By Don Klein
"The use of stereotypes, the passing of personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," read a high ranking Vatican priest quoting from a letter written by a Jewish friend.
Wait a minute. Was he equating the public scorn aroused by the Vatican's protection of Catholic clergyman who abused children with the ageless Christian theme of unremitting bigotry against Jews? Does this cleric have his head on straight? Why would he read out loud such a ridiculous conclusion?
Father Cantalmessa, the priest making the remarks, holds the title of preacher of the papal household. Is there any wonder that respect for the Catholic priesthood has dropped so precipitously. They are now almost as low in public standing as members of Congress.
Let’s look at this comparison factually. Just the truth please. Jews have been victims of discrimination throughout history by Christian clergy, specifically the Catholics, for no other reason than being Jewish and not followers of Jesus. Their conversion is high among Catholic targets.
It wasn’t until Pope John XXIII that official anti-Semitism ended.
If it wasn’t for this dishonorable and ageless hatred of Jews, chances are the Holocaust never would have happened. Hitler probably would not have had the support of most Germans for the slaughter that killed over six million innocent non-Christians.
That was anti-Semitism at its peak. There were hundreds of other less horrible examples. Christians imposed laws that denied Jews the right to own land, to work in certain employment, to travel freely, and Jews were expressly and regularly branded from the Sunday pulpit as heretics and worse.
Even in the US where all men supposedly where created equal, Jews in my lifetime could not live in any neighborhood they chose, could not work in any industry they preferred, could not even be elected to public office until they overcame this built-in prejudice through education, by moving gingerly through life and by hard work.
Now compare that with the priests who for generations sexually abused children in their charge with the knowledge that if they were caught they would be transferred to another diocese where a whole new array of virginal youngsters became available prey for their lust. They understood that the church’s predominant concern was protecting its image, not its flock.
After decades of ugly revelations of what it meant to be a Catholic youngster in numerous American cities and being victimized on a regular basis, the focus now turned to Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and even the pope’s home territory in Germany. It was no longer "an American problem" as the church liked to claim in kissing off the previous abuse allegations.
It seems that Irish kids, German youth, and children from other areas of Europe were also being victimized by beguiling clergymen, who after being caught, were not punished, nor defrocked, nor arrested, but hidden away by church elders at a new location to protect the "reputation" of the church.
When this was revealed to have happened in the diocese under Cardinal Joseph A. Ratzinger’s authority, wasn’t it natural for the public to demand the truth especially since the erstwhile cardinal is now the pope? But as it has been many times before with this pope, the issue has been stonewalled.
In the case of the horrors of the Irish priesthood’s authority over the infamous work houses for the destitute young people and other sexual abuses there, the pope apologized and said he is sorry for the pain they caused. But not a single clergyman responsible for the frightful conditions was disciplined.
As for the abuses in his German home grounds, the pope had a different answer. He said he didn’t know about it even though many have claimed they reported the circumstances directly to his office. Pope Benedict is beginning to sound like former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifying before Congress not too long ago.
How these different scenarios equate to religious prejudice is beyond most thoughtful people. To describe criticism of the pope as similar to centuries of anti-Semitism is a crock.
"Father Cantalamessa chose to equate calumny against the Jewish people as the same as criticism of Pope Benedict," said Kristine Ward, a spokeswoman for the National Survivor Advocates Coalition told The New York Times. "It is incomprehensible that Father Cantalamessa did this and that Pope Benedict, the ultimate authority in this church who presided at the service, did not stand during the service to disavow this connection to anti-Semitism."
The church quickly disassociated itself from Cantalamessa’s remarks, The Times reported. Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, stressed that Father Cantalamessa’s sermon represented his own thoughts and was not an official Vatican statement. Lombardi said the remarks should not be construed as equating recent criticism of the Catholic Church with anti-Semitism.
"I don’t think it’s an appropriate comparison," he added.
And, of course, then there was what I consider justifiable reaction from Jewish sources. Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, attributed the remarks to ignorance, not malice. "You would think that a senior priest in the church would have a better understanding of anti-Semitism than to make this hideous comparison," he said.
It really doesn’t matter whether it was ignorance or malice on the priest’s part. In either case it was an incomprehensible statement and the fact that the pope was sitting in the room listening to this idiocy without reaction is a telling message to me as to where his thoughts are at this time of church strife.
It is a classic case of making the offender into the victim.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Doing the right thing
By Don Klein
Armageddon? Hardly. Death of freedom? Not likely. All it was is health insurance for 32 million Americans who could not afford it before.
President Obama finally followed my advice and reaped great results. All right, I wasn’t the only one suggesting he take off the gloves and get fully involved in the health reform controversy. There were scads more people promoting that idea.
It really doesn’t matter who pushed the Democrats to forget about bipartisanship with a recalcitrant Republican in-group committed to fighting any reform on health. We all said it was painful for the majority Democrats to totter away their time when they didn’t really need help from the backswept opposition to bring monumental change to the country.
What does matter is in the end Obama and the Democrats did the right thing. No one is claiming the bill signed into law warmly resembles the legislation that Obama promised during the campaign, but at least there is relief for the millions being shunned by insurance behemoths.
I won’t go into the details of the new law (anyone interested will know the facts by now) I prefer to concern myself with what I see as the consequences of this crucial battle. The aftermath is both good and bad.
1. On the good side. The law is only a great first step. It will have to be amended often and broadened by future Congresses. That makes November’s election of great significance. If the Republicans take over either house of Congress or greatly diminish the Democratic majority, chances for improvements will not be forthcoming soon.
2. Also on the good side, the vote demonstrated to the Republican opposition that refusing to participate in the process does not enhance the party’s political image. Quite the contrary. I don’t know of any candidate who has won a major election on the grounds of being in favor of political obstructionism. Voters prefer candidates who seek something positive – usually changes, always improvements.
3. The lamentable fallout of the vote has been the uncharacteristically bitter attitude by some who support the GOP stance of protecting the status quo. The US use to pride itself in fully debating a subject, putting it to a vote, and everyone falling behind the winning side and working to make the final decision as successful as possible. This apparently no longer is the national credo.
4. Egged on by ugly language from congressional Republicans, many irate onlookers, largely Right Wingers and Tea Party supporters, have behaved in the most loathsome manner. Shouting expletives at Congressmen on their way to the Capitol to vote, spitting on them and finally, the most despicable of all, threatening the wives and children of supporters of the bill. Why they are so incensed is beyond reasoned understanding.
5. Finally, the most brainless strategy of all, the Republicans are threatening to repeal the health care law. They cannot be that dense, but when appealing to their followers on the intellectual level of Neanderthals they think it will work. I refuse to believe there are that many slow-witted people in this country to win an election on that basis.
