SPREAD THIS FAR & WIDE!!!

http://www.NoWallStreetBailout.com

Most all the comments are solid gold!!!

Spot on article!!!

Published on Monday, September 29, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

The Power of 'No' and the Need to Keep the Pressure on Congress

by Dave Lindorff

Incredible! This time, when the People spoke, Congress listened.

At least 228 members of the House listened. They voted early this afternoon to reject the Bush Administration's scaremongering, and the cowardly Democratic Congressional leadership's attempt at ducking and covering by attaching some meaningless verbiage to what remains a case of legalized highway robbery. At least for the moment, the bailout scam is killed.

Earlier in the day, the Congressional switchboard was jammed. You could get through, but it took a dedicated finger on the redial button of your phone. Operators at the Capitol say it's been that way for a week now, as Americans across the country have been flooding their Congressional delegations with phone calls (and emails) urging them to vote "No" on the Bush/Paulson Wall Street bailout.

That today was no exception, even after Democratic Party leaders (and both major party presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama) had bought into the plan following their adding of some window-dressing measures designed to make it look more palatable, showed that the public is not being fooled (calls were reportedly running better than 9:1 or more like 999:1 against a bailout, perhaps more like 99:1).

People see clearly that this proposal is a trillion-dollar giveaway to the very people who have been hollowing out and destroying the US economy for over a decade or more by convincing both parties to let them do whatever they want to get rich, free of any kind of significant oversight or regulation.

As Nobelist economist Joseph Stiglitz has written of this outrageous rip-off, there are four problems facing the financial system, and the bailout proposal only addresses one--getting the toxic mortgages off the banks' books and onto taxpayers' hands. Left unsolved is the gaping hole in banks' balance sheets in the form of loans made to people and companies which cannot be repaid, which will mean they still won't start lending money again. Left unaddressed too is the continuing collapse of housing prices, which will inevitably lead to more bank collapses even after the bailout. Finally, Stiglitz says there is the general loss of faith in the financial system--a major crisis which the bailout will also not solve.

Stiglitz doesn't even address a fifth problem which is that this trillion-plus-dollar boondoggle (and when you add in the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Bear Stearns, the multiple mega-bank failures and the pending auto-industry bailout, you're already talking $1.5 trillion and counting), all of it with borrowed money, the stage is being set for a collapse in the US dollar, with consequences that will reverberate through the economy. Consider: if the dollar collapses, as many experts say is almost inevitable with this kind of huge addition to the national debt, oil prices (which are set in dollars) will soar to compensate, the price of all the other goods that Americans import--more than half of everything we use in daily life thanks to the decimation of American manufacturing--will rise dramatically, and ultimately, in an effort to stem the bleeding, interest rates will have to be raised, thus bringing what's left of the economy to a grinding halt.

All of this is readily predictable--and indeed a group of over 200 prominent economists has written Congress joining Stiglitz in opposing the bailout plan--but that doesn't matter to the proponents of the bailout in Washington. What they want is to get past Election Day, and the bailout may do that, unless the public gets really aroused.

The tsunami of calls and emails to Congress, and last week's nationwide demonstrations against the bailout suggest that the public is waking up to this looming disaster and to the fact that they are being sold a bill of goods.

But it ain't over yet. We can be sure there will be arm-twisting now to try and get 12 members of Congress to change their votes and win passage in the House (the Senate, where two-thirds of the members aren't facing election for two or four years, will probably pass the bill easily). A continued expression of public outrage and of a promise of retaliation at the ballot box against those who vote for the bailout needs to be expressed.

If you haven't made an effort to call your two senators and your representative to demand that they vote "No" on this bailout, do it now (the number is 202-225-3121 or 202-224-3121), and don't give up when you get a busy signal. That's a sign that you are not alone. Just keep hitting "redial" until you get through. At that point, get the operator, before switching you, to give you direct numbers for your three members of Congress, so you can bypass the main switchboard number after that. If you did call, call again and say you don't want anyone changing their vote to become a bailout backer.

Unlike the 2002 rush to war against Iraq, we've shown that this latest bum's rush can still be stopped. We did stop it.

To make your next call more impactful, make sure you tell each member of your congressional delegation that any yes vote on the bailout means you will vote against them next election. To read about this strategy, go to:

ThrowThemAllOut.com...and then spread the word.

Keep the pressure on!

And don't forget to contact the Obama campaign too. How embarrassing for candidates Obama and McCain, who both got suckered into backing the bailout, which it is now abundantly clear the American people recognize as a ripoff.

