If you haven't yet seen Frontline's documentary about Brooksley Born, the woman who warned about the dangers of the Derivatives markets during the Clinton Administration, and the resulting financial disasters that ensued from deliberately choosing to ignore her, you simply must see it.
Frontline is one of the few true journalistic documentary shows remaining in this country. And in this case they do their usual superlative job in presenting the story of what happened when Wall Street took over Washington, and when an idiot named Alan Greenspan channeled tricked everybody into thinking he was a genius.
And yes, Virginia, it was Clinton's fault. It happened on Clinton's watch, when Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Alan Greenspan convinced everyone that NO REGULATION of the markets, of Wall Street, was a good idea.
Can you believe that? Alan Greenspan actually came out and said that even going after blatant fraud on Wall Street was a bad idea, a mistake even, because "the markets would take care of it themselves". He gave fraudsters a GREEN LIGHT.
This is like saying we shouldn't fight gangs of street thugs because it will sort itself out. Police? Just stay home. Rapists and murderers and thieves will somehow just take care of themselves and will magically eradicate themselves.
Indeed this was a classic example of Magical Thinking.
And Magical Thinkers ran this country's economy, and almost destroyed it completely.
And what is worse, is that the policies that led to this are still in place. Nothing has changed, and I mean nothing.
And some of the people who LED this disaster are now back in power, with the Obama administration. Larry Summers, for one, who was "the enforcer" for these fools, the tough guy who would really play hardball with people (and how that must have made his balls swell with manly pride when he would do that) is now Obama's chief economic adviser!
This is just insulting as hell.
This is like putting Charles Manson in charge of security for the Oscars.
Obama is an idiot to have these guys anywhere near his big-ass ears. These people should be too ashamed of themselves to ever step foot in Washington ever again, but here they are, in control.
What is astounding about this documentary is that what this woman warned about, regarding the derivatives market, happened.
No, not in 2008. It happened in 1998.
In 1998, exactly as she predicted, a major, enormous hedge fund went under and almost took the economy of the United States down with it. And what was the result? Nothing. Greenspan and the other fools managed to convince Congress that NOTHING was the thing to do, that NOTHING was the plan, that NOTHING could be done. "I can't conceive of any way we could regulate this!" was his refrain. He didn't want to. He had a childlike fascination with Ayn Rand and thought that there simply should be no regulations of any kind, that government should have absolutely no ability or power to TOUCH industry, or banking. And here we had a guy with this kind of MAGICAL THINKING in charge of the Federal Reserve! For years. And touted as a genius.
It blows the mind.
And keep in mind this happened on a Democrat's watch. Bill Clinton, the best Republican President ever, as I've always said. Indeed he was.
So what happened in 1998 happened ten years later, AGAIN, almost to the date. Only this time it was a mega-meltdown, the mother of all meltdowns, and once again EXACTLY what this woman warned against. This woman whose job as a regulator was destroyed by an Act of Congress, a woman who was deliberately neutered by these fools who didn't even know what a derivative WAS. And this time it nearly did take the economy of the world down with it and still very well might.
And what do we have now? This slimy old piece of dung FOOL, Alan Greenspan, saying "gosh, I guess I was wrong all my life". And his buddies Larry Summers and his mop-topped protoge Timmy Geithner back in the White House.
Obama, you're an idiot. Larry Summers, you should resign in shame at once. Congress, you should figure out a way to impeach Geithner and get rid of him. They all gotta go. If they don't clean house, this is all going to happen AGAIN. And that's not me saying that, that's Brooksley Born saying that, and she's saying that now, that if this isn't dealt with, and it is STILL not being dealt with, that this will happen again. And again. And again. Until we learn and finally get it right.
We have learned, and we are deliberately not getting it right? Why? Because Wall Street makes money off of it. Yes, the banks. And they will be bailed out, and they will have their billion dollar bonuses, and this country will see what is in effect NATIONALIZED GAMBLING taken hold, by the ultra-rich, in a game that they can never lose.
In fact, just today, it has come out that Geithner's idea to "fix" things, this little fuck actually has the gall to come out and propose that the Big Banks have an unlimited line of credit from the Executive Branch of the country, that they should be able to do whatever the FUCK they want and be PERMANENTLY BAILED OUT. With no limits as to the dollar amount behind the bailouts.