Already Obama’s approval ratings are climbing after months of slippage during the dragged-out Congressional debate. He used the power of his office and the persuasiveness of his arguments to get the bill enacted. He came out of his eruditious cocoon, put on the gloves and acted like a hard-nosed, tradition-breaking president should.
He may not yet go down in history as a Lincoln or FDR, or even a Teddy Roosevelt, but at least he is heading in the right direction. Basking is his newly exercised power, Obama now has to get three subjects under control and he will be well on his way to becoming one of the great leaders in US history.
First, he has to get a workable and effective economic recovery bill passed which puts millions of people back to work. That is most essential of all current legislation and is the one which will make or break the Democrats in November, not GOP negativity.
Then he must see to it that effective measures to control the miscreants of Wall Street and America’s posh board rooms from causing any more economic damage in the years ahead. He must rein in financial mischief with aggressive policing, formative laws and demanding prosecution.
Finally, this year’s menu of important legislation should include a step or two towards protecting the environment. We don’t have much time left to reverse the global warming trend. The government should ignore the naysayers and provide for curbs or we leave our progeny with dismal futures.
Woefully the Democrats will face continuing rear action sniping from an uncooperative opposition. The Republican Party is a headless monster with no uplifting leader, no creative themes, no positive ideas, so it is easy to fall into demagoguery. We already see the early signs of this with weirdo ramblings from the likes of unelected spokesmen Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin.
Obama still has a majority in both houses of Congress and should use it. He squandered away the first year of his presidency and lessons were learned. Go for it now on these three issues – jobs, financial controls and the environment – and we will see who wins in November. Does anyone in his right mind think that the GOP motif of turning health care back to where it was can float in an era flooded with new ideas and hope?
All right, you may not believe that I was instrumental in getting the health care law enacted. I doubt Obama ever got any of my messages. Now I am giving him a second chance. I’m giving him a chance to do the right thing for the remainder of 2010.
Armageddon? Hardly. Death of freedom? Not likely. All it was is health insurance for 32 million Americans who could not afford it before.
President Obama finally followed my advice and reaped great results. All right, I wasn’t the only one suggesting he take off the gloves and get fully involved in the health reform controversy. There were scads more people promoting that idea.
It really doesn’t matter who pushed the Democrats to forget about bipartisanship with a recalcitrant Republican in-group committed to fighting any reform on health. We all said it was painful for the majority Democrats to totter away their time when they didn’t really need help from the backswept opposition to bring monumental change to the country.
What does matter is in the end Obama and the Democrats did the right thing. No one is claiming the bill signed into law warmly resembles the legislation that Obama promised during the campaign, but at least there is relief for the millions being shunned by insurance behemoths.
I won’t go into the details of the new law (anyone interested will know the facts by now) I prefer to concern myself with what I see as the consequences of this crucial battle. The aftermath is both good and bad.
1. On the good side. The law is only a great first step. It will have to be amended often and broadened by future Congresses. That makes November’s election of great significance. If the Republicans take over either house of Congress or greatly diminish the Democratic majority, chances for improvements will not be forthcoming soon.
2. Also on the good side, the vote demonstrated to the Republican opposition that refusing to participate in the process does not enhance the party’s political image. Quite the contrary. I don’t know of any candidate who has won a major election on the grounds of being in favor of political obstructionism. Voters prefer candidates who seek something positive – usually changes, always improvements.
3. The lamentable fallout of the vote has been the uncharacteristically bitter attitude by some who support the GOP stance of protecting the status quo. The US use to pride itself in fully debating a subject, putting it to a vote, and everyone falling behind the winning side and working to make the final decision as successful as possible. This apparently no longer is the national credo.
4. Egged on by ugly language from congressional Republicans, many irate onlookers, largely Right Wingers and Tea Party supporters, have behaved in the most loathsome manner. Shouting expletives at Congressmen on their way to the Capitol to vote, spitting on them and finally, the most despicable of all, threatening the wives and children of supporters of the bill. Why they are so incensed is beyond reasoned understanding.
5. Finally, the most brainless strategy of all, the Republicans are threatening to repeal the health care law. They cannot be that dense, but when appealing to their followers on the intellectual level of Neanderthals they think it will work. I refuse to believe there are that many slow-witted people in this country to win an election on that basis.
Already Obama’s approval ratings are climbing after months of slippage during the dragged-out Congressional debate. He used the power of his office and the persuasiveness of his arguments to get the bill enacted. He came out of his eruditious cocoon, put on the gloves and acted like a hard-nosed, tradition-breaking president should.
He may not yet go down in history as a Lincoln or FDR, or even a Teddy Roosevelt, but at least he is heading in the right direction. Basking is his newly exercised power, Obama now has to get three subjects under control and he will be well on his way to becoming one of the great leaders in US history.
First, he has to get a workable and effective economic recovery bill passed which puts millions of people back to work. That is most essential of all current legislation and is the one which will make or break the Democrats in November, not GOP negativity.
Then he must see to it that effective measures to control the miscreants of Wall Street and America’s posh board rooms from causing any more economic damage in the years ahead. He must rein in financial mischief with aggressive policing, formative laws and demanding prosecution.
Finally, this year’s menu of important legislation should include a step or two towards protecting the environment. We don’t have much time left to reverse the global warming trend. The government should ignore the naysayers and provide for curbs or we leave our progeny with dismal futures.
Woefully the Democrats will face continuing rear action sniping from an uncooperative opposition. The Republican Party is a headless monster with no uplifting leader, no creative themes, no positive ideas, so it is easy to fall into demagoguery. We already see the early signs of this with weirdo ramblings from the likes of unelected spokesmen Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin.
Obama still has a majority in both houses of Congress and should use it. He squandered away the first year of his presidency and lessons were learned. Go for it now on these three issues – jobs, financial controls and the environment – and we will see who wins in November. Does anyone in his right mind think that the GOP motif of turning health care back to where it was can float in an era flooded with new ideas and hope?
All right, you may not believe that I was instrumental in getting the health care law enacted. I doubt Obama ever got any of my messages. Now I am giving him a second chance. I’m giving him a chance to do the right thing for the remainder of 2010.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Stepping towards the abyss
By Don Klein
President Obama sent to Congress the outline of a bill to keep banks from dealing in the destructive practices that plunged the country into an economic abyss in 2008, but the idea seems to be dead before anyone on Capitol Hill had a chance to unwrap the envelope it came in.
According to The New York Times, "The legislation would ban banks that take federally insured deposits from investing in hedge funds or private equity funds and from making trades that are for the benefit of the banks, not their customers, a practice known as proprietary trading."
The proposal, called the Volcker Rule, was designed to keep banks which profit from the federal safety net to take unnecessary financial risks. Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve said it had "tough" rules.
