Obama, Liberals and Nationalism: Oh My!

NATIONALISTIC CONCEPTS ARE VERY MUCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF MANY EUROPEAN NATIONS IN RECENT DECADES

By Glenn S. Reiner

WHEN former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned last week that major banks — at the rate they are spiraling downward — ultimately might have to be nationalized, he didn’t realize the term would set off the type of alarm that hasn’t been heard since the Communist witch hunt of the McCarthy era!

Nationalism, or government owned, is synonymous with Socialism. This is why the mere thought of that “forbidden” concept brought even the most obscure conservative talking heads across the nation out of hiding to denounce this notion passionately. And, needless to say, they used every media outlet available.

‘The government has no right to be in the banking business,’ was the jest of they collectively preached. ‘Everyone knows the private sector can do a much better job.’

Oh really?

Where have these geniuses been for the past several months? Hasn’t it been the private sector — mostly through the greed, deception and an utter lack of integrity of their multi-millionaire CEO’s — which led the major banking empire down the fast track to extinction?

Yet, one mention of Nationalism tends to unjustifiably terrify much of our society, which acts as if its time to go back into those old fallout shelters built in the 1950s as protection against  a possible Soviet nuclear attack!

Interestingly, nothing has ever been more effectively employed by Conservatives than fear to control Americans’ collective mindset. Sadly, this completely disingenuous tactic is facilitated through propaganda campaigns.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower laid the groundwork for both the Korean and Vietnam Wars with his “Domino theory.” His philosophy was simple, although quite short-sighted: By allowing a Communist takeover of any turbulent nation on the other side of the globe, the entire region would fall to the Marxists.

In just three years in Korea, the American death toll reached just below 37,000. Fighting a losing battle in Vietnam for over a decade, more than 58,000 died.

In recent years, the Bush Administration used a fear campaign after 9/11 to remind us why we needed to continue fighting an enormously ludicrous war in Iraq. You might remember, he even linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and “The war on terrorism.” The sad truth was that there were no terrorists in Iraq until we intervened.

Even last fall, John McCain used deception and propaganda in a futile attempt to scare the electorate away from Barack Obama.

“Guess who is the biggest Liberal in the Senate,” the Republican candidate exclaimed during one of the debates. “This one,” as he pointed to Obama. It was as if he was calling his opponent a Communist conspirator.”

The Republican Party has tried to minimize government for decades, claiming it crams the space of the private sector with “unnecessary regulations.” But ever since Ronald Reagan lifted many of those regulations in 1981, Corporate America has led us by the hand into financial ruin.

There is a reason for government, and a rock-solid one at that. It’s the same logic used for having larger police departments.

Left to their own devices — or should I say egos and greed — the lords of Big Business tend to become addicted to power, prestige and money — with emphasis on the later!

Let’s face it, there is a huge necessity for government oversight because these unscrupulous animals simply can’t be trusted.

And please allow me to make an important distinction: The Nationalism we’re addressing here is not the Communism of Lenin’s Soviet Union, Mao Tse Tung’s China, Castro’s Cuba or even Ho Chi Min’s Vietnam. In reality, those regimes didn’t even constitute anything close to authentic socialized governments in the first place. All of them, without exception, employed very few basic socialistic principles in conjunction with Totalitarian political systems.

Karl Marx, the father of Socialism, intended for his economic philosophy to allow people to live in true freedom, emancipated from unnecessary economic anxiety and political oppression.

Many European countries have successfully blended Nationalism with free market principles to create Social Democracies. And it has worked far more effectively than our system over the past 30 years.

For one thing, you will never see a homeless, starving individual there, nor will you see a citizen — any citizen — without health insurance.

In other words, no human being suffers without the absolute essentials of life, while the opportunity to make a great deal of money still exists as well, but under heavy regulation.

In reality, Nationalism has been going on in the United States since the 1930s in one form or another. Some examples:

- Social Security

- Public Works programs, which put many victims of the Great Depression back to work

- Medicare

- Medicaid

- The Veterans Administration, which has provided an untold number of vets with quality health care, a college or trade-school education and disability benefits when service related.

