Wake Up
As I watch the financial situation in this country continue in the wrong direction, I begin to see the press move slowly in the direction of reason– conveniently after the opportunity to make the correct decision has already passed.
Dissident voices from all over the financial world spoke out against a bailout, saying that if it doesn’t address the two primary issues- effective regulation and an easing of the foreclosure spike– then the corrosion of the marketplace was going to inherently continue. The confidence which the bailout was supposed to inspire was quickly dispersed in the face of appalling retail numbers, unemployment, and massive write downs at the largest financial institutions- none of which are effected by the bill.
Democracy does not operate without accurate representation of the facts by the news media, and unfortunately, it seems that the larger the available audience, the less likely the source is to depict reality. What is the action at work when the op-ed columnists and staff writers ignore possible solutions when the country, and congress, are in hot debate… only to espouse them when the votes are cast and the policy set? We have to learn that the toothpaste cannot be squeezed back into the tube, and we have to make the right decisions the first time– especially if they are the kinds of decisions which dedicate hundreds of billions of dollars into a policy which, even in its infancy, has proven meaningless.
And now, as I finally begin to read good ideas regarding debt for equity swaps, and forcing the commercial banks to renegotiate with their foreclosures, i’m equally saddened, because the time for these suggestions is passed, and ‘Government Sachs’ is already busy carving up the treasures we paid them in tribute.
What else can our popular media obfuscate?
What other ideas can they suppress from public debate while the iron is hot and the decisions are being made?
We’re currently watching the international community salt the fields of Pakistan in preparation for war- we’ve begun giving enriched uranium to the Indians again, and the turmoil is forcing a capital flight from Pakistan which has devalued their currency so badly that their primary port city [Karachi] is experiencing rolling blackouts and they’re becoming beggars to the IMF and Wold Bank.
The rule of law in Zimbabwe is being subverted by a power grab from Mugabe’s illegal and unelected government, forcing the Movement for Democratic Change to back away from the power sharing arrangement which hundreds fought and died to earn. This can push the country back into brutal repression and civil war– all ‘brokered’ by the same Thabo Mbeki who castrated the movement of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
Using illegal ‘presidential signing statements’ to put the Iraqi oil fields within the jurisdiction of the American military, and bullying the puppet Maliki led government of Iraq into accepting a Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] which will allow for the indefinite occupation of Iraq by US military and contractors who aren’t even beholden to the rule of Iraqi criminal law, President Bush and the Democratic Congress cement the future of Iraq as a war torn resource mine.
Awareness of the populace will allow for a political mandate to make the kinds of changes which we all see as essential– but without the awareness of the issues, the populace is impotent against the forces of the powerful into whose hands our social constructions have put all of the weapons and tools, and against the forces of nature which have made the powerful irrevocably corrupt.
Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com