PS: Imagine if the same kind of pressure had been brought on Congress back in October 2002 when Bush was scare-mongering Congress into approving a war against Iraq. We'd have 4500 young Americans still alive, 40,000 other young Americans would still have their limbs and other body parts. A million-plus Iraqis would still be alive. And the country would have an extra $500 billion with which to deal with the current economic crisis.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Express Elevator to Hell! GOING DOWN!!!

From the OH SHIT! file! Most of these from LegitGov.Org <--GREAT site! Now don't go and jump out a window:

House Defeats $700B Bailout

The House on Monday defeated (227-206) a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President [sic] Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry.

Stocks Plunge On Vote

Dow plummets up to 700 points as bailout package is rejected.

Mussolini-Style Corporatism in Action: Treasury Conference Call on Bailout Bill to Analysts (naked capitalism) 29 Sep 2008 Various readers wrote us, and it was confirmed by a detailed report on the call at DealBreaker, that the Treasury Department held a conference call this evening for analysts on the bailout bill. A memo was evidently sent to SIFMA members; others may have been contacted by other means... This is simply scandalous. To have a group of interested parties get a privileged briefing by government officials on a matter of keen public interest flies in the face of what a democracy is supposed to be about... The tap dancing is because they don't want it to get out that they'll be giving a sweetheart deal. The public won't be following each individual transaction to see exactly what price is being paid. So ridiculously overpriced asset sales can be hidden in the details, and by the time some reporter (or blogger) combs through and analyzes the transactions, the deed will have been done. But if [Henry] Paulson makes a statement that assets will be bought at par before the bailout's even begun, that will be reported and might kill the deal.

Breaking: Bailout bill fails on first House vote; what next is unclear 29 Sep 2008 The $700 billion bailout of the financial industry failed to win congressional approval on Monday, with the House of Representatives rejecting the measure. The measure could still be reconsidered today -- if the Republicans request it. It was unclear whether that would happen, however.

Take this bailout AND FUCKING SHOVE IT!!!!!

I guess since I got like a dozen (ok, ONE!) comments on my last bloggypoo from a week or so ago saying WHERE ARE YOU! well this was OVER DUE:

Blow it out your ass Wall St., CEO's and you fucking reTARDlicans!!! This bailout bill sucks so hard, jesus on a pogo stick, why don't we just dig up FDR, Jefferson, et al, and say "Hey dude, sorry, but this uh, Democracy Experiment, well, it's pretty much OVER NOW!!! Just thought you'd like to know...uh, hey, you got any room in that coffin for a few of us?!?!?!"

Oh shit! Before I continue giving the KKKorporate Elist it's much overdue S&M session (and no, I have ZERO interest in any way shape or form in that NASTY freak of a human Sarah Palin, so please, I'm trying not to throw up!!!) I forgot to post to y'all that I was going to PA! Through some top secret channels, I was able to get the fuck out of this horrid state of FloriDUH to where people SHOULD be considering it PARADISE! Folks, get this goddamn idea of PALM TREES out of your collective brains already!!! Anyways, I had FUN, which, sadly, is something that we are NOT in store for if we don't elect OBAMA!

Now, back to the corn-holing session for these bastards who AGAIN have no problem ripping of the American tax payers--socialize the costs while PRIVATIZING THE PROFITS. I thought all you Cons were SO against tax & spend?!?!?! Also, let me ram it up a notch, cuz I am NOT going to be outdone by this article from Rolling Stone, which, FUCKING OWNS SARAH PALIN'S ASS!!!! Gooood gods from Hell, she is a CREEP!!!!!! Anyways, the author is DAMN SNARKY! Something long since lacking in this so-called FREE PRESS!!! Again, don't worry, I WILL ramp it up a notch!!! The underground is ALWAYS one step ahead of the mainstream!!!!!!!

And for y'all who have that annoying Con on your email list or whatever crap like Myspace, here's some SOLID ammo for you:

The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning by Michael Moore

How Wall Street Can Bail Itself Out WITHOUT DESTROYING THE DOLLAR by Thom Hartmann

Hey McHoover, PLEASE shut the FUCK up about that WAR CRIMINAL ASSHOLE Henry Kissinger!!! For those unfamiliar with this cretin, it's...Time for a COMPLETE FACT CHECK!!!!! (Aren't there STILL some countries he cannot step foot in or he'll be IMMEDIATELY ARRESTED??!!)
http://www.mccainpedia.org/index.php/Count_the_Lies

More great stuff can be found here:
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?/archives/93-Monday,-September-29,-2008.html#extended