TBPtv: Walker Viral Report Oct. 29

Jason Walker breaks it down before the election (Produced by Professor muffinman Media LLC).

McCain Meets with Chilean Dictator in 1985

By TOMÁS DINGES, Correspondent

On Thursday, the Huffington Post published an article showing that John McCain had a secret meeting with the dictator Augusto Pinochet of Chile in December 1985. That same year various human rights reports condemned the country for violations against personal freedom and political liberty, not to mention torture.

Below are three paragraphs from the original article posted on the Huffington Post.

“The trip was arranged by Chile’s ambassador to the United States, Hernan Felipe Errazuriz. According to a contemporary government document obtained from Chile, Errazuriz arranged for a special government liaison to help McCain while in Chile for the ’strictly private’ visit, and described him as ‘one of the conservative congressmen who is closest to our embassy.’

“McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.

“McCain’s visit with Pinochet took place at a moment when the Chilean strongman held virtually unrestricted dictatorial power and those involved in public, democratic opposition were exposed to great risk.”

It came also at a moment when “methods of torture reported include beatings, electric shocks to the genitals and other parts of the body and rape of women prisoners,” according to an Associated Press report.

Only 12 days later Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy was welcomed with eggs and a road blockade when he visited in a show of support to the Catholic Church and human rights groups.

That year the current Miss Chile was born, John Denver visited and the brothers Vergara were killed.
It is also the year in which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights published a review of the human rights situation in Chile, from 1973 to 1985.

It was published in September 1985. Here are some excerpts.

Under the section, Right to Personal Liberty:

“As may be seen from the foregoing account, the right to personal freedom has suffered a sustained deterioration because of the measures adopted by the Government of Chile during the period covered by this report. The periods of preventive detention have increased, from 48 hours under the earlier system to 20 days in the situation the present regime provides for. ”

That might seem of interest to McCain.

Under the section, Political Rights at Present:

“The intolerance of any form of opposition by the Government of Chile that follows from the exposition in Section C of this Chapter, and the absence of channels of participation of the Chilean population as a consequence of the rigid application of the provisions of the 1980 Constitution, have helped to generate serious social problems which have begun to emerge more forcefully since 1983.”

So in case the situation in Chile is not clear enough, a final section from the report concludes: “It must therefore be concluded that the right to personal freedom has been and is seriously violated by the Government of Chile, which is consequently creating a pervasive state of insecurity in the population and giving rise to conditions for the commission of extremely serious violations of the right to physical integrity and life, as follows from the accounts contained in the respective chapters.”

That also might be of some interest to McCain.

1985 also was the year in which a team of five doctors visited Chile as a delegation of the American Human Rights Committee. According to press reports at the time, the group, citing firsthand accounts of torture victims, said that Chilean physicians were aiding the Chilean security apparatus in an effort to kill fewer victims and make torture more effective. The job … “examine the blindfolded victims to assess before, during and after how much torture the victim is able to withstand.”

An Associated Press report from 1985 states the following:

“Since 1981 the U.S. State Dept. has recorded 286 cases of torture in Chile with the number increasing each year. Statistics kept by the Chilean Commission for Human Rights are more than three times higher.

In the past six months, however, the focus of the torture has apparently shifted from extracting information from political prisoners to “communicating with the population about the reign of terror that now exists, said Dr. Robert Lawrence, chief of medicine at Cambridge Hospital.”

McCain. How could you? What has changed in your judgment between then and now?

Tomás Dinges can be reached at tdinges@gmail.com.

How ’Bout a Juicy McMac?; Celebs, Ads Don’t Sway Voters

By JASON WALKER, Columnist

What have we become when a vice presidential nominee has to make an appearance on Saturday Night Live two weeks before an election and a presidential candidate has to do a makeup appearance for getting on David Letterman’s bad side?

Why does David Letterman’s or any celebrity’s opinion matter to us? He can’t even beat out Leno, but scathing remarks after being stood up by a candidate causes a dip in the polls?

Celebrities don’t care about us. There are a few who are genuinely nice and care about mankind, blah, blah, blah. But most have had to step on the faces of rivals to get where they are and the most important thing to them is staying on top.

Have you ever stopped to think that the endorsing celebrity could have concerns about taxes, education or any number of issues in direct opposition to your own?

Let’s not forget that it’s also an issue of ego as well. Liberal celebrities have had it handed to them by the Bush administration for the last eight years. Their egos have been bruised because no matter how hard they’ve campaigned for the opposition or pointed out his obvious flaws, Ol’ Dubyah has kept right on truckin’. These self-important asses want to feel like they can actually have an effect on the direction of the country as much as, if not more than, they actually care about the well-being of the country.