It is no wonder that tough language would be a good reason for the stalwart protectors of America’s avaricious bankers, otherwise known as the US Congress, to view such restrictions as overbearing and harsh. The fact that millions of hardworking ordinary citizens were thrown out of work because of the chaos caused by Wall Street moguls never seemed to matter.
Congress knows whose milk they suckle for nourishment and where the honey for their munchy toast comes from. When was the last time our resolute lawmakers in Washington ever did anything for the people?
The rule in Washington is not to ruffle the sensibilities of industry.
++Hold up health care until its dies a slow death in order to keep the insurance and pharmaceutical professions happy.
++Even the Supreme Court got into the act by opening the door for corporate barons to dominate elections with their heavy spending and freewheeling campaigns in support of political scoundrels.
++And Congress won’t make banks act responsibly.
Oh no, don’t do any of those things that really matter to the people. Lincoln’s spirit is tossing in its tomb. The government of the people and by the people is clearly not for the people. Today’s members of Congress probably know every one of the 13,740 lobbyists in Washington, but hardly a handful of voters. This is a moneyed crowd. If they had their way they would repeal the laws of gravity if by doing so it benefitted big business.
None of this is new. It has been growing for decades because the corrupt system imploded and right now appears to be unfixable. Senators and Congressmen have to run for office on a regular basis and that requires gifts to run campaigns. The fat cats know this and ply them with funds at every opportunity. The best politicians fall prey to this profaning process.
There is nothing more accurate than the saying, "we have the best government money can buy."
As to the Volcker Rule, members of the Senate said it "would not have prevented the financial crisis or saved companies like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and the American International Group," The Times reported. " They said the idea, as outlined by President Obama, was vague and difficult to enforce."
In addition, those trustworthy servants of the country club crowd, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, told Congress that limits on risk-taking could be achieved by other means. The obvious question remains, if there were "other means" to avoid economic disaster how come they didn’t employ them before the crash. They failed to mention that fiscal gluttony is the only motivation they understand.
The sooner we face the reality that American politics to a very large extent is controlled by big money, the better. Money always talks the loudest. In the past the public only gains when there are horrible consequences that force changes.
That was the case with the civil rights legislation in the 1960s designed to end the onerous conditions of second class black citizenry. It also happened in the 1930s with the New Deal when Americans were in dire suffering during the Great Depression.
But it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Today’s Congress has no respect for the people who elected them. They take them for granted and seem to think that they can explain away any distasteful behavior by raising the ugly ogre of high debt or national security or any other threat to our democracy their fertile dishonest minds can concoct.
In essence Congress works for us. They are employees of the people and are the only workers I know who can spend an entire year spinning their wheels and being well paid to do nothing. They complain about the lack of regulations to control errant banking policies, then when the opportunity arises for them to do something about it, they twiddle away the effort.
They talk about the need for health care reform then spend more than a year nit-picking anything that looks to be an improvement to a bad system. They said the current health care program will bankrupt the country, but fear taking any steps to ease the nation's financial pain.
They are the most dreadful actors on the public stage. A small town alderman is more responsive to constituents than members of Congress.
Congress is in such disfavor with the American people that the independents are growing in greater numbers than the Democrats and Republicans. With good reason. Some believe the solution is a third party, but that has never worked in this country.
So this is where we stand: We live in a fading democracy, the world’s greatest debtor nation, and our government leaders are battling each other to a standoff for political advantage instead of working to improve the national condition.
If things don’t change, we may be doomed as a global force and the great American experiment will have failed. If they don’t act responsibly in the eight months left until the November elections, the self-centered loafers and should be thrown out like the bums they are.
President Obama sent to Congress the outline of a bill to keep banks from dealing in the destructive practices that plunged the country into an economic abyss in 2008, but the idea seems to be dead before anyone on Capitol Hill had a chance to unwrap the envelope it came in.
According to The New York Times, "The legislation would ban banks that take federally insured deposits from investing in hedge funds or private equity funds and from making trades that are for the benefit of the banks, not their customers, a practice known as proprietary trading."
The proposal, called the Volcker Rule, was designed to keep banks which profit from the federal safety net to take unnecessary financial risks. Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve said it had "tough" rules.
It is no wonder that tough language would be a good reason for the stalwart protectors of America’s avaricious bankers, otherwise known as the US Congress, to view such restrictions as overbearing and harsh. The fact that millions of hardworking ordinary citizens were thrown out of work because of the chaos caused by Wall Street moguls never seemed to matter.
Congress knows whose milk they suckle for nourishment and where the honey for their munchy toast comes from. When was the last time our resolute lawmakers in Washington ever did anything for the people?
The rule in Washington is not to ruffle the sensibilities of industry.
++Hold up health care until its dies a slow death in order to keep the insurance and pharmaceutical professions happy.
++Even the Supreme Court got into the act by opening the door for corporate barons to dominate elections with their heavy spending and freewheeling campaigns in support of political scoundrels.
++And Congress won’t make banks act responsibly.
Oh no, don’t do any of those things that really matter to the people. Lincoln’s spirit is tossing in its tomb. The government of the people and by the people is clearly not for the people. Today’s members of Congress probably know every one of the 13,740 lobbyists in Washington, but hardly a handful of voters. This is a moneyed crowd. If they had their way they would repeal the laws of gravity if by doing so it benefitted big business.
None of this is new. It has been growing for decades because the corrupt system imploded and right now appears to be unfixable. Senators and Congressmen have to run for office on a regular basis and that requires gifts to run campaigns. The fat cats know this and ply them with funds at every opportunity. The best politicians fall prey to this profaning process.
There is nothing more accurate than the saying, "we have the best government money can buy."
As to the Volcker Rule, members of the Senate said it "would not have prevented the financial crisis or saved companies like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and the American International Group," The Times reported. " They said the idea, as outlined by President Obama, was vague and difficult to enforce."
In addition, those trustworthy servants of the country club crowd, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, told Congress that limits on risk-taking could be achieved by other means. The obvious question remains, if there were "other means" to avoid economic disaster how come they didn’t employ them before the crash. They failed to mention that fiscal gluttony is the only motivation they understand.
The sooner we face the reality that American politics to a very large extent is controlled by big money, the better. Money always talks the loudest. In the past the public only gains when there are horrible consequences that force changes.
That was the case with the civil rights legislation in the 1960s designed to end the onerous conditions of second class black citizenry. It also happened in the 1930s with the New Deal when Americans were in dire suffering during the Great Depression.
But it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Today’s Congress has no respect for the people who elected them. They take them for granted and seem to think that they can explain away any distasteful behavior by raising the ugly ogre of high debt or national security or any other threat to our democracy their fertile dishonest minds can concoct.
