Let the Trials Begin! (But They Probably Won't)

I thought this little rant from Information Clearing House might strike a chord with some.

Nice thoughts, but our society, from our corporate controlled media and govenment, to our two controlling and barely distinguishable political parties, to the majority of our unfortunately brainwashed consumer electorate, is corrupt to the core, so. . . forget it! There probably isn't the moral capacity and independent thinking ability left in the vast majority of them to even consider it, let alone follow through with it.

The sentiment and comments after the article are certainly interesting though. . . .

Another article on the criminal bailout, by Naomi Klein and her interview on DN! (below), may also be of interest.

Chris

The Election is Over; Time to Move On to the Recriminations

Let the Trials Begin!

By DOUGLAS VALENTINE
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21225.htm

November 14, 2008 "Counterpunch" -- - Amid the euphoria and angst of the Obama apotheosis, the unreality of a mismanaged, two trillion dollar, taxpayer funded bailout of freewheeling capitalists, and the wars of limbo in Iraq and Afghanistan, one little thing is being overlooked.

George W Bush.

The Decider. The psychopath responsible for this appalling mess we're in. The architect of America's ignoble descent into moral darkness. The washed up and universally despised pseudo-despot who reveled in torture, kidnapping and assassination. The War-Monger.

"Bring 'em On!"

"Dead or Alive!"

The raving ignoramus whose words will haunt us forever.

The spoiled child of privilege playing with the lives of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, as if they were his personal toys.

The mass murderer who illegally invaded and occupied a foreign nation, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, utterly destroying their cities and bridges, power plants and schools, and scattering millions of them to the wind, as if he were GOD!

The Comic Book Madman obsessed with Death, reading CIA memos about Al Qaeda, sending kidnappers and hit teams and drones around the world, anywhere he wanted, to kill his imaginary enemies, while America burned.

The Super Traitor.

The elections are over, I say. The people have spoken. It's time to move on to the business at hand - hauling Bush's sorry ass before a war crimes tribunal of the sort he created. But not one staffed by his political cadre of complicit military officers. One composed of his victims.

Let the recriminations begin!

If there were any justice, the process would begin with his midnight arrest. Bush's beloved CIA drones and hitmen invariably kill their target's families in these little snatch operations, and if agreed upon by his inquisitors, I suggest this would be an appropriate touch.

Then the little fucker would be rendered to my basement and put on the waterboard. I'd ask that Joe Liebernut be made to put the wet towel on his face, but Joe would do it just for fun. Same with Limbaugh.

We'll find someone deserving of the job. Perhaps the boys from Gitmo? And I mean, the boys. The brothers and sisters of innocent Iraqis he killed? I think they'll be plenty of volunteers.

The whole point will be to make Bush confess. Not to the crimes he has committed. But to explain why he did it. Was it to show up Poppy? To win the love of Barbara?

I really want to know.

This interrogation should last seven years, and everyone Bush names as having followed his orders should be tried as well. That's Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and everyone in the CIA for starters.

Bush's kangaroo courtroom trial, presided over by Vincent Bugliosi, should be the highlight of the election campaign of 2016.

The supreme punishments to be broadcast live by Fox News.

Imagine.

Douglas Valentine is the author of four books which are available at his websites http://www.members.authorsguild.net/valentine/ and http://www.douglasvalentine.com/index.html His fifth book, The Strength of the Pack: The Politics, Personalities and Espionage Intrigues That Shaped The DEA, will be published in September 2009 by Trine Day.

To read the comments, go to the bottomof the page at:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21225.htm

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Wall Street's Bailout is a Trillion-Dollar Crime Scene

Why Aren't the Dems Doing Something About It?

By Naomi Klein
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21226.htm

November 14, 2008 "The Nation" - -- The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.

In a moment of high panic in late September, the U.S. Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed -- a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that "Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice."

Of equally dubious legality are the equity deals Treasury has negotiated with many of the country's banks. According to Congressman Barney Frank, one of the architects of the legislation that enables the deals, "Any use of these funds for any purpose other than lending -- for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions, etc. -- is a violation of the act." Yet this is exactly how the funds are being used.

