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Bush & McCain Blackmail America With Economic Terrorism

Roberto Jelash

Friday 26 September 2008, 10:17AM

By Roberto Jelash

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Bush & McCain Blackmail America With Economic Terrorism
Bush & McCain Blackmail America With Economic Terrorism Credit: Roberto Jelash

From shying away from even mentioning such terms as “recession,” “unemployment” or “bank failures,” Bush, Bernanke and Paulson are now vigorously invoking the fear of financial meltdown as part of a campaign of economic terror to blackmail the American people into accepting the power-grabbing “bailout,” while John McCain, who last week said the fundamentals of the economy are strong, is now all but threatening to cancel the election should the proposal not receive swift passage.

Bush’s speech last night was a throwback to his March 2003 stump before the invasion of Iraq - replace words like “weapons of mass destruction” with “financial panic” and the tone of the two is not dissimilar.

Bush rammed home the fear by appealing to people’s personal anxieties.

“More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically,” barked the President.

“And if you own a business or a farm, you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs.”

Bernanke and Paulson spewed similar rhetoric during Tuesday’s Senate Banking Committee meeting. Compare their dire proclamations with their outright refusal to even entertain the notion of a recession as little as seven months ago.

Now Paulson tells us that people “should be scared” and that the only solution is for taxpayers to foot the bill to the tune of $700 billion dollars - a number we now learn was simply pulled out of thin air by the Treasury - while the Federal Reserve swallows up all manner of new regulation powers.

It seems that almost overnight these three stooges have gone from behaving like sedated zombies to end-times doomsayers.

Furthermore, John McCain, the man who as recently as last week proclaimed that “the fundamentals of the economy are sound,” is now canceling presidential debates, and some fear greasing the skids for the postponement of the presidential election itself, by insisting he and Obama “return to Washington” in order to put their weight behind the bailout.

As the George Washington Blog notes, McCain is basically implying, “Vote for the bailout or I’ll pull out of the election”.

The financial terrorism being perpetrated by Bush, McCain, Bernanke, Paulson and the rest of these criminals in threatening Americans with unbridled chaos unless they acquiesce to political demands, and the coordinated ferocity with which it is being delivered, is necessary for the crooks because they are desperate to get the bailout passed before Congress really has a chance to digest exactly what it stands for.

This is what’s called the “shock doctrine,” the accelerated passage of what is essentially dictatorial legislation without proper scrutiny by means of exploiting a temporary state of fear.

This is not just about $700 billion of taxpayers’ money and the continued sacking of the dollar, it’s about the imposition of a giant new infrastructure of control and regulation on behalf of the private, run for profit, Federal Reserve.



 

Bush even alluded to it last night, stating that Paulson’s bailout would mean the “Federal Reserve would be authorized to take a closer look at the operations of companies across the financial spectrum.”

But this is merely scratching the surface. As Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said, “This massive bailout is not a solution. It is financial socialism and it’s un-American.” In fact properly defined, one could label it “national socialism,” otherwise known as fascism.

As professor of economics at New York University Nouriel Roubini framed it, welcome to the United Socialist States of America and “the most radical regime change in global economic and financial affairs in decades”.

The plan was drawn up months ago, lying in wait for the right crisis to see it enacted, just as the Patriot Act was prepared well in advance of 9/11.

The Treasury’s fact sheet about the bailout states, “The Secretary will have the discretion, in consultation with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, to purchase other assets, as deemed necessary to effectively stabilize financial markets.”

This gives the government and the Federal Reserve carte blanche to do whatever they want to long as it is done in the name of stabilizing financial markets, they can nationalize any company or industry and use taxpayer money, above and beyond the initial $700 billion, for whatever purpose is deemed necessary, without any oversight. Paulson’s bailout plan is also unreviewable by any court, it will remain in perpetuity.

Paulson’s draft bailout plans says: “The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time.”

As Chris Martenson writes, “This means that $700 billion is NOT the cost of this dangerous legislation, it is only the amount that can be outstanding at any one time. After, say, $100 billion of bad mortgages are disposed of, another $100 billion can be bought. In short, these four little words assure that there is NO LIMIT to the potential size of this bailout. This means that $700 billion is a rolling amount, not a ceiling.”

“The bill would bar courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority,” reports Bloomberg.

The Bush administration seeks “dictatorial power unreviewable by the third branch of government, the courts, to try to resolve the crisis,” said Frank Razzano, a former assistant chief trial attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission now at Pepper Hamilton LLP in Washington. “We are taking a huge leap of faith.”

“It sounds like Paulson is asking to be afinancial dictator, for a limited period of time,” said historian John Steele Gordon.

Reporter Larisa Alexandrovna calls it “the final stages of the coup,” noting, “This manufactured crisis is now to be remedied, if the fiscal fascists get their way, with the total transfer of Congressional powers (the few that still remain) to the Executive Branch and the total transfer of public funds into corporate (via government as intermediary) hands.”

The legislation would provide billions to foreign central banks in addition to private foreign banks.

The proposed move represents a total shift of U.S. taxpayers’ funds into the hands of powerful private interests, some of which do not even represent American companies.

The bailout bill represents the most fascist centralization of power in America since 9/11 and the Patriot Act - and many would argue that it even trumps that. The fiscal terrorists hope to ram through their agenda by appealing to people’s fears about the economy, their jobs, their houses and their pensions. But the temporary pain brought on by a Wall Street crash and a severe recession would be nothing compared to the long term death knell that the bailout bill would mean to the free market and economic liberty in America.