As I watched Palin bobbing her head to the beat I wondered if Gerald Ford ever had to yuck it up with a few talking heads on some cheesy network morning show. I don’t recall Big Bush dropping by SNL and surprising Dana Carvey.

Just as I began to feel queasy over the thought that an appearance on late-night television could be a deciding factor in an election I realized something … that really hasn’t happened yet. Despite all the pulling and prodding by the media we always seem to elect whoever we want. Advertisements and appearances just serve as supplements to keep us interested until Election Day. I can’t think of a time in history when we’ve let outside opinions change our minds about candidates. Whoever you wanted to vote for when the nominations were accepted is probably the same person you want to vote for now.

Which makes me wonder, does any amount of campaigning ever change a person’s mind? We’re only interested in the evidence that supports the decision we’ve already made. We form our opinions based on the sum of our experience and don’t usually change our minds no matter how compelling the argument. So for now I have found some peace by convincing myself that people aren’t directed by the media when they cast their ballots.

So why was Palin on SNL this week?

I prefer Coke over Pepsi. The difference between the two is negligible, but I’m always choosing Coke. In my mind no amount of advertising is ever going to change that. That’s the point. Whenever I made my cola decision advertising played a big part in it. Now that I’ve picked my side it’s up to them to remind me of what a great choice I made. I want to back a winner and be affirmed that I’m a winner for making that choice as much as possible. I even go as far as to root for Coke to have better commercials and higher sales.

Of course no one is going to decide who to vote for because of a boat, but somewhere someone felt good about seeing it and said to themselves, “I haven’t seen any Obama sailboats out today.” The candidates need to keep reminding their supporters that they’ve made a good decision.

It’s our nature. We want our candidates to be superhuman. We want them to be the most amusing when telling jokes, the most eloquent when debating and the most intelligent when discussing policies. They do whatever they can to sustain that image. Whether it is charming late-night appearances, well-scripted commercials or kissing babies in minimalls. We will always love them for doing it.

Politicians know something that we don’t. In the end they are all just people like you and I. That’s why Palin can laugh off Tina Fey’s impression of her and kick it with Lorne backstage at 30 Rock. That’s how Obama and McCain can have a heated debate one night and act like a couple of open-micers the next. Most of us have this thought stuck in our heads that Democrats and Republicans are these two competing factions in an all or nothing battle for supremacy.

In reality, they’re no more different from each other then McDonald’s is from Burger King. Either way you’re still going to go get that delicious, fatty garbage in you. All elected officials have the same goals ― try to accomplish something positive and not get booted before you’re ready to go. They respect and relate to each other the same way employees at Mickey D’s relate to their contemporaries at BK.

They know we are as influenced by the image created around a candidate as we are by their actual accomplishments. Obama’s the smart, young, contemplative diplomat we need to unite the country and turn things around. McCain is the strong-willed, experienced, maverick that will buck the system and lead us to a better tomorrow. Big Mac, Whopper.

Jason Walker may be reached at Jason_R_Walker@comcast.net.

U.S. Policy on Latin America Changing for Better

By MATT KENNARD, Columnist

It may sound grandiose, but I think it’s true. Right now we are seeing the biggest political shift in the Western Hemisphere since the genocidal thief Christopher Columbus thought he had arrived in the Indian subcontinent, but had actually “discovered” the (already discovered) Americas.

The idea came to me most powerfully when I was watching the latest presidential debate and the topic turned to the last remaining outpost of the U.S. Empire in Latin America, Colombia. McCain did his usual bluster: “So Sen. Obama, who has never traveled south of our border, opposes the Colombia Free Trade Agreement,” said McCain. “The same country that’s helping us try to stop the flow of drugs into our country that’s killing young Americans.”

Now, in a heavily doctrinaire public discourse in the U.S., criticizing the Colombian government is like criticizing Israel, you don’t do it, despite the despicable human rights records of both countries. You just don’t go there.

Knowing Obama’s acquiescence to the Israel lobby, I was expecting the usual formulaic response about Marxist guerillas, etc. But he came out with this: “Actually, I understand it pretty well. The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions.”

Now, this is all true, but truth has never been a prerequisite for this election season, so to see Obama come out with it without being jumped on indicates a genuine shift in how the U.S. has been made to see Latin America. No longer, it seems, under a President Obama, will the country support any regime that subjugates its people and represents U.S. business interests. A brief history lesson is required to show how astonishing this really is.

Since 1823 and the so-called Monroe Doctrine, the Western Hemisphere has been designated by American planners as “our backyard,” a vast resource-rich expanse open for pillage and exploitation for the gain of the elite class in the U.S. and a handsomely rewarded quisling elite in the raped countries.

This dynamic has been constant and unbroken for two centuries.