In essence Congress works for us. They are employees of the people and are the only workers I know who can spend an entire year spinning their wheels and being well paid to do nothing. They complain about the lack of regulations to control errant banking policies, then when the opportunity arises for them to do something about it, they twiddle away the effort.
They talk about the need for health care reform then spend more than a year nit-picking anything that looks to be an improvement to a bad system. They said the current health care program will bankrupt the country, but fear taking any steps to ease the nation's financial pain.
They are the most dreadful actors on the public stage. A small town alderman is more responsive to constituents than members of Congress.
Congress is in such disfavor with the American people that the independents are growing in greater numbers than the Democrats and Republicans. With good reason. Some believe the solution is a third party, but that has never worked in this country.
So this is where we stand: We live in a fading democracy, the world’s greatest debtor nation, and our government leaders are battling each other to a standoff for political advantage instead of working to improve the national condition.
If things don’t change, we may be doomed as a global force and the great American experiment will have failed. If they don’t act responsibly in the eight months left until the November elections, the self-centered loafers and should be thrown out like the bums they are.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Is failure our watchword?
By Don Klein
When is a war crime not a war crime? When government lawyers exonerate other government lawyers for violating established international law.
Everyone knows that torture is against everything this country stands for. Except, perhaps, the Justice Department lawyers in judgment of the Bush lawyers who inspired the travesty of creating new language to give US agents the green light during the years of authorized water boarding.
We have backed off from the Nuremberg trials which established the rule that "I was ordered to do so" is no excuse for committing war crimes. Dozens of Nazis were charged and at least 12 were sentenced to death for war crimes. The United States led the world in condemning acts of official brutality and installed the rule of decent treatment of all captives, military and civilian, and banning torture.
The Bush Administration, pumped by the warped ideals of Vice President Dick Cheney, reneged on this honorable commitment. Now the Obama Administration has let off the hook the men who justified Bush torture policy. Current Justice Department lawyers probing former Justice Department lawyers ended up slapping the culprits on the wrist for legalizing harsh treatment of captives held by this country.
It’s enough to make one think there is no hope that the US government can ever do anything right anymore. Not only are they not to be tried as war criminals, the lawyers who authored the pernicious rule that led to water boarding, Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo, are now "honorable" members of society. Bybee is a federal judge and Yoo a university professor.
According to the decision by the Justice Department the two used flawed legal reasoning but were not guilty of official misconduct. Are these the kind of men we want on the federal bench and teaching in an American law school? They should be serving a term in the penitentiary, or at least suffer disbarment.
This is just one more case of President Obama’s impotence. He is so afraid of offending Republicans he is distorting his entire approach to the right things to do. He bends over backwards to get Republican bipartisanship in the Senate and gets slapped in the face time and again. He has brought turning the other cheek to new level of disillusionment.
His party has already taken war crimes trials off the table for Bush and Cheney, now the government won’t even find anything seriously wrong with the lawyers that were used to give torture the air of legality. It makes it extremely difficult for one-time Obama supporters to maintain their enthusiasm for the man. He just does not seem to have what is needed to do all things he said he would do during the campaign.
Where do disenchanted Obama backers go? There is nothing for them in the two party system. The GOP is bold and drives the country into the arms of the profiteers and Neanderthals, and the Democrats make wonderful promises to reform this, that and everything else and despite having a clear majority in both houses of Congress are scared off from doing anything once resistance raises its ugly head.
Unlike fairytales, our white knights are colossal cowards. Cheney openly brags of his role in propelling torture into the American national image and he trots freely on our streets and on our television screens. Bush rests in comfortable Texas banishment trying on his flight suit whenever he gets bored with reading the comics and ignores the national turmoil he helped create.
Meanwhile, the people are close to rebellion. The Tea Party adherents, embracing their political ignorance – and Sarah Palin, want to secede from the Union. On the other side, the Liberals are disenchanted and won’t come out to vote in important elections which allowed the usually Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts last month to go Republican for the first time in a half century.
I won’t say this frustration is all Obama fault, but much of it is. He showed little gumption to fight for his programs during his first year in office. People view him as a pussycat being frightened into the corner at the mere mention of a filibuster. He is not the tiger they thought they elected in November 2008.
There is a serious possibility that now, after more than a year of going nowhere on health reform, bank regulations and environmental issues that the Democrats will surely take a beating when the midterm elections come in November. No one wants to be a Democrat running for office this year – with good reason. They are one gigantic national flop.
Now they add insult to their political impotence by allowing war criminals to get away with their malevolent behavior. The inability of the government to perform on any level has paralyzed the nation and America will soon be a wonderful dream that, we in this generation, failed to nurture and pass on in decent shape to our progeny.
Just think of it. During the last decade we had a tragic war, a disastrous economy which has bankrupted the country and a stymied government resulting in massive unemployment plus thousands of dead and horribly injured American servicemen and the loss of global prestige and no government policy maker will be held accountable for it.
If the Republicans take control of the Senate and maybe even the House of Representatives this fall that will mean the end of all progress – as if that would be any worse than it already is.
After Bush many swore never vote for a national Republican again. Now the problem is compounded. They must ask, after Obama, "what do I do?"
When is a war crime not a war crime? When government lawyers exonerate other government lawyers for violating established international law.
Everyone knows that torture is against everything this country stands for. Except, perhaps, the Justice Department lawyers in judgment of the Bush lawyers who inspired the travesty of creating new language to give US agents the green light during the years of authorized water boarding.
We have backed off from the Nuremberg trials which established the rule that "I was ordered to do so" is no excuse for committing war crimes. Dozens of Nazis were charged and at least 12 were sentenced to death for war crimes. The United States led the world in condemning acts of official brutality and installed the rule of decent treatment of all captives, military and civilian, and banning torture.
The Bush Administration, pumped by the warped ideals of Vice President Dick Cheney, reneged on this honorable commitment. Now the Obama Administration has let off the hook the men who justified Bush torture policy. Current Justice Department lawyers probing former Justice Department lawyers ended up slapping the culprits on the wrist for legalizing harsh treatment of captives held by this country.
It’s enough to make one think there is no hope that the US government can ever do anything right anymore. Not only are they not to be tried as war criminals, the lawyers who authored the pernicious rule that led to water boarding, Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo, are now "honorable" members of society. Bybee is a federal judge and Yoo a university professor.
According to the decision by the Justice Department the two used flawed legal reasoning but were not guilty of official misconduct. Are these the kind of men we want on the federal bench and teaching in an American law school? They should be serving a term in the penitentiary, or at least suffer disbarment.
This is just one more case of President Obama’s impotence. He is so afraid of offending Republicans he is distorting his entire approach to the right things to do. He bends over backwards to get Republican bipartisanship in the Senate and gets slapped in the face time and again. He has brought turning the other cheek to new level of disillusionment.