In my opinion, Geithner's proposal is "TARP on steroids." Section 1204 of the proposal [the proposal being the "Resolution Authority for Large, Interconnected Financial Companies Act of 2009"] allows the executive branch to use taxpayer money to make loans to, or invest in, the largest financial institutions to avoid a systemic risk to the economy.
Geithner's proposal reminds me of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $700 billion Wall Street bailout adopted last year, but the TARP was limited to two years, and to a maximum of $700 billion. Section 1204 is unlimited in dollar amount and is a permanent grant of power to the executive branch. TARP contained some limits on executive compensation and an array of special oversight authorities. Section 1204 contains absolutely no limits on executive compensation and no special oversight.
When I asked Geithner whether he would accept a $1 trillion limit on the new bailout authority (if the executive branch wanted to spend more, it would have to come back to Congress), he rejected a $1 trillion limit, insisting that the executive branch be able to respond without coming back to Congress.
That's Geithner's idea of how to "fix" corruption on Wall Street -- KEEP GIVING THE CROOKS MONEY.
Why the FUCK does this guy have a job again? Why the FUCK isn't he fired? How DARE he propose something like this?
This documentary should be required viewing by everyone in this country.
And after watching it you will never want to see Larry Summer's ugly face ever again. But you will, because he's Obama's "guy".
With Dems like these, who needs Republicans?
They're all crooked. Time to throw them all out. All of them. Every last one.
Gee, it's a good thing the governments rode to the rescue with billions of dollars in Corporate Welfare for the lying cheating fucktards who screwed everything up, no?
Otherwise, gosh, we would have had people not being able to buy bread, power shut off to everyone, riots in the streets ...
No, we would have had the banks nationalized. Which is what should have happened in the first place.
But here with the 1-year anniversary of the collapse, we are having a ridiculous level of retroactive propagandizing BY the criminals who fucked everything up in the first place. The same people who STILL haven't had any new regulations to control their activities, the same people who STILL haven't faced any repercussions for nearly destroying the economy of the western world, are now expecting us to BELIEVE their bullshit about how they managed to dodge the bullet and keep us all from anarchy and starvation ...
This begs the question for me -- why haven't we had a run on the banks? Who in their right mind would continue keeping their money in banks? How stupid are people? Wait, I already know the answer to that.
"Hey, I know we almost destroyed the world economy, and took every dollar you owned with it, but hey, it's all good now! Trust us!"
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- A year ago today, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HBOS Plc were close to collapse, causing a chain reaction that could have ended with riots in U.K. cities, security analysts and economists said.
Bank failures would have forced the government to cancel police leave and deploy troops as the breakdown of the financial payments system threatened the ability of utilities to provide essential services, said David Livingstone, a fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, a former adviser to the government's Cobra crisis response committee.
"You are talking about a situation with mass disorder and panic," the former Royal Navy officer said in an interview. There would be "riots, pandemonium, everyone fending for themselves."
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King and Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner met at 5 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2008, and readied a 250 billion-pound ($398 billion) rescue for the banks in the 16 hours before they opened for business the following day. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Bloomberg News one year on, the Treasury declined to say if it had a contingency plan for the two banks, then or now.
Releasing such information would probably "have a destabilizing effect on financial markets," damage the government decision-making process and cause commercial harm to the banks involved, the Treasury said in a letter.
"In the current economic climate, economic perception, even if totally misconceived, is important and has the capacity to alter market behavior," the government said. "To confirm or deny whether or not the information is held, either in relation to the banks mentioned in your request or more generally" would hurt the banks and the U.K.'s economic interests.
'Catastrophic' Costs
The crisis last year was the worst Britain had faced in peacetime, Darling told the British Broadcasting Corp. last month. The two banks were not "confident they could get to the end of the day," on Oct. 7, King told the same program.
"You would have had unmitigated panic and a bank run," said Tom Kirchmaier, a fellow at the London School of Economics. "People would not have been able to buy bread. The cost to the economy would have been catastrophic."
RBS and HBOS, then in talks to be taken over by Lloyds TSB Group Plc, had more than 35 million business and individual customers with 475 billion pounds of deposits, 22 percent of the U.K. total, held at about 3,250 branches.