President James Monroe obviously didn’t put it in these bald terms when he made his address to Congress on December 2, 1823, which forms the basis of this so-called doctrine. Monroe said that day that countries in the Western Hemisphere “are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power,” which sounds like a good idea for the subjected peoples – until you realize Monroe instead gives his own country the right to take over from the European powers. “We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers,” he continues, “to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”

He was telling the European powers simply, “It’s ours now!” Under this naked imperialism dressed up in fusty diplomatic language, the U.S. took Cuba from the Spanish in 1852 (the U.S. still illegally occupies Guantanamo Bay today), and then Puerto Rico from them in 1898 (which the U.S. still owns today).

As the European empires broke down completely after WWII, the idea of imperialism became increasingly untenable as indigenous movements removed their oppressors at a rapid rate. But as Europe lay in ruins, the U.S. was rising to its superpower status, and the elites weren’t going to lose control of their “backyard” during the ensuing Cold War with the Soviet Union. Occupations were frowned upon now, not least by an American population culturally averse to empires and imperialism. So instead the intelligence services turned to subverting any Latin American government that did not support American business interests away from the attention of the American people.

First went Guatemala in 1954, a coup against the center-left President Jacobo Arbenz who had the gall to redistribute land to landless peasants from the United Fruit Company. The CIA stepped in and installed a military junta and started one of the most horrendous civil wars in history that left 200,000 people dead.

Any country that elected any sort of left politician would incur a terrorist war of anti-democratic aggression. Brazil went down in 1961, Dominican Republic in 1963, Chile through the ’60s and eventually culminating in 1973, Nicaragua in the 1970s, and on and on. All the governments I mention were democratic, and many times they were replaced with a collection of open neo-Nazis, fascists and other dregs of humanity. It was all cloaked under the guise of the war against the “Evil Empire:” Soviet Russia. Much like today where Islamic fundamentalism gives the U.S. an excuse to do whatever it wants.

Millions upon millions of peoples were slaughtered across Latin America with the support of many U.S. household names: John Foster Dulles starting the Guatemalan bloodbath, Henry Kissinger backed the dictatorship in Chile, Ronald Reagan supporting the fascist Contras against the democratically elected Sandinistas in Nicaragua. These figures are all hailed as great heroes to this day in mainstream American culture, although not by the rest of the hemisphere, for obvious reasons.

John Perkins, who worked as an “Economic Hit Man” for a U.S. corporation for decades, has written a book exposing the type of work he did. He puts it succinctly: “Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring — to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we’ve been very successful. We’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world. It’s been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It’s only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.”

But even with this tragic history of exploitation and mass murder, I want to now sound an optimistic note. The Western Hemisphere — especially Latin America — is finally taking off the shackles of the imperial bully, and this time they will win.

No longer will democratically elected leaders from Chile to Bolivia to Brazil to Venezuela allow their sovereign nations to balk under the giant upstairs. When they propose economic plans to actually give the wealth of their lands to the people that live in it rather than rich corporations and exiles in Miami, they no longer take the U.S. trying to overthrow them with a shrug, they are ready.

In Bolivia recently, when the fascist paramilitary groups in eastern provinces like Pando massacred indigenous peasants and the pale-skinned traditional elite tried to start an uprising against the democratically elected president, Evo Morales, he didn’t stand for the encouragement the U.S. was giving. He kicked out the ambassador. And he also brought the governor who had incited the massacre to justice. On top of this stern action, all the newly independent center-left leaders of the Latin American bloc came to Morales’ aid at the U.N. They knew together they were a powerful force that couldn’t be crushed under the boot of the American government.

Hugo Chavez in Venezuela even followed suit and kicked out the ambassador there. And who can blame him? In 2002 when he himself was ousted temporarily by a U.S.-backed coup that put a billionaire businessman into power and suspended the constitution and democracy, the people of the Venezuelan barrios fought back; marching in their hundreds of thousands for the first leader that had ever considered them worthy of their own minerals. He had to be reinstated because the people of Venezuela were too powerful and alive to their plight to be raped again by another lackey of the U.S.
On top of this, the new independence is being entrenched through the new Bank of the South, which will gradually bring Latin American countries away from their reliance on the agents of Western governments, the IMF and World Bank. And then there is Telesur, a Latin American analogue to Al Jazeera, a continent-wide news network that undercuts the corporate media bias of the U.S. and their supporters in Latin America. These are important developments that will outlast any individuals, which is the kind of change that is truly needed for this new independence to be resilient.

