.

I champion socialized safety nets for the entire population. After all, it's exactly what the corporations and banks got - individuals certainly deserve at least what legal entities receive and even more.

I disdain the power of the corporations of the world. We have to knock them down to a manageable size. Corporations are the biggest problem of the post-constitutional era because the kind of capital power they represent was undreamed of at the time of the writing of the Constitution. Corporations are not only not individuals, the only true purpose of any corporation is to serve the public good as a servant of the people.

So many things are completely upside down these days that I'd have to start at a very elementary level to fully air my thoughts on any of these ideas, but that's the quick and short strokes of it.

It is good to talk of peace, but keep your sword to hand. It's a bumpy road ahead, folks!

Bill Moyers: "A Leveraged Buyout of Democracy"

Moyers has been on fucking fire this last season, here's why...

[Video]:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/watch2.html
[Transcript]:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/transcript2.html

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: My job is to put together a bill that gets 60 votes. Now I can count and no one has been able to show me how we can count up to 60 votes with a public option in the bill.

BILL MOYERS: Of course not. They can't get 60 votes. Not when the people who want a public alternative can't possibly scrape up the millions of dollars Baucus has received from the health sector during his political career.

Over the last two decades, the current members of the Senate Finance Committee...have collected nearly 50 million dollars from the health sector. A long-term investment that's now paying off like a busted slot machine...Of course, like water seeking its own level, big money finds its way around every obstacle, and was soon up to its old tricks, filling the pockets of friendly politicians. Today none dare call it treason. So how about calling it what it is: a friendly takeover of government. A leveraged buyout of democracy.

Outrageous? You bet. But don't just get mad. Get busy.

Al Franken's Supply Side Jesus

American Zombie

Hmmm, there's a lot of talk these days about the meaning of zombies in popular American culture. I don't see the mystery in it really. For one thing the zombie is clearly an offshoot vampire; which itself is most likely a kind of fictive re-imagining about cannibals; and cannibalism itself is largely ceremonial in its practice wherever it is still observed. What's it all about?

"The dead govern the living." - Auguste Comte

It is about the oppressive weight of following in the footsteps of those now departed or soon to be departed. It is the weight of culture when the way we've been doing things doesn't work anymore.

Here's the most obvious aspect of culture that doesn't really make sense anymore:



That's crazy offensive right? But is it really that far off the mark? Consider the following Bible quotes:

Acts 2:24
But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

John 6:53
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

Does it still seem so crazy to note that the Jesus myth closely resembles other myths that are largely accepted as absurd and almost humorous in their nature? Why should we set the Jesus myth aside for special treatment? Do you really believe in the myth that there is a father in the sky that will judge and care for you after you are dead? And I don't mean as a comforting thought that occasionally crosses your mind when you seek for some kind of continuity - or perhaps in a stressed out situation bargaining against death as you might in a foxhole - I mean truly believe it down to your core. Do you?

Well, I don't believe a word of it.

The stories collected in the Bible are an amazing product of culture. Biblical passages are at turns mythic, lyrical and sometimes even shockingly absurd. Maybe there really aren't great justifications for people turning into a pillar of salt, being oppressed like Job because of a wager between God and the Devil nor for a man like Noah to have drunken sex with his daughters. Those stories are mere myths. Stories passed from fathers to sons until they took on the hard basis for western culture. But that doesn't mean we have to believe in those silly stories today. The Song of Solomon may have lost none of its beauty but that doesn't make it true.

Today we are still ravaged by the power of myths. There are still stories that keep us in check. Traditions that truly are the rule of the dead over the living. Certainly, Christianity is one. Capitalism is another. And a whole variety of prejudices represent still others.

I look forward to a day when we can step boldly into the light and declare ourselves free of myths and absurdities. We have to confront the realities of the world and the universe at large with our ability to reason. And every time some old fart - usually some fucking Republican - cries about the destruction of culture do try to remember what that person is really trying to champion: the unreasoning maintenance of the status quo.

Is that really what you want?

It's not what I want at all.

For centuries we were all monarchists. We have significantly abandoned that project at this time except as a symbol or to draw in the tourists.

The old ruling class transformed itself into the new capitalists. "You can have your newfangled democratic republic, just don't take our wealth away from us," they said.

But, see? something has to come next...

Do you suppose capitalism is going to work best for the 6,789,804,942 that are currently living on this planet? How long will we try to force a square peg into a round hole before we abandon the project?

Do you want to be controlled by the dead?

Major Label Serfdom: Edwyn Collins

Edwyn Collins says: "Non serviam." More here:

Copyright Drama Prevents Artist From Sharing Music on MySpace
http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-drama-prevents-artist-from-sharing-music-on-myspace-091007/

Truth is an Absolute Defense:Alan Grayson vs Conservative Talking Heads

This is really very interesting stuff. I am AMAZED at the AMAZEMENT shown by the conservative talking heads at the fact that it has taken this long for anyone to call them out on their endless bullshit, to play them in the same way they try to play others. They did not like it one bit. They want to keep nonsensical talking points before the public thereby accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Where were these talking heads when endless GOP members and other conservative talking heads reduced the political conversation to this level of bullshit? You know who I mean: Coulter, Limbaugh, Beck, Savage etc. - to a man, interchangeable mudslingers (Hey, I see an Adam's Apple, kay?!). And now all of a sudden they don't like it? Well, fuck them!

One of my favorite "teaching points" here would be the way the GOP operative tries to get back onto his talking points of tort reform and free market competition - as if resolving those matters would in any fucking way equal better health care for even one person. Despite the obvious corporatist whoring which obviously unites the GOP, they stay on point and never veer off track or play by another's team rhetorical strategies.

Political debate takes place in a sewer. There are no heroes except those that prevail and accomplish their goals. Anything else means fuck all.

Progressives need to learn that indulging the rhetoric of the other side makes for very bad sound bites. Don't listen. Don't play "fair." Speak! Make your point. Keep it short and sweet. Make no fucking apologies for what you want to say and for god's sake do not equivocate. Say what you mean and say it mean.

"I would like to apologize. I would like to apologize to the dead." - Alan Grayson

Democratic Super Majority + Limp Dick vs.Don't Get Sick + Don't Fuck = Epic Fail!

Here's a funny thing about health care reform: people die from lack of access to health care.

Oh wait, that's not funny - that's totally fucking frightening! But, you know, the Dems have it hard getting anything done since they have a super majority in congress.

This is what ultimately happened to health care reform, as depicted on "Late Show with David Letterman."

It's abstinence only, folks! Don't get sick. Don't fuck. We are under the thumb of the party of: NO!

As in "no empathy."

"It's not about the specifics - it's about wanting to oppose reform, wanting a political victory, wanting to undermine the president and the democratic majority."- Arianna Huffington