His party has already taken war crimes trials off the table for Bush and Cheney, now the government won’t even find anything seriously wrong with the lawyers that were used to give torture the air of legality. It makes it extremely difficult for one-time Obama supporters to maintain their enthusiasm for the man. He just does not seem to have what is needed to do all things he said he would do during the campaign.
Where do disenchanted Obama backers go? There is nothing for them in the two party system. The GOP is bold and drives the country into the arms of the profiteers and Neanderthals, and the Democrats make wonderful promises to reform this, that and everything else and despite having a clear majority in both houses of Congress are scared off from doing anything once resistance raises its ugly head.
Unlike fairytales, our white knights are colossal cowards. Cheney openly brags of his role in propelling torture into the American national image and he trots freely on our streets and on our television screens. Bush rests in comfortable Texas banishment trying on his flight suit whenever he gets bored with reading the comics and ignores the national turmoil he helped create.
Meanwhile, the people are close to rebellion. The Tea Party adherents, embracing their political ignorance – and Sarah Palin, want to secede from the Union. On the other side, the Liberals are disenchanted and won’t come out to vote in important elections which allowed the usually Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts last month to go Republican for the first time in a half century.
I won’t say this frustration is all Obama fault, but much of it is. He showed little gumption to fight for his programs during his first year in office. People view him as a pussycat being frightened into the corner at the mere mention of a filibuster. He is not the tiger they thought they elected in November 2008.
There is a serious possibility that now, after more than a year of going nowhere on health reform, bank regulations and environmental issues that the Democrats will surely take a beating when the midterm elections come in November. No one wants to be a Democrat running for office this year – with good reason. They are one gigantic national flop.
Now they add insult to their political impotence by allowing war criminals to get away with their malevolent behavior. The inability of the government to perform on any level has paralyzed the nation and America will soon be a wonderful dream that, we in this generation, failed to nurture and pass on in decent shape to our progeny.
Just think of it. During the last decade we had a tragic war, a disastrous economy which has bankrupted the country and a stymied government resulting in massive unemployment plus thousands of dead and horribly injured American servicemen and the loss of global prestige and no government policy maker will be held accountable for it.
If the Republicans take control of the Senate and maybe even the House of Representatives this fall that will mean the end of all progress – as if that would be any worse than it already is.
After Bush many swore never vote for a national Republican again. Now the problem is compounded. They must ask, after Obama, "what do I do?"
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Waiting for the next blizzard
By Don Klein
Being stuck at home because of a snow storm is great for kids. There is sledding and snowball fights and for those with skill, ice skating. There is also a healthy resurgence of family comity in at-home activities. Most of all it means no school for them. I never realized until recently that being snowbound is good for grandparents as well.
In my younger days I always liked the concept of snow. It was God’s way of purifying the land with a pristine coat of cool, soothing, white fluff, much as intensive rain sweeps away all the muck of everyday life. Snow just covers it. But just below the line of consciousness in those days I secretly dreaded snow when it pounced onto my life in substantial quantities.
To me it meant shoveling what seems to be tons of the white stuff from the driveway and front walk. It meant power failures and the breakdown in normal public services and cancellations of many civic activities plus horrendous trips to and from my job. Snow storms are eclectic, a balance of fun, frenzy and frustration.
Not anymore. In retirement without little ones under foot, being snowbound is a cherished period of relief. I noticed that for the first time last weekend.
In the days when we had young children at home my wife, Joyce, would bake loads of chocolate chip cookies and make what always appeared to be gallons of hot cocoa. Once the walk was shoveled many of the neighborhood kids would come tapping on the front door for handouts. They knew where the freshly baked cookies were concentrated.
To this day, our daughters now mothers themselves, bake chocolate chip cookies when they are shut-in by winter storms. The acorn never falls far from the oak.
With this most recent storm, her culinary juices aroused by the sight of snow pelting at the sides of the house, Joyce asked me "Would you like me to bake brownies?" My lack of responsive enthusiasm was driven by the fact that before the storm I had wisely purchased a fudge cake and a box of chocolate covered doughnuts (don’t mention it to my doctor) for nutritional fortification during the upcoming weather-driven confinement.
Not being deterred by my negative reaction, she said the magical words, "How about I make a pot full of knadels." Ah, knadels. An image from my past. The Passover delicacy my wife learned to make from my mother. Mom made great knadels but Joyce has outdone her, ameliorating her cooking with each passing year.
There are few foods I can think of that I can resist – French onion soup, beef Wellington, grilled Alaskan salmon, Rainbow trout, chicken l’orange, beef tartare – but none more than knadels. It makes me salivate.
For those who are unfamiliar with knadels accept ths definition. It is a fluffy dumpling made of matzoh meal and other magical ingredients folded into the size of a meatball, cooked for 20 minutes in unsalted boiling water which is disposed of before the little darlings are served with steaming homemade chicken soup.
The soup, as we all know, is a cure all for ailments. Homemade chicken soup is miraculous. Legend has it that it makes stutterers speak like Laurence Olivier, transforms klutzes into Fred Astaires, and would do wonders in making chatty Sarah Palin as erudite as Adlai Stevenson if ever she deigned to taste it.
Despite all the positives that exist in chicken soup, it is the knadels, or matzoh balls as some people call it, that deserve all the praise. Just imagine. A cold night, the wind whistling outside, the snow pelting at your front door, and you are presented with a bowl full of steaming homemade chicken soup with a half dozen knadels floating in it. You brain turns celestial. You hear bells.
But that is not the only reason for me to glory in being snowbound. All during the day as Mother Nature unleashed her fury on us, I had the pleasure of finishing a great book, "My Paper Chase" by Harold Evans, all about newspaper work in Britain and the US. Then I picked up once again a novel I had interrupted to read the Evans book, called, "The Russian Concubine" by Kate Furnivall.
This is a beautifully written piece of fiction about western expatriates in China prior to World War II. Then there were the moments spent with eyes closed listening to recordings on my CD player of Mozart, Strauss, Copland and Beethoven. What else does man need? Thankfully there was no place to go, nothing to do since all meetings and scheduled dinners were cancelled.
Fortunately a bunch of young guys with a sister, showed up and shoveled out our driveway so if we had to go somewhere we could, but didn’t because there was no place to park the car once we got there. That meant another day of involuntary detention.
It was great to stay home and do nothing, except read great new books, listen to fabulous old music and to close out the day with a dinner which included the eternal knadels and homemade chicken soup. Ah, Nirvana right here on earth.
I’ll try to slip in days like this again when the weather is less contrary, but I know it won’t work. The pull of life’s routines are irrevocable. I’ll just wait for the next blizzard and hope for the best.
Being stuck at home because of a snow storm is great for kids. There is sledding and snowball fights and for those with skill, ice skating. There is also a healthy resurgence of family comity in at-home activities. Most of all it means no school for them. I never realized until recently that being snowbound is good for grandparents as well.