There are a number of reasons for the U.S. losing grip of its backyard. First, this generation of left-wing leaders have learned from the past. They know about the dirty tricks of the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy and other agents of the U.S. government. They are aware that they have a constant battle against reactionary elements supported by the U.S. But in Bolivia, for example, the indigenous communities are equipping themselves to fight back; there will be none of Salvador Allende’s erroneous belief in pacifism. “If the right-wing tries to liquidate democracy we will fight you to defend civility,” is now the message.

The second important factor is that because the Cold War has ended it is harder for the U.S. government and their conduits in the corporate media to paint any politician who is vaguely left of center as an agent of Soviet Russia. Admittedly the New York Post, without shame, does describe Chavez – one of the most frequently elected leaders in the world – as a dictator. The childish invective against him comes from all over the narrow media spectrum in the U.S. But when they try to destroy democracy, like in 2002, the old Cold War lie doesn’t work. The left in Latin America are using this to their advantage by accentuating their independence from anyone and building alliances all over the world from Iran to China.

The third reason is that the U.S. imperial project is so bogged down in the Middle East — where support for dictators has been equally obscene — so they have in many ways taken their eye off the ball. It’s arguable that without September 11, Chavez would be history by now, as well as Morales.

The fourth reason is that when the U.S. helped set up Operation Condor — a continent-wide terror network — with their surrogate General Pinochet, they could count on the compliance of the security states they had helped set up. Now the tables have turned. With Fernando Lugo’s election in Paraguay, the whole continent is a left-wing independent bloc, so they can’t be subverted as easily and a strong alliance has been built between all the leaders, who now come to each other’s defense against subversion.

For the first time in centuries, down in Latin America things are looking up. Democracy, economic justice and dignity are returning to the continent that has been crushed under the U.S.’ boot for so long. This time they will win.

Matt Kennard can be reached at MattKennard@gmail.com.

Religion 101: McCain’s Problem

By EUGENE MULERO, Correspondent

Newsweek reported this week that McCain has been telling advisors not to hit Obama with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright stuff because it would be reminiscent of what the Bushies did to him in 2000 – alleging that his adopted daughter was an illegitimate child he had with an African-American prostitute.

I don’t buy that McMaverick is not bringing up Wright in the campaign because it reeks of racism.

My theory is that McCain – once considered the Evangelical’s least favorite Republican – has jumped in the deep end of the religion pool. For this campaign he sought and received the support of über-religiosos: Pat Robertson & Co. Even before Jerry Falwell died, McCain went to his throne and kissed his ring.

I remember when the media pumped Rev. Wright’s memorable: “Not ‘God save America, but Goddamn America!’” At the time, some of my friends and colleagues were shocked – ‘how could Obama support this guy?’ they thought.

I, on the other hand, didn’t blink for a second. What Wright said was no more shocking than what some of the really masterful Evangelicals have been spewing for decades on their TV “sermons.” Robertson, for one, advocated nuclear force on Hugo Chavez – a nuclear attack on Venezuela?!

And the other Maverick, Gov. Palin, has attended services where religious leaders decried the “witchcraft” in society.

There have been a few reports that Maverick’s team, or the not-so-distant 527s, will shove Wright’s “Goddman” down our throats.

If they do, expect Team Obama to fight fire with fire by highlighting Maverick’s flip-flop on the Religious Right.

Eugene Mulero may be reached at Eugene.Mulero@gmail.com.

How Wall Street Became a Mess

By BRIAN LYNCH, Special to Taking Back Politics

What went wrong on Wall Street? It is the most critical question of our time, and we have got to get the answers right. When the “experts” start telling us how they’ll fix things, we need an independent understanding of the problem or we risk making even bigger mistakes. Unfortunately, the back story here isn’t so simple. It can’t be reduced to bullet points without the narrative. Nor can it be told without arousing some people’s ideological filters.

I unwittingly began learning about the problems before the question arose. The financial journalist in my family started sending me reading material so I wouldn’t be so clueless when we talked about her job. What seemed to me like interesting, but useless information, suddenly became relevant when the sky started falling. I’m not an economist, but I want to share what I’ve learned so far.

The Players

As I see it, this story has lots of moving parts so I’ll start by introducing the players. It’s a cast that includes Congress, the commodities markets, banks, mortgage companies and the housing industry, investment firms, insurance companies, federal regulators, the super rich and a guy named Joe.

Let’s start with Joe. He represents all the folks who always wanted to buy a home, but couldn’t afford it. He was always on the outside looking in at the American dream because mortgage lenders had standards. Nothing personal Joe, but federal regulations required that lenders could only loan money to those who could actually pay it back. This even applied to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest mortgage companies that have a special federal mandate to grease the wheels of home ownership.

Banks traditionally competed for well-qualified mortgage loans as a way to invest our money. Some of the loans they kept and others they sold for profit. These were boring investments, but banking regulators required conservative investments to keep our money safe.

