Pt. 3 of Bill Black interview about control fraud, “fraud controlled from the highest levels of financial institutions and the government.”
The fraud has been covered up mainly by using accounting scams and tricks to pretend it doesn’t exist. Japan tried this. The result was their “Lost Decade.” Our current scams were done by forcing bogus accounting standards on the accounting industry.
We have 1/6 the number of FBI agents and resources on our current “epidemic of fraud” as we did in the S&L crisis of the 80’s, and this crisis is 30 times larger. Obama could simply order more agents be hired and put on the investigation. Instead, he’s done the opposite. This is quite deliberate. That’s Black’s primary point. None of this is accidental. They know precisely what they are doing.
We are doing nothing about accountability, nothing to stop future crises. There are “so many shoes to fall from this crisis, it will be like Imelda Marcos’ closet after an earthquake.”
Some current bills actually want to put consumer protection under the Fed. This is “malicious” and “nasty”
The fix is in. We the people need to change things. Now.
Doesn’t it begin to become obvious that the sytem is working perfectly, it is doing what it is meant to do, syphon wealth up the way. It is also obvious that this a system that is not meant to function in the interest of the ordinary people of any country. Trying to improve the mechanisms is a waste of time, they are part and parcel of the corrupt system. It gives the impression that we have some say in what is to happen, but history tells us different. Elections come and elections go, but the power and wealth stay where they have always been, with the elite little bunch of parasites at the top.
Howard Zin explains it more fully in the following extract;
†If you work through the existing structures you are going to be corrupted. By working through political system that poisons the atmosphere, even the progressive organizations, you can see it even now in the US, where people on the “Left†are all caught in the electoral campaign and get into fierce arguments about should we support this third party candidate or that third party candidate. This is a sort of little piece of evidence that suggests that when you get into working through electoral politics you begin to corrupt your ideals. So I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighbourhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over – first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions. –â€
I think a lot of people on all sides of politics would agree with that now. They just aren’t sure what to do and how to do it.
Perhaps a start could be to ignore mainstream politics and start talking to each other at street level, community level, and start to formulate our ideas there. Get outside their lines of debate, the questions they ask are part of the problem. We have different question and we will have to look in a different direction to find the answers.
Careful, John: when I suggested that, Marxists called me names.
What Adam Smith observed 234 years ago with respect to capital is equally true of power: it tends to concentrate at the top. Progressive taxation cycles money back to the lower levels of the economy– but there’s no systemic way to recycle power that has accumulated.
To prevent abuse, power must be devolved to the lowest possible level– where possible, individuals and communities. Sure, there are functions that need to be at the national (or, in a globalized economy, international) level. But that necessity, at the nationalist level at least, has been far exceeded.
If power is not devolved, it doesn’t matter who wields it: capitalists, fascists, socialists, or Marxists. Ultimately it serves those who wield it, not the public as a whole.
And yes: the answer begins with talking to each other at the community level. But we shouldn’t expect it to be easy. The status quo has a vested interest in keeping us fighting among ourselves. Get the tea partiers fired up about those wacko socialist Democrats. Get the Democrats fired up about those illiterate redneck tea partiers. And no one notices that while we bicker, someone else is looting the treasury.
Of course divide and rule is an essential tool of those with power, I have never hinted that any real change would be easy but the alternative is the same old crap with the powerful get more powerful and more wealthy. Talking at street level and community level is not Marxism, “All power to the Soviets” was an answer until the Marxists took control. Because it was that way doesn’t mean that it has to be that way. If the idea is alive in the minds of the people their is a chance that it will be realised. It is not beyond the imaginatin of the people to come up with a fairer and more just system based on sustainability and seeing to the needs of all our people. Of course it couold be a long and bitter struggle but like I said, do you want more of the same? We all know that there is no magic wand and no guarantees but the dream is there, only the ordinary people can make it happen. What we don’t want is another leader with the grand plan, they usually force it through with a handful of friends and lots of bloodshed.
Exactly. Thanks, John. And working things out at a community level does work. The American example is Alinsky, but look also at Ariyaratne’s gramswaraj and Gandhi’s pancharayat for proof that it works. And Richard Flyer in Reno, Sharif Abdullah in Portland, and plenty of others have done groundwork.
At Bob’s suggestion, I read “Deer Hunting with Jesus” some time back. It suggests that the corporatists worked long and hard to subvert the GOP base. (Personally, I think they did it the easy way with the Dems– they bought the leadership and let everyone else believe the Dems still stood for something.)
There is a solution, but no shortcut, so let’s get at it.