'Contagious Effects'
"If RBS hadn't been propped up as it was, in practice it would have been nationalized the following week," former Bank of England deputy governor John Gieve said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "If RBS, HBOS, Lloyds had gone down, that would have had huge contagious effects throughout the rest of the world."
The failure of Edinburgh-based RBS and HBOS would have had a domino-effect with customers seeking to take out their deposits from other lenders and causing a wider run on U.K. banks, said Vicky Redwood, an economist at Capital Economics Ltd.
"Trust in the banking system would have completely collapsed" and would have generated civil unrest, said Redwood. "People would have been rushing to take their money out of the other banks and you would have been heading back to the depression era."
Movie marques in cities across America tonight showcase "free admission" to Michael Moore's latest film,"Capitalism: A Love Story" for anyone who's "fallen on hard times."
"To kick off the national release of "Capitalism: A Love Story," I've asked the studio to offer a number of screenings in the nation's hardest hit cities -- the ones with the highest unemployment rates and highest foreclosure rates -- where those who've lost their jobs or who are in foreclosure (or have already been evicted) may attend my film free of charge," Moore writes. "They've agreed, and so tonight (Thursday), the night before our opening day, ten cities will grant you free admission if you have fallen on hard times. The list of theaters and cities is below. You don't need to bring any proof of your situation -- just show up -- it's the honor system, no questions asked. Link
The free 7:30 p.m. screenings are scheduled in Saginaw, Michigan; Elkhart Indiana;Peoria, Illinois; Las Vegas, Nevada, Fresno, California, Phoenix, Arizona, Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina;Baltimore, Maryland, Tampa/St. Pete/Florida and Cleveland, Ohio. For information on theater locations, click here.
This guy needs to keep his mouth shut when discussing politics, but when he's talking about the thing of which he is an expert, equities trading, you can tell he knows what he's talking about.
He's obviously not a liberal, but he's not happy with the current situation in the stock market. He says a huge percentage of the volume in the stock market during this "rally" is due to computerized trading where the profits aren't even made with the old fashioned "buy low and sell higher" thing, but because these computerized trading systems can generate money through liquidity rebates on a per-trade basis. So these computers just trade like crazy, and they don't trade for any reason. They just trade. He says the right now the direction of the market is to buy, so all the transactions are "buy". But he says when an event happens (and it's not "if" but most certainly "when") that will drive the market the other way, there will be nobody there to buy.
The man is basically predicting a huge market crash, due to the system being effectively broken.
He, in a classic sort of Republican way, is saying that he's good enough that he's okay, it doesn't really concern him because he's a pro and can work around it. Maybe he's right, but if so, why is he on the television talking about it? Why doesn't he just game it to his advantage? Obviously he's concerned, knowing that when the market goes the other way, it's gonna plummet through the floor.
Good times.
I'm so glad Obama is President and fixing everything!
Here's a video everyone in America should see. If you've felt like you've never quite understood the whole financial "crisis" that occurred last fall, the repercussions of which persist to this day (and will for, quite possibly, generations), this video explains it all in a clear and concise manner.
Elliot Spitzer than goes on to explain that what was perpetrated on the United States, by collusion between the Fed and the very banks that control it, was a massive conspiracy to defraud the United States -- a Ponzi Scheme he calls it.
Now Elliot Spitzer's dick may have gotten him in trouble, and he certainly displayed bad personal judgement by sleeping with hookers while in public office, but there's nobody who knows the whole NYC-based financial universe better than he does. There's a reason they were looking at his life with a microscope, trying to find anything they could to bring him down. Because he was one of the few threats to the corruption that has taken over Wall Street and the banks. Now he's out of the picture as Governor of NY but he is free to speak his mind, which is a good thing. So when he says "Ponzi scheme" people listen.
Trillions of dollars, folks. Trillions, handed to the very banks who robbed us all in the first place. It's like the gamblers at the casino suddenly ran out of money, so they held guns to the heads of everyone they could find and emptied their wallets to pay their own gambling debts. Watch it.
Hm, well the embedding doesn't work for some reason. Here's a link instead:
UPDATE: FIXED LINK (the other one worked before, but now does not):
In these insane years, the only people making sense, and the only people with what appears to be what used to be called "common sense" are those who are now labelled "extreme left". You know, Democracy Now, Dennis Kucinich, etc.