Next are the insurance companies. In addition to insuring our cars and homes, they insure companies against business losses. They too were under federal regulations to invest our premiums wisely so they would always have the funds to pay out any claims.

Investment firms like Lehman Brothers helped people and businesses to invest their extra cash in the economy, usually through the sale of stocks and bonds. That means buying and selling stock on exchanges where companies sell a stake in their business to raise the cash they need to run it. Investors buy stocks to share ownership in the company and, hopefully, in its profits.

A less well understood player here are the commodities exchanges, also known as the “futures” markets. If you’re thinking “pork bellies,” you are on the right track. It’s a place where people who actually produce certain goods like wheat or oil go to “hedge” or manage their risk to ensure their financial stake in the things they produce against the possibility that it might not sell or return a profit.

Consider the farmers, for example. They plow their money into the ground and hope for a harvest. But a huge crop surplus in the fall could cause prices to collapse, leaving them with no money to buy spring seed. Farmers need to “hedge” their investment in crops to ensure that future market prices will at least cover their costs. At the same time, the futures market helps set prices for the goods we buy today.

There are two types of commodities traders: “hedgers” who want to ensure their financial stake in a product, and “speculators” who agree to buy the product at some future date even if its value falls below what they agreed to pay. These purchase agreements are called “futures contracts.” Futures contracts are traded back and forth on federally regulated exchanges, much like stocks or bonds.

These investments are often very profitable, but sometimes the losses can be disastrous. Even so, the commodities market has operated successfully for over 150 years, keeping prices in line with supply and demand. This is due in no small part to federal regulations and monitoring by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to prevent any cheating.

For years, this more or less transparent arrangement of distinct financial institutions remained separated by a fire wall of federally imposed checks and balances. This resulted in a relatively stable economy and general prosperity.

Prologue to Crisis

Enter the super rich, who need no introduction except to say they are wealthier and more numerous than ever before. They saw the opportunity to make lots more money if only the government would step aside. In fact, they realized that the money they could make would far exceed what it would cost to buy Congress and elect presidents. Corporate lobbying soon became part of the cost of doing business, and part of the culture of Washington. One by one, federal restrictions began to fall and the parts in this story started to move.

Soon banks could offer insurance or buy stocks. Investment houses and insurance companies could take “positions” in the futures market or offer money market accounts. Mortgage companies could use home loans as collateral to create and sell bonds, so they bundled them together and sold them to investors as “mortgage-backed securities.” In short, the distinctions between our financial institutions faded as all the players moved into more profitable, but higher-risk investments.

Wall Street still wanted more. They didn’t like federal restrictions in the commodities market, so their Congress (no longer ours at this point) allowed them to buy and sell various types of private futures-like contracts off exchanges and therefore outside of any federal control. It’s called the “over-the-counter” market, and purchase agreements here are called “swaps,” rather than “futures contracts.” Today, trillions of dollars worth of these swaps change hands every year with no federal oversight. Recent concerns have been raised that some institutional investors are working both inside and outside of the commodities markets to inflate prices and boost their profits. Oil and food prices are among the targets of current investigations, although little wrongdoing has been proven to date. Stay tuned!

As our federal rules fell, it created an explosion of creative new ways to make money, and the wealthy of the world got a whole lot wealthier.

Hmmmm … how to invest all this wealth? That became the billionaire’s problem worldwide. And here is where it all begins to unravel.

Events in Motion

The world’s wealthiest investors began looking around for good places to put all their money and decided the U.S. housing market was a sound bet. Buying mortgages directly is too messy, however, so they started gobbling up those mortgage-backed securities. The demand for these investments became enormous. Soon, the source of these securities, qualified home buyers, became scarce. There weren’t enough mortgages to satisfy the demand.

Market pressures on Wall Street lead them to put pressure on Washington to ease credit qualification for home mortgages. The loosening of credit accelerated home buying, especially by Joe and his friends who never qualified for mortgages before.

Housing demand soon pushed home prices through the roof, creating the “housing bubble.” Still, the insatiable appetite for mortgage-backed securities continued driving lenders and realtors to evermore creative ways to market houses and squeeze people into supersized mortgages while home prices sky rocketed.

Soon, Joe was able to buy a house without putting money down or buying mortgage insurance. To shoehorn buyers into supersized homes, adjustable rate subprime mortgages were created so buyers could initially pay less than the full mortgage rate. At certain intervals their payments would increase until they reflect the full interest rate plus back payments for the initially lower rates. Can’t make those payments in the future? No problem! Home buyers were assured that their home values would soar allowing them to sell their house at a profit before the higher payments came due.

Bad-faith mortgages began creeping into the system, increasing in number until it became a flood.
Everyone involved turned a blind eye because everyone seemed to be making money.