In my younger days I always liked the concept of snow. It was God’s way of purifying the land with a pristine coat of cool, soothing, white fluff, much as intensive rain sweeps away all the muck of everyday life. Snow just covers it. But just below the line of consciousness in those days I secretly dreaded snow when it pounced onto my life in substantial quantities.
To me it meant shoveling what seems to be tons of the white stuff from the driveway and front walk. It meant power failures and the breakdown in normal public services and cancellations of many civic activities plus horrendous trips to and from my job. Snow storms are eclectic, a balance of fun, frenzy and frustration.
Not anymore. In retirement without little ones under foot, being snowbound is a cherished period of relief. I noticed that for the first time last weekend.
In the days when we had young children at home my wife, Joyce, would bake loads of chocolate chip cookies and make what always appeared to be gallons of hot cocoa. Once the walk was shoveled many of the neighborhood kids would come tapping on the front door for handouts. They knew where the freshly baked cookies were concentrated.
To this day, our daughters now mothers themselves, bake chocolate chip cookies when they are shut-in by winter storms. The acorn never falls far from the oak.
With this most recent storm, her culinary juices aroused by the sight of snow pelting at the sides of the house, Joyce asked me "Would you like me to bake brownies?" My lack of responsive enthusiasm was driven by the fact that before the storm I had wisely purchased a fudge cake and a box of chocolate covered doughnuts (don’t mention it to my doctor) for nutritional fortification during the upcoming weather-driven confinement.
Not being deterred by my negative reaction, she said the magical words, "How about I make a pot full of knadels." Ah, knadels. An image from my past. The Passover delicacy my wife learned to make from my mother. Mom made great knadels but Joyce has outdone her, ameliorating her cooking with each passing year.
There are few foods I can think of that I can resist – French onion soup, beef Wellington, grilled Alaskan salmon, Rainbow trout, chicken l’orange, beef tartare – but none more than knadels. It makes me salivate.
For those who are unfamiliar with knadels accept ths definition. It is a fluffy dumpling made of matzoh meal and other magical ingredients folded into the size of a meatball, cooked for 20 minutes in unsalted boiling water which is disposed of before the little darlings are served with steaming homemade chicken soup.
The soup, as we all know, is a cure all for ailments. Homemade chicken soup is miraculous. Legend has it that it makes stutterers speak like Laurence Olivier, transforms klutzes into Fred Astaires, and would do wonders in making chatty Sarah Palin as erudite as Adlai Stevenson if ever she deigned to taste it.
Despite all the positives that exist in chicken soup, it is the knadels, or matzoh balls as some people call it, that deserve all the praise. Just imagine. A cold night, the wind whistling outside, the snow pelting at your front door, and you are presented with a bowl full of steaming homemade chicken soup with a half dozen knadels floating in it. You brain turns celestial. You hear bells.
But that is not the only reason for me to glory in being snowbound. All during the day as Mother Nature unleashed her fury on us, I had the pleasure of finishing a great book, "My Paper Chase" by Harold Evans, all about newspaper work in Britain and the US. Then I picked up once again a novel I had interrupted to read the Evans book, called, "The Russian Concubine" by Kate Furnivall.
This is a beautifully written piece of fiction about western expatriates in China prior to World War II. Then there were the moments spent with eyes closed listening to recordings on my CD player of Mozart, Strauss, Copland and Beethoven. What else does man need? Thankfully there was no place to go, nothing to do since all meetings and scheduled dinners were cancelled.
Fortunately a bunch of young guys with a sister, showed up and shoveled out our driveway so if we had to go somewhere we could, but didn’t because there was no place to park the car once we got there. That meant another day of involuntary detention.
It was great to stay home and do nothing, except read great new books, listen to fabulous old music and to close out the day with a dinner which included the eternal knadels and homemade chicken soup. Ah, Nirvana right here on earth.
I’ll try to slip in days like this again when the weather is less contrary, but I know it won’t work. The pull of life’s routines are irrevocable. I’ll just wait for the next blizzard and hope for the best.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Time to call their bluff
by Don Klein
Years ago when I was new to reporting a sagacious elder told me that politics is the art of compromise. Over the years I remembered that rule and watched how it worked on every level of government. That is the true meaning of bipartisanship.
You give a little. I give a little. And before long we have an agreement and legislation is enacted.
Last week when President Obama went before the Republican meeting in Baltimore in a face-to-face showdown on public policy it gave the appearance of the start of bipartisanship in action, but really it was just an extension of what has been going on for the entire first year of his presidency.
It appeared that Obama was making a serious attempt to bridge some of the issues that separate the executive and Republicans. I am sorry to conclude that I did not see the same serious act of honest conciliation on the part of the Republicans who spoke out.
The most glaring different between the Democratic president and his GOP opponents was contrition. He had it, they didn’t. He acknowledged that he did not do everything he said he would do during the 2008 campaign and promised to do better in the future. They, on the other hand, stood fast and never admitted standing in the way of legislative progress during last year.
Obama shocked them when he said he had read their counter proposals on several issues and incorporated the best ideas into bills at issue and rejected others for reasons of good government. While the Republicans hardly ever budged from their unwillingness to cooperate with the administration on any issue.
In the end, Obama walked away from the meeting a much more admirable figure than any of his sniveling opponents who only seemed to be interested in stymying any program which put a new face on solutions to problems. The GOP clearly wants to follow the same old, dysfunctional policies of the Bush administration which brought on the terrible state of the nation today.
Examples: They want to solve the severe national financial shortfall by more tax cuts when what the government needs is more income, not less. They still want to implore the old, harmful plans to cut entitlements and privatize social security instead of seeking new solutions. They don’t want to be labeled the "party of no" by Democrats while never voting in favor of anything the Obama party proposes.
The Republicans are wracked by their well-deserved negative image and want the president to make them look good again. They almost unanimously praised the idea of the meeting and thanked Obama for taking up their invitation, but most of them behind the scenes thought they should not repeat the meeting.
They realize they took a beating on view for all to see on television.
Frankly, I hope I am wrong but my gut feeling tells me there will be no change in relationship in Washington the coming year. The GOP sees their current obstructive policies paying off by causing a new round of gridlock, which the public despises and takes out on incumbents. So far the victims have all been Democrats. The New Jersey and Virginia governorships went their way and more recently the half-century-old Democratic seat in the Senate from Massachusetts went Republican.
They feel obstructionism works to their favor and although Obama seems destined to make points whenever he faced them in open debate, they seem to win at the voting booth. And since this is an election year for all the seats of the House of Representatives and one-third the Senate, why should they start cooperating for the good of the rest of us now?