Well, Kucinich now can't help but wonder if the Federal Reserve isn't paying banks to NOT make loans.
Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants to know: "If [the Troubled Asset Relief Program] isn't about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for?"
Expressing his frustration before the Government and Oversight Committee, the two-time presidential candidate suggested that the Federal Reserve may be paying banks to hoard money and avoid making loans.
Banks make loans in order to make money. If they don't make loans, then what are they in business for? Why would they quit making loans?
The looting operation commonly known as the US Government's financial rescue plan will accelerate now that we know the next move in this cynical game. Up to now, the hundreds of billions of dollars supplied by taxpayers to dishonest and incompetent financial institutions have been LOANS. In theory, at least, the recipients pledged to repay the taxpayers once their businesses recovered. Now we learn that Geithner and Summers, the embedded agents of Wall Street intend to convert these loans to STOCK. What's wrong with that? Here's what is wrong:
1. Common stock holders, unlike bond holders or secured lenders, have no assurance of any return on their investment. All they are entitled to are stock certificates and an invitation to the shareholders' meeting. Bankruptcy of the company in which they own stock usually results in a TOTAL LOSS.
2. The voting rights of stock can be engineered to deprive certain classes of stockholders of representation. This can be done by subtle, incremental degrees, so that the public slowly loses the control that would properly be associated with a large equity position. All a crooked bank has to do is get the government to agree to convert its equity into a class of stock that has restricted voting rights. Since Geithner and Summers are Wall Street puppets, their complicity in this matter is assured. Anything that restores investor "confidence" in the markets is OK with them.
3. A large equity position usually translates into representation on the board of directors, another important means of control that should be available to taxpayers owning substantial amounts of stock in a company. However, the appointment of "zombie directors," removes this threat to management. The government-appointed directors of AIG have already demonstrated their completely ineffectual presence and thus provided an impressive example of how not to represent the interests of taxpayers.
Conversion of US Treasury loans to stock without securing the rights of stockholders for the taxpayers is the perfect form of "nationalization" for Wall Street. The gangsters at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, and B of A will receive vast infusions of taxpayer cash, while continuing to operate irresponsibly and paying themselves lavish bonuses. The taxpayer "stockholders" will either lose everything in massive bankruptcies and reorganizations or receive nothing in return for their huge investment as their equity is rendered meaningless by cunning management maneuvering.
This is legalized looting of the Treasury, and Obama's administration is directly responsible for it.
Jordan Valley stands next to me at the crap game. She looks like a hooker but she's really a porn star. Big difference. Sex for money, sure, but still a big difference. Hookers have no screen presence, Spitzer's is a perfect example, and when you see Jordan for the first time, well all you can say is - "I get it."
Jordan could have been a big star. She's got the looks; the camera loves her; her voice is smoky valley girl, but Jordan Valley can't act her way out of a paper bag. Or plastic.
So, I've got Jordan standing next to me blowing on my dice for luck, the pit crew is looking at me like I'm crazy and I'm sure the eyes in the sky are gathering for the next play. I've bet it all on one roll of the dice; a $50,000 prop bet on a crap three. It pays fifteen to one. One roll for $750,000. Just enough for what I need.
And just as I throw down the table, Jordan whispers in my ear "Are you a madman or a fool?"
Everyone who ever watched the X-Files is familiar with the sinister figure of the "cancer man," the chain-smoking head of the conspiracy to manipulate humanity for its own good (and that of its secret government).
The image of the cancer man is much in my mind these days as I ponder the question of how Geithner and Summers were appointed to determine Obama's economic policies. After doing a bit of fruitless Google searching to answer this question, I realized that I already knew the answer. These men were put in place by people who wish to remain unknown, because their actions as the true controllers of the Executive Branch of the government of the United States are contrary to the beliefs of the American people and the founding principles of our nation.
When the cancer men selected Geithner and Summers they guaranteed that the interests of wealthy individuals and powerful financial corporations would be placed above the interests of ordinary taxpayers. Since the arithmetic of Democracy opposes such an outcome, they must operate in secret, and that is why there is no available anwer to the question of who proposed Geithner and Summers. What is even more interesting is that this question is not even raised in the press.
