Your faith in Obama should outweight your wanting to hold criminals accountable

[specimenfred1984]

Let's just give the banking criminals 100s of billions, let the war criminals go, pass some regulations without holding any criminals accountable and magically all the criminals will just start obeying the law and never conspire to commit another crime.

Do people really expect anyone with a functioning mind to believe that?

[Skittles]

1. yes, they do expect us to believe that

plenty of people

[BlooInBloo]

2. You still whining about this?

Yah, yah... I know.... "I'm a PATRIOT!!! I vow to dissent until my last breath! I will never let you lockstepping nazis stop me in my eternal quest for all that is righteous on gawd's earth!!! (drools)"

Sigh.

[Idealism]

3. This post lacks the proper amount of capitulation, prepare to get sent for re-education, Comrade.

[girl gone mad]

9. Want some fries with that waaaahmburger?

[BlooInBloo]

12. Oh that's a good one - I'm so stealing that!

[JackRiddler]

16. You still providing cover fire for the criminal getaway?

Where do you read your talking points? Never mind, if there were a guide you'd obviously do better than this. More spontaneous baaah-baaah.

[BlooInBloo]

24. Ooooh! I'm an ACCOMPLICE now! Should I be tried and imprisoned (or worse) too???

:rofl:

[JackRiddler]

28. No, your punishment was delivered long ago...

in the form of a deficit in humor and wit, coupled with the delusion that derision and pride in one's ignorance are a replacement. That's hell enough, assuming you've got the three brain cells necessary for occasional self reflection.

[TheWatcher]

29. He has blind faith in "The Football Team"

Your logic and reason are no match for that.

[JackRiddler]

33. Ouch! In America we are after all free to believe anything...

and to know nothing. (I think it was Jack Bratich who said that.)

[Baikonour]

37. Damn, son.

:fistbump:

[Xipe Totec]

4. Nice straw man, scarecrow, n/t

[Dr.Phool]

5. Criminals? I don't see no fucking criminals.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

[ddeclue]

41. These aren't the crooks you're looking for - you can go about your business - move along

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnjaUoR15dU



I know I've heard this line before somewhere...

:)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. No.

So, how would you be handling things, if you were Obama?

[JDPriestly]

11. I'd fire Timothy Geithner and hire a team of experts with new

ideas.

The naked credit default swaps were fraudulent and ALL those who sold them should be held personally liable in civil courts to the extent of their personal assets and criminally charged and, to the extent possible, convicted of fraud. Our banks and AIG wrote the equivalent of bad checks.

[JackRiddler]

17. Stop giving trillions to the banks who didn't just cause but invented the problem.

Let them fail, as that's what they set up.

Use that money to start a national banking sector. Capitalize projects in energy and transport conversion (solar, wind, tides, railways, conservation, efficiency).

Get out of all these countries where the US has no business (pretty much all of them) and cut defense down to what's actually necessary to defend against an attack on the country. Use that money for education and to start a single-payer health-care system (which will be cheaper than the insurance-for-profit system).

End the practice of covert warfare on other nations. Open the records on all past illegal covert actions. Apologize. Pay reparations, if that's possible.

Move to end corporate personhood.

Move to restore the strictest rules on banking and corporations and environmental protection that we used to have but were rolled back. As a start.

Same as I'd do if I were any other president from Truman forward.

It's not that tough.

Start with STOP GIVING MONEY TO THE BANKS WHO FUCKED THE WORLD, ALREADY!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

25. Everything you wrote makes great sense

The mechanics interest me.

As the current banking system fails, what would you do to keep business and individuals going? How would that work?

[JackRiddler]

27. They don't interest me.

Bite the bullet. Provide the necessary relief. Call it a national emergency, since it really is one. Bring the troops home from Australia and Egypt and wherever and have them hand out relief packages.
For entertainment, provide public trials of the major economic perps (not to mention the war criminals who destroyed the treasury).

If you understand that the bogus (not just "toxic") derivatives bubble can never, ever be covered by the Treasury, then you know this has to be handled. The transitional difficulties are not an excuse for continuing a lie that leads to the exact same disaster, only worse.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

30. "Bite the bullet"

I don't think that's a sound financial plan. We need money to keep operating. Not just individuals, but all businesses, every organization, everything.

The mechanics are vital. A plan is very good to have, and I like yours. But without the means to implement it, it's worthless.

Maybe that's why we're in the state we're in. Maybe it's the best, most realistic that can be. I don't know.

[JackRiddler]

31. You're right, "we" need money to keep operating...

And last week, the Fed pledged to print more than a trillion and the Treasury pledged another trillion in future revenues (waaaaaay into the future) which may in the end also end up printed by the Fed - that's two trillion dollars -- not for "us" to keep operating, but most of the money to be handed directly over directly to the private banks who blew everything on bad bets, so that they can hand it to their "counterparties" (much the same banks) who can then disappear it down the black hole.

This is the opposite of what "we" need.

That money could be used to "keep operating," and instead it is being wasted.

There is an end to this resource, the Fed cannot print infinitely without destroying the dollar. I say, use that newly-printed money to capitalize a new, national banking sector, unburdened by debt, a public service utility (e.g., the "National Recovery Bank" and 50 state banks) that provides credit to businesses and to people to keep things operating, and to invest in necessary transformations in the energy and transport.

Where do YOU think the two trillion the Fed and Treasury conjured up out of air last week should go instead?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

36. I'll be damned if I know ........

I don't understand any of what's going on, but I think that was always Wall Street's plan. Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone has been the best history I've read so far - it was in almost conversational language, so at least I now have a dim idea of how it all happened.