Back on Wall Street, these bad-faith loans continued to underwrite mortgage-backed securities, turning them into junk bonds. But credit-rating agencies did not raise any alarm bells, and their failure to do so helped perpetuate the sale of these securities all over the world. All the major banks purchased them. To keep up the appearance of being conservative investors, banks hedged these investments on the over-the-counter swaps market. They bought what are called “credit-default swaps,” which would pay back some of the value of these investments in case the bonds went bad.

Some investment firms and insurance companies were eager to deal in these credit-default swaps as they seemed like easy money. Bonds almost never go bust, right? One insurance giant, American International Group, Inc. (AIG), sold over $45 billion worth of these credit-default swaps.

For some global perspective on the crisis, it is estimated that there are about $65 trillion worth of credit-default swaps on the over-the-counter market today. Contrast that with our national Gross Domestic Product, which is only $14 trillion ― or against the Wall Street bailout, which is a meager $700 billion by comparison.

The whole house of cards began to collapse when Joe’s friends, along with millions of middle-income home buyers duped into subprime mortgages, discovered they couldn’t make their payments because the interest rates jumped while their home values fell. That meant refinancing was no longer an option for them. Banks and mortgage companies started foreclosing on homes at record rates. This created a glut of houses on the market that collapsed the already inflated home prices. The U.S. housing bubble burst with a bang heard around the world.

The impact was immediate. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost hundreds of billions of dollars almost overnight. The government was forced to buy them out to prevent massive housing foreclosures.

Banks and investment firms started to collapse from the sudden loss of capital. Mortgage-backed securities defaulted. AIG and others were on the hook for billions in credit-default swaps. The Treasury acted again and bought AIG to prevent an immediate cascade of bank failures. Even so, Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers and other huge banks imploded. The stock market went on the skids. Foreign investors and foreign banks lost billions of dollars in equity as well. Our hapless president and our blind-eyed Congress thrashed about for ways to prevent economic Armageddon.

They passed the $700 billion “rescue” package after loading it up with pork to satisfy its detractors.
It’s too soon to tell if the rescue plan will help. It may be too little too late. As I write, the worldwide economy continues its free fall with no bottom yet in sight. It’s not too soon to begin to look for answers.

Where to Look Next

This is a very simplistic description of the events leading up to this crisis. The facts here are subject to change as new information emerges. There are many more players to look at, more details to uncover and lots of blame to be assigned. The culprits who tilted the system to feather their nests must be brought to justice. Yet the broader outlines of what went wrong are slowly becoming clear and should serve as a guide to search for answers.

The main point for now is that we have to understand what went wrong so we aren’t taken for a ride by those offering to fix things. There are certain areas where we should be looking for the root causes. A critical examination of Congressional lobbying and campaign-finance practices is certainly needed. This crisis is a repudiation of the market fundamentalism that has guided politicians and businesses for over 20 years. The notion that free markets always self-correct is dead wrong. So we need a healthy debate on the role and importance of government in the regulating of commerce. We should reconsider the ethical standards to which we hold public corporation accountable. We have to develop a better understanding of modern markets and the regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC, which are supposed to protect us from abuses and economic meltdowns.

Perhaps above all, we need to take a good look at ourselves as citizens. Are we paying enough attention to what was going on in our country? Are we actively participating in civic affairs? Do we keeping ourselves well-informed and demand full disclosure from government, corporations and the media?

When we saw mortgage brokers and bankers running amok, we should have sounded alarm bells and held our representatives more accountable. So many of us knew things weren’t right, but we did nothing. As citizens, we must never neglect our responsibilities to each other to stay vigilant, informed and mobilized when necessary to promote the welfare of our communities and our nation.

In the Newsroom with Casey and Eugene: Joe the Plumber (Oct. 17, 2008)

Casey Hynes and Eugene Mulero are forced to address Joe the Plumber. (Produced by TakingBackPoliticsTV)

Where on Earth are These “Polling People?”

By AMANDA KOCH, Assistant Managing Editor

I’ve been waiting around for a long time now. I’ve been waiting for my chance to take part in a poll –

a political poll, more specifically. I have never been asked for my opinions by a recognized organization and frankly, I’m a little offended. What qualifies all these other people to be asked extensive, sometimes personal and, as I imagine them, intriguing and thought-provoking questions?

In the Oct. 20 issue of TIME Magazine there is a special report titled, “You. A Voter’s Guide.” When I read that I immediately looked around me, perhaps someone on the PATH train had been asked to participate. Surely, that “you” they referred to was not “me.” ‘They didn’t ask me anything,’

I thought to myself insolently. Like all polls they claimed around 1,000 likely U.S. voters were asked to participate. At the rate polls are released during the election year I should have been asked my opinion ten times already.