- Federal grants for a variety of useful purposes, including higher education and vital research — specifically in medicine.

- Food Stamps for the impoverished

- Programs from the “Great Society” — which was a catalyst for the great success many minorities have enjoyed in both the public and private sectors.

- Affirmative Action, which evened out the playing field for people of color, and women.

Yet, none of these programs were instituted with the forbidden label of “Nationalism or Socialism.” But they have all worked quite competently — that is, until the GOP started hacking away at the funds appropriated to them since the Reagan years.

And now, it has been suggested by Greenspan — one of the foremost experts of our time on the banking industry  — that the government might have to buy and run some of the most troubled banks in order to keep them buoyant.

What is so aweful about that?

In fact, a few banks recently have already asked Uncle Sam to buy shares in their failing financial institutions –  in effect — offering the federal government part ownership.

As the stock market continues to plummet each week, reaching a 30-year low on Monday, it is imperative for the government to step in.

We are dealing with a horrifying viscous fiscal cycle, as stockholders continue to sell off their shares to avoid even further loses. Someone has to pick up the slack, and Washington seems to be the best and most pragmatic candidate.

This is also why national (or universal, which sounds less socialistic) health insurance is a necessity. We can no longer go on allowing our citizens — especially children — to go without the proper treatment for their ailments, especially those that are life threatening. In private medicine, treatment is just another commody sold only to those who can afford it.

So it’s time for the American public — especially the GOP — to wise up and become edified about the true nature of Nationalism, rather than the myths passed down for 91 years!

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Below is a text of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.  If you haven’t actually received a fomal education about Nationalism, you might want to read it in it’s entirety before continuing to make false interpretations about this delicate subject!

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

EVEN AFTER BAILOUT, BANKS CONTINUE DECEPTION OF TAXPAYERS!

This Will Become America’s Second Declaration Of Independence!

By Glenn S. Reiner

AS A SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT, I haven’t trusted a major corporation – especially the major banks on Wall Street – in nearly 30 years. Then again, my distrust for unregulated Capitalism has been supported by the greed of Corporate America since the Reagan years.

But I never thought these sociopaths in Brooks Brothers suits would come up with the 14-karat chutzpah to again scam the American people, who these Banks’ very existence has been, at least temporarily, expanded by the taxpayer’s generosity to the tune of $700 billion.

That money was intended to aid homeowners from further foreclosure, while stimulating the economy and stopping the mass unemployment that has plagued this society for the past year.

With almost half of the bail-out money dispensed already, there is no evidence a red cent has been used for that purpose. And when asked to account for how it has been spent, the smug mortgage bank executives – in their infinite arrogance – chose not to respond honestly or even at all in one case.

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman of JP Morgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.” 

The Associated Press recently contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?

Yet not one of the banks provided concrete answers.

This is exactly why so many Capitol Hill legislators opposed bailing out Wall Street in the first place. The only reason they passed the $17 billion auto rescue plan was to prevent a further hemorrhage in the unemployment picture.

When was the last time we have seen any form of integrity in Corporate America? When have they last shown an iota of compassion and concern for the middle-class and poor?

It’s too bad we can’t throw the lot of them in federal prison – where they belong for at least 20 years – while confiscating their personal fortunes. However, these insatiable, money-hungry thugs’ agreement breach with the government is strictly a civil matter.

If I were Timothy Geithner — President-Elect Barack Obama’s candidate for treasury secretary — I would call on the Justice Department of the new administration in January to litigate the immediate reimbursement of every cent foolishly given to them thus far. I would also ask the court to order them to pay interest and legal fees.

In addition, I would send the other $350 billion remaining from the original $700 million back to the Chinese, who lent us the money for this fiasco. Yet, incredible as it might sound, George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is currently attempting to convince the Congress to release that money as well to these rogue bankers.

Hasn’t Paulson done enough damage, disgracing his boss, the man who depended on him for a competent fiscal assessment of the Wall Street fiasco? Like most presidents, Bush is not an economist and relies on his “expert” for advice. Instead, Paulson is leaving him with even more egg all over his face – this coming as the president is trying to make some last minute sane moves that would help his already-tarnished legacy.