How do the cancer men conceal their role? They use the age-old devices of indirect action and influence that have corrupted politics for millenia. A key corruption mechanism is the "marker" system of exchanging favors. Ambitious and well-connected people keep a mental ledger book of favors done and received for and from powerful acquaintances. Dealing reliably with markers qualifies a player in this system for advancement to a powerful position. Geithner and Summers were appointed in exchange for loyal past service in protecting the interests of very wealthy and powerful people. They understand that people who accumulate these markers will be able to cash them in at the end of their public service for very comfortable living arrangements.
Similarly, the people who put Geithner and Summers on the (very) short list for Obama cabinet appointments were accumulating markers for future redemption. The beauty of the marker system is that there is no immediate quid-pro-quo to compromise the players. Temporal separation of corrupt action and subsequent reward sterilizes the transaction and frustrates investigation. Even if we could find every last phone log, email, and meeting transcript pertinent to the Geithner and Summers nominations, we would never find a direct inducement of bribery. All we would see is powerful people "suggesting," through intermediaries, that these men would be "good choices" for Obama.
So I ask you all to ponder why nobody in the press knows who recommended Geithner and Summers for their jobs, and, more importantly, why nobody even cares about this question: Who are the people who control the Obama administration?
[The Last Picture Show was a 1971 film depicting the decay of small town America. It took place in the fictitious town of Anarene, Texas.]
We hear a distant tune reminiscent of America's high and lonely places and the sound of a dry wind blowing. It's March 2010 in the tiny West Texas town of Anarene. Nothing much happens here any more. The last business shut down a couple of years ago. It was a cement plant that went broke after the housing bubble burst and the banks stopped lending. The kids out of high school drive their jalopies from one end of Main Street to the other past boarded-up storefronts.
Some of the more astute and honest commentators on the "bailout" of the American auto companies announced Friday by President Bush have pointed to a critical aspect of the plan to shut plants, wipe out jobs and bring the wages, benefits and work rules of United Auto Workers members in line with those of workers at nonunion foreign-owned companies in the US.
Original article, a speech by Jeremy Dear given at the Annual Conference of the Labour Representation Committee (the organising hub of the left wing within the Labour Party and among trade union activists), via Socialist Appeal (UK):
As an aside, you may be asking why we should be interested in what Jeremy Dear is giving a speech on? The answer, to me, is simple: Labour has been hijacked by the neoliberal militarists just the same as the Democrats have been. While the crisis in Britain may not be 100% the same as here in the US, it is part and parcel of the collapse of international capitalism. Our workers face the same problems as theirs. It is within this framework that I think Dear's speech is worth a read:
The current global economic crisis has taken us into an extraordinary new realm of irresponsibility. It is being depicted as a man-made calamity so vast and complex that nobody can be held accountable for it. This makes sense only to those who are afraid of being held accountable. As James Howard Kunstler puts it in his current blog post:
In the typhoon of commentary that's blown around the world a step behind the financial tsunami that's wrecking everything, two little words have been curiously absent: "fraud" and "swindle."
The usual suspects in the authoritarian, "conservative," and libertarian precincts of the blogosphere are united in proclaiming that this global meltdown, which may end up costing taxpayers trillions of dollars, is one big accident, in which no punishable acts have been committed. The reason for this strange claim of global amnesty is that that the most powerful players in government and business committed so many potentially punishable breaches of trust that nothing less than a wholesale turnover of the world's leadership elites is called for. Because the commentariat works for these elites, they have declared that the guilty parties are effectively too big to jail. Here is a summary of the sophistries that are being deployed.
1. No individual/company/government is fully responsible.
2. The global financial system is too complicated for a cause to be found.
3. All political parties were implicated.
4. Everyone was doing it.
5. Nobody could have predicted the magnitude of the disaster.
The ongoing economic meltdown is terrifying, but at the same time many of us have no real idea of what's rolling down the pike at us.
There are many aspects of the crisis and the coming recession which are impossible to predict. One impact though, will be unavoidable: crippling budget crises at the state and municipal levels, driven by falling real estate values, layoffs, business closings, increased borrowing costs and recession.