My first thought is that the whole banking industry should be nationalized and the Feds should send in their own people - from Treasury and GAO, for instance - although Truman's attempt to do that with the steel industry didn't work out too well.

Honestly, I don't know what's good for our country or what isn't. I am hoping Obama knows what's going on and is doing the best that can be done. My faith in him is still strong, and, as Mel Brooks sang, "Hope for the best, expect the worst."

[wellst0nev0ter]

21. An Anal Probe Party of Congressional Commissions Against The Financial Sector

that will make the Church Commission and the Monica Lewinsky case look like a couple of days in traffic court. Let the full ugly truths be known so that regulations and practices will be erected so nothing like this will ever happen again.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

26. Boy, I like this one .........

Since there's no sex involved, it'll never happen. But, one can dream ...................

[Demeter]

7. One if By Land, Two if By Sea

People will believe just about anything, unfortunately. Especially in this country, where thought has been free, and therefore undervalued, for so long that few bother to think any longer.

The belief that the criminals you list will go away and leave the rest of us alone now is the most fatuous of current beliefs, though.

[HughMoran]

8. Well, this is it

I can't take your drivel any more.

[robinlynne]

10. I agree with you. Don't understand the strange comments people are posting.

maybe you need to tell them what sarcasm means.

[Dr.Phool]

13. There's a serious lack of critical thinking around here anymore.

[empyreanisles]

14. The nation is sick. We must heal so we can come back & fight stronger another day. (eom)

[JackRiddler]

18. And the way to heal is to give the bandages away to Goldman Sachs and AIG for free.

[Mithreal]

19. Not only sick but infecting others with our schemes. Yes we need some healing. nt

[glitch]

39. Putting a bandage over an infection is no way to heal.

Especially if we're actively feeding the infection. :scared:

[terisan]

15. Accountability to the people is not being respected by current administration and

Seems to me a deal had been struck between Obama Campaign and Wall Street/Big Bankers prior to the election. We are witnessing the implementing of the deal.

Given the enormity of the Wall Streeters' problems and their political savvy, I don't think they would have settled for promises of "Hope" or "Change" in backing a presidential candidate. The "Fall, 2008 Crisis" was a long time building and Wall Street had its exit plan long before.

Obama backers seem to have practically no leverage with him and have moved from "Hope and Change" to "Faith". They are mostly irrelevant for the moment.

[wellst0nev0ter]

20. Delete

[Fumesucker]

22. People with a big problem regarding cognitive dissonance, yes..

Oh, wait.. You mentioned functioning minds..

Never mind..

/Emily Latella

[LWolf]

23. Since Obama is a politician,

not a prophet, a savior, or a religion, I've never had any "faith" in him.

And I want corporate and government criminals held accountable.

[avaistheone1]

32. It is not our job or our obligation to trust the goverment. It is our responsibility to hold them

accountable.

[JackRiddler]

34. Oh, no, if you voted a certain way you must accept whatever happens.

Democracy is for Election Day, right?

;)

[LWolf]

38. Exactly. nt

[LooseWilly]

35. It would be really politically handy if you would believe that.

Just like it was politically handy for Pelosi to give the Bush administration enough rope to hang the Republican party...

Unfortunately, any actions taken now might allow some counter-rope to hang the Democratic party. Apparently some are too preoccupied with that possibility to do anything too dramatic...

[merkins]

40. K&R

Cult of Personality vs Our Ideals

[The Leveller]

42. Obama is a company man

Barack Obama received from the following:

Goldman Sachs $421,763 Ubs Ag $296,670 Lehman Brothers $250,630 National Amusements Inc $245,843 JP Morgan Chase & Co $243,848 Sidley Austin LLP $226,491 Citigroup Inc $221,578 Exelon Corp $221,517 Skadden, Arps Et Al $196,420 Jones Day $181,996 Harvard University $172,324 Citadel Investment Group $171,798 Time Warner $155,383 Morgan Stanley $155,196 Google Inc $152,802 University of California $143,029 Jenner & Block $136,565 Kirkland & Ellis $134,738 Wilmerhale Llp $119,245 Credit Suisse Group $118,250

We hear it all the time: “Republicans are the party of big business and Democrats are the party of the people.” Any clear thinking person knows this to be a lie. Court rulings have even endorsed the idea that spending cash in support of candidates is “free speech.” There sure is a ton of money being spent for something that is "free."

For more than 20 years now, polls of the American people repeatedly have shown that a majority of Americans believe their government is controlled by special interests. Can anyone honestly assert that there is no connection between campaign cash and the policies of the US Government? Does anyone truly believe this?

Obama is a company man. He knows the language, the subtle and overt signals, and emits them like a beacon. Ruling circles have gotten the message, and that is why corporate media have made him a contender, and corporate billfolds have financed him.

But then, Obama would never have risen so quickly and remarkably to his current position and national prominence if he was anything like the egalitarian and democratic “progressive” that some liberals and leftists imagine. In the corporate-crafted and money-dominated swamp that passes for “representative democracy” in the U.S., concentrated economic and imperial power open and close doors in ways that preemptively suffocate populist potential. Big money is not in the business of promoting genuine social justice or democracy activists.

When politicians offer nothing, and the people demand nothing, then the powers-that-be are free to continue doing whatever they choose. The death knell of participatory politics can often be a very noisy, celebratory affair - such as we have witnessed in the call-and-response ritual of "Change!" "Hope!" and other exuberant but insubstantial campaign exercises.