We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Wall Street Rolling Back Another Key Piece of Financial Reform

Click here to access article by Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone

This excellent independent reporter reveals how the banking establishment went to work on the recently passed Dodd-Frank bill designed to curb the kinds of duplicitous banking scams that greatly contributed to the economic collapse, a calamity that mostly affected the 99 Percent. Such scams were used on public entities over much of the world to place citizens into perpetual debt to bankers. The Dodd-Frank bill was designed mostly as a public relations gimmick to calm the 99 Percent, for it was already full of exemptions and loopholes. 

But, part of it interfered with the old banking scams, and bankers who constitute a key part of the One Percent went to work on modifying it so that they can continue to play their old, lucrative games at public expense. Safe to say, you will not hear anything about this in their mainstream media which seem devoted almost entirely with the exciting (sarcasm) Obama-Romney political race to see who serves the One Percent next.