I don’t see any improvement in relations on the horizon between the two sides in Washington. More gridlock. More ridiculous, meaningless opposition up and down the line. And more problems for the grass roots where unemployment demands a unified government approach to problems.
The Obama visit to the Republican retreat last week was good public relations for Obama, not the Republicans. They will not repeat it soon, or ever, because it did not serve their purpose. I feel they invited the president in the first place because they expected him to decline the invitation and thereby give the Republicans a political victory without an actual face-off. It didn’t work
Being obstructive only goes so far. It pleases the distant right wing because these lovers of Bush extremism see Obama as an abomination for many incoherent reasons. But the majority of Americans think highly of the president and not so well of the Republicans, according to all polls taken recently. If the Republicans continue to cater to the extremists by blocking legislative action in the Senate they will be surprised in November.
If the Democrats were smart, now that they have dithered away their 60 vote majority -- and I wonder about the Senate leadership -- they should push legislation to one filibuster after another and allow the public to measure which is truly the Party of No. I think the Republicans are bluffing and cannot sustain many filibusters without causing damage to themselves.
Let them kill economic recovery. Let them stop health reform. Let them fight excessive federal spending which they themselves perfected during the Bush years. Let them bring government down to inaction. Then let them go to the polls in November and ask the public to put them into power. It would be ironic and the best thing to happen for the Democrats.
But it takes bold-faced courage, and I don’t know if the Democrats have any.
Years ago when I was new to reporting a sagacious elder told me that politics is the art of compromise. Over the years I remembered that rule and watched how it worked on every level of government. That is the true meaning of bipartisanship.
You give a little. I give a little. And before long we have an agreement and legislation is enacted.
Last week when President Obama went before the Republican meeting in Baltimore in a face-to-face showdown on public policy it gave the appearance of the start of bipartisanship in action, but really it was just an extension of what has been going on for the entire first year of his presidency.
It appeared that Obama was making a serious attempt to bridge some of the issues that separate the executive and Republicans. I am sorry to conclude that I did not see the same serious act of honest conciliation on the part of the Republicans who spoke out.
The most glaring different between the Democratic president and his GOP opponents was contrition. He had it, they didn’t. He acknowledged that he did not do everything he said he would do during the 2008 campaign and promised to do better in the future. They, on the other hand, stood fast and never admitted standing in the way of legislative progress during last year.
Obama shocked them when he said he had read their counter proposals on several issues and incorporated the best ideas into bills at issue and rejected others for reasons of good government. While the Republicans hardly ever budged from their unwillingness to cooperate with the administration on any issue.
In the end, Obama walked away from the meeting a much more admirable figure than any of his sniveling opponents who only seemed to be interested in stymying any program which put a new face on solutions to problems. The GOP clearly wants to follow the same old, dysfunctional policies of the Bush administration which brought on the terrible state of the nation today.
Examples: They want to solve the severe national financial shortfall by more tax cuts when what the government needs is more income, not less. They still want to implore the old, harmful plans to cut entitlements and privatize social security instead of seeking new solutions. They don’t want to be labeled the "party of no" by Democrats while never voting in favor of anything the Obama party proposes.
The Republicans are wracked by their well-deserved negative image and want the president to make them look good again. They almost unanimously praised the idea of the meeting and thanked Obama for taking up their invitation, but most of them behind the scenes thought they should not repeat the meeting.
They realize they took a beating on view for all to see on television.
Frankly, I hope I am wrong but my gut feeling tells me there will be no change in relationship in Washington the coming year. The GOP sees their current obstructive policies paying off by causing a new round of gridlock, which the public despises and takes out on incumbents. So far the victims have all been Democrats. The New Jersey and Virginia governorships went their way and more recently the half-century-old Democratic seat in the Senate from Massachusetts went Republican.
They feel obstructionism works to their favor and although Obama seems destined to make points whenever he faced them in open debate, they seem to win at the voting booth. And since this is an election year for all the seats of the House of Representatives and one-third the Senate, why should they start cooperating for the good of the rest of us now?
I don’t see any improvement in relations on the horizon between the two sides in Washington. More gridlock. More ridiculous, meaningless opposition up and down the line. And more problems for the grass roots where unemployment demands a unified government approach to problems.
The Obama visit to the Republican retreat last week was good public relations for Obama, not the Republicans. They will not repeat it soon, or ever, because it did not serve their purpose. I feel they invited the president in the first place because they expected him to decline the invitation and thereby give the Republicans a political victory without an actual face-off. It didn’t work
Being obstructive only goes so far. It pleases the distant right wing because these lovers of Bush extremism see Obama as an abomination for many incoherent reasons. But the majority of Americans think highly of the president and not so well of the Republicans, according to all polls taken recently. If the Republicans continue to cater to the extremists by blocking legislative action in the Senate they will be surprised in November.
If the Democrats were smart, now that they have dithered away their 60 vote majority -- and I wonder about the Senate leadership -- they should push legislation to one filibuster after another and allow the public to measure which is truly the Party of No. I think the Republicans are bluffing and cannot sustain many filibusters without causing damage to themselves.
Let them kill economic recovery. Let them stop health reform. Let them fight excessive federal spending which they themselves perfected during the Bush years. Let them bring government down to inaction. Then let them go to the polls in November and ask the public to put them into power. It would be ironic and the best thing to happen for the Democrats.
But it takes bold-faced courage, and I don’t know if the Democrats have any.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Greed hurts all but the greedy
By Don Klein
Imagine yourself a school bus driver with a second job as a newspaper route delivery driver. Your wife works as a kitchen helper at a local hospital. You have three kids and you want the best for them. You see a $650,000 house you would like to move into but cannot afford.
Surprise, the sales agent puts you in touch with a banker who says he will lend you the money and you only have to pay the interest for a number of years while you improve your earnings to eventually handle the principal. You ignore the obvious pitfalls because you are either brainless or terribly hungry for a better life style.
In your foolishness you fall for such a gambit, but the real estate seller and the banker know what the score is. They are shrewd. They are downright crooks who know how to make money even though they are convinced you’re destined to default. They have a plan.
The salesman gets his commission for selling the house, the banker meanwhile takes your feeble mortgage and packages it on Wall Street with thousands others just likes yours. They then sell a whole package of loans at an appealing price to investors – many of which represent pension funds and important charities. That becomes the recipe for a financial crisis.
The real estate sales person and the banker know there is trouble ahead, but they will make their profits passing off the package and sticking it to investors. When the day of reckoning comes and a bubble payment is due, you, the homeowner, will rely on your our little plan. You will sell the house you never could afford but lived in for years and make a solid profit considering the normal ascent in home prices.
Alas, the day comes and the real estate market collapses. You can’t sell your house and the mortgage is in default. At the same time neither can the thousands of others whose mortgages were sold when you took out the loan. The result: An international financial crisis unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. The guilty: The home buyers and sellers, and worst of all the bankers who put up the money for the loans that should never have been made.