My surly mood deepened after reading the second page of the writer’

s thesis on how I think about politics. I learned I am a rational voter, which at first made me feel superior, but that quickly faded to indignation when I read their description. Apparently, as a rational voter I actively seek out information on both candidates, consider the positives and negatives of both and evaluate their interests against my own. Pretty smart strategy, right? Wrong. Passive, frugal and intuitive voters are less likely to make an incorrect choice, meaning picking a candidate who does not reflect my views. I guess they think all that information I am actively seeking out will confuse me.

I did learn some things from this poll, however. I learned Republicans always win the votes of the richest individuals, except for that time the richest voted for LBJ, although I feel the need to point out that in the 1964 column all five voting groups were for Johnson; Goldwater had a very poor showing. I learned that Independents generally go for Republicans too, which surprised me. I learned that in the last fifty years of all presidential candidates, Nixon won the popular vote by the largest margin of percentage points, which actually made me laugh. Americans have such good taste, right?

And when it comes to the candidates and their running mates now? Well, single women hate Palin, but love Obama so much it’s almost embarrassing. Eighty-eight percent of Democrats would vote for the Obama/Biden ticket if the election were today. And so would 88 percent of liberals, which made me laugh again –

this time at TIME magazine for differentiating between Democrats and liberals. And who likes Biden? People who seldom or rarely go to church.

In the end, I mostly approved of TIME’s likely voters and their opinions. It seemed they were a pretty accurate representation of what people in the U.S. are thinking. I am still pretty pissed though, especially after reading the pop quiz portion and realizing 15% of the respondents couldn’t tell you who the current vice president of the U.S. is. Really, these are your likely voters, TIME? Apparently they didn’t vote in the last election.

I’d still like to point out, however, that I have never known anyone who was asked to participate in a poll, and when I read the qualifications I think I’m a pretty good fit. This makes me a bit suspicious, but I’m still going to patiently wait until these polling organizations come to their senses and call my number.

Amanda Koch can be reached at amandarosekoch@gmail.com.

Is Graffiti Really a Crime?

By MATT KENNARD, Columnist

Most “moral issues” out there produce two virulently partisan sides that find it impossible to find a common ground to engage in any kind of progressive discourse. Take, for instance, abortion: one side claims right-to-choose advocates are worse than Hitler, having supported the abortion of more babies than people killed in all wars throughout history. The other side thinks pro-lifers are fundamental religious misogynists who want power over someone else’s body and offspring. The same intractable dynamic works with gay marriage, gun laws and so on.

Here, I’d like to introduce a “moral issue” that gets much less of an airing in mainstream society these days and, increasingly, doesn’t have magnetically repellent sides in the same way as abortion or any of the other issues do. I talk of graffiti. In the eyes of the law, graffiti is and always has been a sin; vandalism and criminal damage it’s called. There has been no Roe v. Wade equivalent for graffiti, no finessing of old laws. Daubing your name on private property is illegal without any caveat and always has been.

But is this right? In theory, the law has to protect the property rights of private individuals and corporations. In fact, “the Peelers,” as they were called in 19th century Britain, were the first formalized police force there. Basically they were set up to ensure the safety of private property. It is therefore reasonable for people to believe that they will be protected from bandits who use spray cans to put up their “tag.”

But as Proudhon reminded us a century ago, property is theft, and using private property as a canvas to express yourself is in many ways one of the only tangible tools of reclaiming privatized wealth and rendering it public. In that critical moment, the canvas of some bank building or shop front becomes yours, or ours. Ours because graffiti is one of the most altruistic art forms – colorful and complex pieces are put up for our benefit while we stroll the streets, at considerable financial and sometimes legal costs to the artist.

Take, for example, advertising, which is everywhere – all over buildings, walls, transportation, schools, etc. This stuff is there purely to manipulate and make money out of us, but when advertising sneaks its way into every nook and cranny of our public and private spaces and engulfs everyone, there isn’t a law enforcement agency to be seen. If there’s a law against citizen graffiti there also should be places spared from the tentacles of advertisers. Fat chance of that though.

It becomes even more interesting in terms of law and morality when you consider public property like railway stations and schools, because essentially these assets belong to all of us. So how is it wrong to do what we want with it? The argument goes that people – remember Berlin’s “positive freedoms” – don’t want to “put up” with graffiti when they walk around, arguing that it blights the aesthetics and cheapens the area. But personally I would find the subways much more interesting here in New York if they had big colorful creations all over the cars. And it costs the city nothing –they don’t have to commission artists. These people will do it for free. Yet, as it stands the forces scrub it off and send you to jail if they catch you.