Then there is the nearly $2 trillion the Federal Reserve has handed out in emergency loans. Incredibly, the Fed will not reveal which corporations have received these loans or what it has accepted as collateral. Bloomberg News believes that this secrecy violates the law and has filed a federal suit demanding full disclosure.

Despite all of this potential lawlessness, the Democrats are either openly defending the administration or refusing to intervene. "There is only one president at a time," we hear from Barack Obama. That's true. But every sweetheart deal the lame-duck Bush administration makes threatens to hobble Obama's ability to make good on his promise of change. To cite just one example, that $140 billion in missing tax revenue is almost the same sum as Obama's renewable energy program. Obama owes it to the people who elected him to call this what it is: an attempt to undermine the electoral process by stealth.

Yes, there is only one president at a time, but that president needed the support of powerful Democrats, including Obama, to get the bailout passed. Now that it is clear that the Bush administration is violating the terms to which both parties agreed, the Democrats have not just the right but a grave responsibility to intervene forcefully.

I suspect that the real reason the Democrats are so far failing to act has less to do with presidential protocol than with fear: fear that the stock market, which has the temperament of an overindulged 2-year-old, will throw one of its world-shaking tantrums. Disclosing the truth about who is receiving federal loans, we are told, could cause the cranky market to bet against those banks. Question the legality of equity deals and the same thing will happen. Challenge the $140 billion tax giveaway and mergers could fall through. "None of us wants to be blamed for ruining these mergers and creating a new Great Depression," explained one unnamed Congressional aide.

More than that, the Democrats, including Obama, appear to believe that the need to soothe the market should govern all key economic decisions in the transition period. Which is why, just days after a euphoric victory for "change," the mantra abruptly shifted to "smooth transition" and "continuity."

Take Obama's pick for chief of staff. Despite the Republican braying about his partisanship, Rahm Emanuel, the House Democrat who received the most donations from the financial sector, sends an unmistakably reassuring message to Wall Street. When asked on This Week With George Stephanopoulos whether Obama would be moving quickly to increase taxes on the wealthy, as promised, Emanuel pointedly did not answer the question.

This same market-coddling logic should, we are told, guide Obama's selection of treasury secretary. Fox News's Stuart Varney explained that Larry Summers, who held the post under Clinton, and former Fed chair Paul Volcker would both "give great confidence to the market." We learned from MSNBC's Joe Scarborough that Summers is the man "the Street would like the most."

Let's be clear about why. "The Street" would cheer a Summers appointment for exactly the same reason the rest of us should fear it: because traders will assume that Summers, champion of financial deregulation under Clinton, will offer a transition from Henry Paulson so smooth we will barely know it happened. Someone like FDIC chair Sheila Bair, on the other hand, would spark fear on the Street -- for all the right reasons.

One thing we know for certain is that the market will react violently to any signal that there is a new sheriff in town who will impose serious regulation, invest in people and cut off the free money for corporations. In short, the markets can be relied on to vote in precisely the opposite way that Americans have just voted. (A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that 60 percent of Americans strongly favor "stricter regulations on financial institutions," while just 21 percent support aid to financial companies.)

There is no way to reconcile the public's vote for change with the market's foot-stomping for more of the same. Any and all moves to change course will be met with short-term market shocks. The good news is that once it is clear that the new rules will be applied across the board and with fairness, the market will stabilize and adjust. Furthermore, the timing for this turbulence has never been better. Over the past three months, we've been shocked so frequently that market stability would come as more of a surprise. That gives Obama a window to disregard the calls for a seamless transition and do the hard stuff first. Few will be able to blame him for a crisis that clearly predates him, or fault him for honoring the clearly expressed wishes of the electorate. The longer he waits, however, the more memories fade.

When transferring power from a functional, trustworthy regime, everyone favors a smooth transition. When exiting an era marked by criminality and bankrupt ideology, a little rockiness at the start would be a very good sign.

See Also: http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2008/11/17