What Happens When the Banks Don't Lend
To get a sense of what this could look like, it is instructive to look at what happened to New York City starting in 1975, when bank credit dried up and a fiscal crisis kicked in that was to last more than a decade. Remember that this was a budget crisis isolated to a single city, rather than the generalized collapse of the banking system we are seeing now.
The immediate background is that by the early '70s, the City's budget was deep in the red, kept going with fiscal jiggery-pokery especially in Mayor Lindsay's second administration and under his successor, Mayor Beame. The back story is more complex of course, having much to do with federal policy since the Eisenhower administration which directed resources to suburbanization at the expense of city and country--money for interstates, not mass transit and railroads, subsidizing vast auto-dependent tracts of single houses on what had been farmland--you know the deal.
What plunged the City into crisis was the large banks refusing, collectively, in March, 1975 to extend credit to New York any longer, declining to roll over loans and boycotting the City's bond auctions. The Beame administration moved to lay off 25,000 city workers and defer contractual raises for others, cut services, increase the transit fare and institute tuition in the City College of New York system.
For months there was a political war over how things would get resolved, with highway workers, cops and other city employees staging militant demonstrations and threatening an October general strike. The NY State government stepped in with aid but the federal government refused until massive pressure from the financial industry was brought to bear.
With everyone staring into the abyss of bankruptcy (and the possibility of a judge writing off the bonds the banks still held or canceling union contracts), the municipal unions made a devil's pact with the banks, the details of which I leave for another post.
"The Bronx Is Burning"
What I want to remind people of is what happened to NYC once the austerity, service cuts, layoffs, tighter credit, tax hikes and the rest of the bank-sponsored "rescue package" kicked in.
Garbage piled up in the streets, and law enforcement abandoned whole neighborhoods. The public education system, already jolted by the refusal in the '60s of Blacks and Latina/os to accept a two-tier, heavily segregated system, now faced serious cuts. Class sizes ballooned. "Non-essential" programs like art and music education and vocational training disappeared.
The Transit Authority adopted a policy of "deferred maintenance"--only fixing things when they broke down completely. One leader of the militant opposition within Transport Workers Union, Local 100 at the time, Arnold Cherry, pointed out whenever he spoke that every housewife knows that if you don't empty the crumbs out of the toaster, eventually it stops working. Not TA management, though--the system veered toward total collapse in the early '80s.
Meanwhile, landlords in "bad neighborhoods" emulated the Transit Authority, milking their aging apartment buildings for every dime in rent they could collect while "deferring" maintenance, laying off supers, ignoring heating oil bills, and finally abandoning the buildings themselves rather than pay city taxes. Or, given a chance, burning them down to collect the insurance.
This was seared into the national consciousness in the famous blimp shot of a five-alarm fire in the South Bronx during the 1977 World Series while Howard Cosell intoned, "There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning." As much as 40% of the housing stock in the borough was destroyed during these years, feeding an impossible-to-ignore homeless population and pumping up rents for vacant apartments in surviving buildings. (The City, meanwhile, was closing firehouses as a money-saving measure.)
Huge cuts in the NYC medical system on top of deteriorating social conditions laid the ground work for what Nick Freudenberg and his co-authors identify as a deadly "syndemic": the three interlinked epidemics of TB, murder and HIV infection.
Even after the emergency financial aid was paid back, and the City's budget was balanced and the banks decided they would once again buy long term bonds issued by the city (1981) , the Emergency Financial Control Board kept austerity policies in place and the damage they did to millions of people reverberated through the decade and up to the present. To cite only one example, the City College system which had boasted free tuition for NYC residents before the crisis, now costs upwards of $2000 a semester.
What It Means
I could go on. There are a lot of particular lessons to learn from the New York City fiscal crisis, and how various social forces responded and what kinds of popular resistance developed and worked.
But lesson number one is that this kind of crisis is on the agenda right now, in cities around the country, and once it erupts, there is no quick bounceback. Start trying to size up the situation where you live and figure out who your allies are going to be in the coming years.
Friday night's presidential election debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain demonstrated that there is no choice in the 2008 presidential election within the confines of the official two-party system. Two candidates stood facing each other, espousing nearly identical positions in defense of Wall Street and American militarism which would, in any other country in the world, immediately identify them as representatives of the ultra-right.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
