"Yes, we're dummies. "

What do you mean "we"? I wrote to all 3 of my congress-critters and urged them , (more like hammered them), not to vote for the bailout. Further I didn't vote for the R or the D for president in the last three elections. I've also voted straight Libertarian once or twice along the way. I suspect many folks on this site did more or less the same. Short of getting the cannons out of the closet, what do you expect us to do?

Get your nomenclature right. We at BTM may be victims but we're not dummies.

Now if you posted this article at a Republican or Democratic website then you'd be right about the dummies.

Listening to the press, I wonder does anyone know the truth. Is anyone willing to get to the truth. Or we going to listen to the spin that has already made me sick from spinning. Capitalism is blamed, Greenspan, and Presidents, have and are taking the blame. It lies in one spot. We the People.

Greenspan the maestro of Keneysian economics, also a spin Doctor in his own right. Greenspan just works for the house of congress, and senate. He often has told them of problems, but they ignore and do their thing. Now call him back to the show of grilling, so the Barbequer can claim his(congress) job well done.

To the point. Congress for years has been spending freely for votes and cash. When the tax cash was spent they raised the limit. When gone they went to the social security credit card. Do not forget the credit card of inflation(printing money) and borrowing abroad credit card. Yet want more money to spend. Worst then a college student addicted to drugs, sex, and rock & roll.

Greedy Wallstreet was not enough incentive to get the sale done. The Congressional Employer told them loan, or we sue you in court. So sell they did against their common sense of past practice to subprime loans.

They created vendors of employment all over the land. Ag, colleges, research centers, teachers, retirement centers, and Nasa.

Tell me one that will vote against their generous employer. Are they not now over 50% of the voting class?

So employer congress gives yet another order.

Paulson has now been directed to buy, your in control, just invest. So buying stocks he is. Yesterday he announced he is now investing into healthy banks and insurance companies. What? Yes, healthy institutions.

I am sure under the directive of our heavenly congress intitiative to reach out to the poor and protect your health from global warming, they need more money. Investing in healthy institutions to pay future debts already obligated.

Who will deny congrssional help or job and cling to self for redemption?

As the masses will not deny the house on the sand is coming down. They cling to a authoritarian government utopia.

the article goes on to say:

Yes, we're idiots: While distracted by the "illusion of democracy" in the endless campaign, Congress surrendered the powers we entrusted to it with very little fight. Congress simply handed over voting power and the keys to trillions in the Treasury to Wall Street's new "Disaster Capitalists" who now control "democracy."

Why did this happen? We're in denial, clueless wimps, that's why. We let it happen. In one generation America has been transformed from a democracy into a strange new form of government, "Disaster Capitalism." Here's how it happened:

Three decades of influence peddling in Washington has built an army of 42,000 special-interest lobbyists representing corporations and the wealthy. Today these lobbyists manipulate America's 537 elected officials with massive campaign contributions that fund candidates who vote their agenda. This historic buildup accelerated under Reaganomics and went into hyperspeed under Bushonomics, both totally committed to a new disaster capitalism run privately by Wall Street and Corporate America. No-bid contracts in wars and hurricanes. A housing-credit bubble -- while secretly planning for a meltdown.

Finally, the coup de grace: Along came the housing-credit crisis, as planned. Press and public saw a negative, a crisis. Disaster capitalists saw a huge opportunity. Yes, opportunity for big bucks and control of America. Millions of homeowners and marginal banks suffered huge losses. Taxpayers stuck with trillions in debt. But giant banks emerge intact, stronger, with virtual control over government and the power to use taxpayers' funds. They're laughing at us idiots!
Amazing isn't it, Wall Street's Disaster Capitalists screwed up, likely planned or let happen this meltdown and recession. Yet America's clueless taxpayers just reward them by giving the screw-ups massive bailouts, control over more than $2 trillion of tax money, and the power to clean up the mess they made. Oh yes, we are dummies!