In the age of Banksy, the mega-successful UK graffiti artist, whose new show opened in New York this week, this issue still hasn’t been broached on a big scale. There are tons of campaigns to legalize cannabis and anything else you can think of that they let you do with impunity in the oasis of Holland, but there is no graffiti equivalent. This is strange as Banksy is now the most popular and richest artist in the world, and yet this highly revered character is technically a criminal. The last time that happened, Oscar Wilde was found languishing in Reading Gaol.

Graffiti artists are the cracks in the shiny, fake sheen that advertising and closed-off private edifices have foisted upon us. The style of quick, ready-made art, adapted to the dilemma of always being watched by cops, is unique and often innovative and stylish. But I need to draw a distinction between tagging, which is hastily sprayed, one-dimensional monochrome names, and the more artistic pieces. Somewhere in between are throw-ups, which are more detailed than a tag but not as extensive as a piece.

There are also two different types of graffiti artists, with two very difficult goals. One is the “bombers,” who just tag relentlessly to get their name up. Usually these people are making up for a lack of artistic talent. Then there’s the real artists who spend more time doing pieces that have artistic merit and are discerning to the eye. Rarely is there a confluence of the two, although that is respected.

The law, however, treats both types of graffiti as the same thing, calling both vandalism. But the latter is not vandalism, but art with the street as a canvas. It is often beautiful, complex and complemented by characters and vistas in the great tradition of muralists like Diego Rivera. The idea that art is purely for the gallery and that when it doesn’t have that imprimatur it should be illegal is nuts.

I went on a couple of missions with graffiti artists recently. The thing they kept saying was how insanely militant the transpo (subway police) were in New York City. We went down to the Freedom Tunnel which is just down by Columbia University off Riverside Drive. You have to climb down a tree-lined hill and run stealthily across a motorway then down on to the rail track, but when you get into the tunnel and dodge the trains, it’s a near-religious experience as iridescent color (think stain-glass windows) is plastered all over the walls and the pitch black is only punctuated by beams of light coming through holes in the roof which give it all illumination. Add to this the hush and it feels like church. There is a whole homeless community living down there as well, some even have TVs as they get the electricity from the train lines.

It reminded me of the caves at Lascaux in France, which contain beautiful renditions of wild animals and are the first pictorial expression that we know were composed by our species. In today’s world they would be termed “graffiti” because a cave would be privatized property, owned by McDonald’s or, if it was in Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida franchise.

There are, of course, legal parks where pieces can be put up, but the point of graffiti is reclaiming spaces that have been closed off. So having little corners for creation is against the whole philosophy.

If you have to have a Vandal Squad at least complement it with an Aesthetics Squad, a team of highly trained art historians and curators who judge whether the artistic content is sufficient for them to escape prosecution. This way you get a graffiti gallery cleansed of the bad artists and you get your city decorated – for free. It makes perfect capitalist sense.

Matt Kennard can be reached at MattKennard@gmail.com.

Hollywood’s F-U

By EUGENE MULERO, Correspondent

I don’t know why I keep forgetting what a liberal bastion Hollywood is. But I do.

Next week, one of the big studios is releasing, “W,” a biopic on none other than Good Ol’ President Bush. And the only director desperate (and stupid) enough to take on the project: Oliver Stone.

So let’s see – the same director who cemented the JFK conspiracy, depicted Wall Street as a two-dimensional good-versus-evil jungle and offered us the last passion of Tricky Dick.

The only thing that comes to mind is, WHY?

Why do we need this movie that now we all have to go see? Why? Doesn’t Hollywood learn anything from the past?

The average voter hates Hollywood’s elite – the 1 percent richest son-of-a-guns live and work around there. Remember what happened after “Fahrenheit 9/11”?—well, I do. Bush got re-elected. Yes. After that Oscar-winning “masterpiece” dismantling the empire, W still won.

So, from what I’ve read and the previews I’ve seen, “W” exposes the Bush Administration’s tumultuous disagreements about Iraq, reveals Karl Rove’s genius and chronicles Bush’s journey from college fuck-up to president. TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!

What “W” is going to do is reinforce the notion to middle America that Hollywood is full of Bentley-driving assholes, while preaching to the choir of W haters.

And as far as Oliver Stone – the guy can make a good film, don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed “U-Turn” – but, really, the “W” project is such an obvious fuck-you to President Bush that it’s a pathetic undertaking.

What would’ve been daring on the part of Stone and Hollywood, would’ve been to greenlight an investigative documentary on Hollywood Studios’ stranglehold on American culture and ties to defense contractors (but, that won’t happen, since movies about war are profitable).

Eugene Mulero may be reached at Eugene.Mulero@gmail.com.

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