I felt a bit of redemption last evening as I watched Bill Moyer's Journal. At last there was an 'expert' who said much the same thing as I had been thinking for the past 6 months- get the money to the local banks. What a simplistic answer to what has grown into a monstrous beast. William Greider and I agree- it's the local banks, stupid!
A correspondent for The Nation, William Greider has been a political journalist for more than 35 years and author of several books including, COME HOME AMERICA. On Wednesday, Greider wrote the article, Obama's New Monopoly Set for The Nation. In his opening paragraph he says, "The best thing about Obama's game is nobody loses. Usually, the winner in Monopoly is the one who winds up with the most money. In the Obama version, the losers get any losses back from the government at the end of the game."
I can't recall those sweet rules when the neighborhood gang and I played that board game on rainy summer days. He quips, "For this Monopoly set has no 'Go to Jail' card in the deck."
He writes:
"It starts just like the real Monopoly game. The president hands out tall stacks of cash to all the players--hedge funds, insurance companies, big-time investors, any well-heeled capitalist with a serious taste for acquiring greater wealth."
The line that raise the hairs on my neck last evening as i watched Greider on PBS was this:
" And then think of all those thousands of smaller banks. How are they going to perform against these behemoths that have an inside track to the government spigot? And for just ordinary enterprise in general? Before you even get to the citizens. How are citizens supposed to feel about that? And I-- my point is, in this situation, with if the leading banks and corporations are sort of at the trough, ahead of everybody else in Washington, they will have the means to monopolize democracy."
Naturally, Moyers jumped on that phrase, 'monopolize democracy.' Greider went on:
"The corporate state is here. And I'd say, let's not argue over that. The fact is, if the Congress goes down the road I see them going down, they will institutionalize the corporate state in a way that will be severely damaging to any possibility of restoring democracy. And I want people to grab their pitch forks, yes, and be unruly. Get in the streets. Be as noisy and as nonviolently provocative as you can be. And stop the politicians from going down that road. And let me add a lot of politicians need that to be able to stand up. Our President needs that to be able to stand up."
Grab your pitchfork, barricade the streets, paint the banners, and take back your local banks! La liberté guidant le peuple!