This end game was planned for years in secret war rooms on Wall Street, in Corporate America, in Washington and the Forbes 400. Democracy is too cumbersome. It had to be marginalized for Disaster Capitalism to take over. Reagan, Bush and Paulson were Wall Street's "Trojan Horses."
Naomi Klein summarizes the game in "Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism." This "new economy" generates enormous profits feeding off other peoples' misery: Wars, terror attacks, natural catastrophes, poverty, trade sanctions, subprime housing meltdowns and all kinds of economic, financial and political disasters. Natural (Katrina) or manmade (Iraq), either way "disaster capitalism" creates fortunes.

Yes, a strong charge. But like a lot of our readers, I don't like what's happening to America. I'm a patriot. I volunteered for the Marines. Served four years. Volunteered for Korea. I don't like how our freedoms, rights and value system are being subverted in the name of greed, arrogance, self-righteous intolerance and other false gods.

We know for the last eight years disaster capitalists ignored obvious warnings of a coming meltdown. They apparently planned it. They road the bull, got very rich. Now they have the ultimate disaster capitalist weapons, trillions in tax money, virtual control of government.

__________________
Freedom is an inside job

First of all, America is not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. That means that there are supposed to be limits to what the government can do in the name of obeying the will of the people.

Second, what Ferrel describes is NOT capitalism. Capitalism can only exist in the absence of coercion. That is definitely not the case in our system. Take Katrina, supposedly a prime example of "disaster capitalism". There is nothing capitalistic about the federal government using tax dollars to rebuild New Orleans. Of course the process was hopelessly corrupt. It was run by Washington. Politicians using tax money to line the pockets of their supporters is NOT capitalism, disaster or otherwise.

This idea that the housing bubble and the ensuing crisis were deliberately planned by bankers and politicians seems utterly far fetched to me. This crisis is a political nightmare for Bush and the Republicans, and Ferrel is claiming that they set it up deliberately? Not likely. As for bankers, the fact is that some will survive and some will fail. They are in competition with each other. Are we to believe that Washington Mutual and Lehman bros. deliberately scuttled themselves so that other banks could reap the windfalls? I don't think so. it's far more likely that everyone involved, including members of the public that mortgaged themselves to the hilt, were behaving opportunistically, falling prey to the moral hazard that resulted from the US government's promise to bail out the irresponsible.

>>"Propaganda creates "enemies" in the public's mind and distracts from real issues."
So now our enemies are "enemies": fictions of propaganda? Get real. If Ferrel thinks we are not under the threat of any more large-scale terrorist attacks, he's the one who is living in a total fantasy land. The issue of how we deal with the threat is a separate matter, and is open to debate. But to pretend that there is no threat at all is either disingenuous or just plain stupid.

>>"Stoke irrational fear of criminals and extremists."
Does Ferrell mean to say that it is irrational to fear criminals and extremists? I wonder when he last invited a convicted felon to spend the night, or had terrorists over for dinner. of course we should fear these people, and take steps to prevent them from continuing to harm others.

>>"8. Labor and low wages
Think corporate earnings versus the wages paid to workers. No "trickling down," leaves more for tricklers: Rich insiders, stockholders. Wages dropping as CEO salaries skyrocket."
I hope Ferrell understands that real capitalism would solve these problems. It seems more likely to me that he is angling for some kind of socialist solution-- but I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

>>"Think of paternalism, antigays, antiabortion, subordinate women -- then codify the system as the law of the land reinforcing a male-dominated society, punish violators."
I couldn't make out what Ferrel is trying to say here. I wish he had given some example of a law that reinforces a male dominated society. I wonder what his position on partial birth abortion would be. Would he support the right of a woman to kill a fetus that is due the next day, the next week? Would any less permission amount to "subordinating women"?

<<"Bush's funding cuts for arts and science education."
Aha. So he IS a socialist at heart. The government should not be in the business of funding these things. Period. I wonder what else he would have the government steal our money to spend on.