You did it because you wanted a better life style for your family and yourself.
The seller was willing to complete the sale because the banker was willing to put up the money and Wall Street was taking the financial risk. The toxic package was passed off to the oblivious investor. None of this would have happened if anyone along the way had a modicum of integrity.
In the end it was the banker who made it all possible. It was the banker who tried to outsmart all others for his gain, and his enhanced year-end bonus. The more mortgages he sold, the more the payoff and to hell with the home owner who defaulted and the pension funds now holding worthless stock.
The banker is the culprit in the financial crisis smothering the global economy for nearly a year and a half. This scenario demonstrates the power of greed. Greed is as normal to a banker as counter clockwise motion is to flushed toilet water. It’s incontrovertible. It cannot be altered.
The 1987 film "Wall Street" spelled it out clearly when the fictional Gordon Gekko expressed the well recalled stock manipulator’s philosophy, "Greed is good."
Greed has become the epithet for Wall Street bankers. It is their synonym like Homosapien is the synonym for the species of man. After the recent testimony of four top bankers before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington we can now add "ingrate" to define Wall Street money changers. It’s no wonder their predecessors were chased from ancient temples.
At one point in the testimony the head of Goldman Sachs had the nerve to liken the hellish recession to a Hurricane and other manifestations of rampaging Nature. Phil Angelides, the commission’s chairman, couldn’t let that go unanswered. "Acts of God we’ll exempt. These were acts of men and women."
The commission is investigating to determine if the Wall Street insiders intentionally put the bad assets together and passed them off as healthy investments even when they knew better. All the bankers managed to say was they "regret" people lost money in these transactions. No apologies offered.
The banks under scrutiny at the hearing besides Goldman Sachs were Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. They all received bailout money from TARP and have already repaid some of the loans. But worst of all is their bonus programs. Billions are disbursed to employees of the banks who benefitted from federal funding assistance to make their year a profitable one.
The bankers never admitted that they had any responsibility for the garbage assets they peddled on the market. They were just interested in moving the rotten goods out of their store and making a profit like an avaricious grocer selling baskets of rotten tomatoes. When the banks recovered thanks to taxpayer funds, they moved to "reward’ their top executives with millions of dollars in bonuses.
John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, made one of the most pointed comments at the end of the hearing. "If the leaders of Wall Street did not consider the possibility of housing prices dropping" through their own experience, nor all the red flags raised about mortgage fraud for years and did not realize that high cost, interest-only loans were being made "then their spirited defense of their employees falls flat."
"Based on what we heard today," Taylor concluded, "they should be firing people not giving them bonuses." Amen.
Imagine yourself a school bus driver with a second job as a newspaper route delivery driver. Your wife works as a kitchen helper at a local hospital. You have three kids and you want the best for them. You see a $650,000 house you would like to move into but cannot afford.
Surprise, the sales agent puts you in touch with a banker who says he will lend you the money and you only have to pay the interest for a number of years while you improve your earnings to eventually handle the principal. You ignore the obvious pitfalls because you are either brainless or terribly hungry for a better life style.
In your foolishness you fall for such a gambit, but the real estate seller and the banker know what the score is. They are shrewd. They are downright crooks who know how to make money even though they are convinced you’re destined to default. They have a plan.
The salesman gets his commission for selling the house, the banker meanwhile takes your feeble mortgage and packages it on Wall Street with thousands others just likes yours. They then sell a whole package of loans at an appealing price to investors – many of which represent pension funds and important charities. That becomes the recipe for a financial crisis.
The real estate sales person and the banker know there is trouble ahead, but they will make their profits passing off the package and sticking it to investors. When the day of reckoning comes and a bubble payment is due, you, the homeowner, will rely on your our little plan. You will sell the house you never could afford but lived in for years and make a solid profit considering the normal ascent in home prices.
Alas, the day comes and the real estate market collapses. You can’t sell your house and the mortgage is in default. At the same time neither can the thousands of others whose mortgages were sold when you took out the loan. The result: An international financial crisis unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. The guilty: The home buyers and sellers, and worst of all the bankers who put up the money for the loans that should never have been made.
You did it because you wanted a better life style for your family and yourself.
The seller was willing to complete the sale because the banker was willing to put up the money and Wall Street was taking the financial risk. The toxic package was passed off to the oblivious investor. None of this would have happened if anyone along the way had a modicum of integrity.
In the end it was the banker who made it all possible. It was the banker who tried to outsmart all others for his gain, and his enhanced year-end bonus. The more mortgages he sold, the more the payoff and to hell with the home owner who defaulted and the pension funds now holding worthless stock.
The banker is the culprit in the financial crisis smothering the global economy for nearly a year and a half. This scenario demonstrates the power of greed. Greed is as normal to a banker as counter clockwise motion is to flushed toilet water. It’s incontrovertible. It cannot be altered.
The 1987 film "Wall Street" spelled it out clearly when the fictional Gordon Gekko expressed the well recalled stock manipulator’s philosophy, "Greed is good."
Greed has become the epithet for Wall Street bankers. It is their synonym like Homosapien is the synonym for the species of man. After the recent testimony of four top bankers before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington we can now add "ingrate" to define Wall Street money changers. It’s no wonder their predecessors were chased from ancient temples.
At one point in the testimony the head of Goldman Sachs had the nerve to liken the hellish recession to a Hurricane and other manifestations of rampaging Nature. Phil Angelides, the commission’s chairman, couldn’t let that go unanswered. "Acts of God we’ll exempt. These were acts of men and women."
The commission is investigating to determine if the Wall Street insiders intentionally put the bad assets together and passed them off as healthy investments even when they knew better. All the bankers managed to say was they "regret" people lost money in these transactions. No apologies offered.
The banks under scrutiny at the hearing besides Goldman Sachs were Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. They all received bailout money from TARP and have already repaid some of the loans. But worst of all is their bonus programs. Billions are disbursed to employees of the banks who benefitted from federal funding assistance to make their year a profitable one.
The bankers never admitted that they had any responsibility for the garbage assets they peddled on the market. They were just interested in moving the rotten goods out of their store and making a profit like an avaricious grocer selling baskets of rotten tomatoes. When the banks recovered thanks to taxpayer funds, they moved to "reward’ their top executives with millions of dollars in bonuses.
John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, made one of the most pointed comments at the end of the hearing. "If the leaders of Wall Street did not consider the possibility of housing prices dropping" through their own experience, nor all the red flags raised about mortgage fraud for years and did not realize that high cost, interest-only loans were being made "then their spirited defense of their employees falls flat."
"Based on what we heard today," Taylor concluded, "they should be firing people not giving them bonuses." Amen.
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