Something bothered me in the first place about the treasury secretary’s original proposal to Congress for the bailout, which completely lacked legitimate oversight. Not surprisingly, as with most Republicans, he was protecting the affluent at the expense of the rest of us – the very tactic that has put this country in the worse fiscal quagmire since the Great Depression.

The genesis of this financial downturn goes all the way back to 1980 when then President Reagan virtually deregulated big business. The fact it has come to a boil the past few months was inevitable.

Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money and a former hedge fund manager understands Wall Street as well as anyone. In an interview today with Mike Barnacle on MSNBC’s Hardball, he virtually called the $700 billion bailout the most corrupt act yet of the Bush White House.

Speaking of which, there are exactly 29 days before this administration gets shown the door. As far as I’m concerned, they couldn’t go by fast enough!

AMERICANS TO DETROIT: ‘DROP DEAD!’

IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SAW THIS PICTURE OF AN UNEMPLOYMENT LINE DURING THE DEPRESSION, THEY MIGHT SING A DIFFERENT TUNE!

 

By Glenn S. Reiner

PERHAPS IT’S TIME to add economics to the high school curriculum, especially since only a fraction of the American people – yours truly excluded – have more than a basic understanding of American Capitalism and it’s nuances.

I personally believe the reason a significant majority of Americans are so opposed to helping the “Big 3″ lies in how some of the approved Wall Street bailout funds have already been misused by a few banking giants, which weren’t in trouble in the first place.

Instead of using the money to rehire recently layed-off employees, they purchased smaller banks with the million of dollars appropriated to them only by the grace of Uncle Sam.

I personally find this sad state of affairs completely reprehensible and beyond belief, as obviously do 55 percent of Americans — particularly the working middle-class taxpayers — who believe they were totally mislead and shafted, a totally justified conclusion.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson offered a very compelling argument that sold us all on the $700 billion bailout of the white-collar, criminally-run banking empire. With much reservation, the bailout was passed by Congress and signed by the president despite the root causes for Wall Street’s problems: egocentric executives, greed and more greed — not to mention a lack of federal oversight that’s been going since the Reagan Administration almost 30 years ago.

So now Detroit wants help, albeit on a much smaller scale. Yet again, money-hungry corporate mismanagement and the refusal to change course in order to remain competitive with foreign auto makers is at the bottom of its calamity.

I believe President Bush’s overture last week to possibly supply the “Big 3″ with $14 billion out of Wall Street’s funds was noble and the right thing to do. It could actually represent the first taxpayer dollars to Corporate American in a long time that is legitimate.

Why? Because virtually every top-flight economist believes refusal to do so would have a horrifying domino effect, dragging down the economy even further — possibly to depression proportions.

Since my expertise and experience has revolved around the world of politics and not economics, I have to trust the experts. One of them, Felix Rohatyn, was the financial genious who personally pulled New York out near bankruptcy in the late ’70s.

The economists’ contention that a failure to help Detroit now would sharply increase the already-inflated unemployment stats is valid. It was just days ago that U.S. Department of Labor figures showed a loss of an additional 150,000 jobs last month alone — a 34-year high.

This is why I stand behind the president’s thinking — something I’ve rarely done for the past eight years.

My only concern is whether the corporate-friendly White House will be willing to impose the same oversights on Detroit contained in the House bill passed last week. If so, how could I honestly oppose this plan?

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On Dec. 19,  President Bush agreed to release $17 billion to Chrysler and GM from the $700 billion Wall St. bailout funds, or TARP, virtually with the same stipulations contained in the original House Bill. Ford already said it has enough money to last through 2009 and therefore wasn’t included in this package.

Needless to say, Congressional Conservatives immediately criticized the president, as he circumvented their obstruction of the original bill in the Senate.

Many of them lost reelection bids in November and won’t be returning January to the new Congress, which will be dominated significantly this time by the Democrats.

So what are my parting words to those congressional Republicans? Adios assholes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!