Congress Writes A Goodbye Cruel World Diary to America

Following a noontime anti-bailout rally on the steps of the Denver Federal Reserve Bank, I was on CNN this afternoon discussing the bailout. I followed Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) regurgitating various lies about this bill and how it is supposedly a substantial improvement over the original Paulson plan, when in fact, the Treasury Department is secretly telling traders [1] many of the "improvements" were written to be unenforceable. I made this point as succinctly as I could, and by the time I got home from the appearance, my email box was filled with various "amens" from viewers.

Nonetheless, I feel somewhat demoralized at this point, both because of this bill, and because the progressive movement's larger demoralization has worn off on me.

The facts of this bailout are very clear. Though there were scores of solid alternatives that took cues from our own history and that of industrialized countries like Sweden, our Congress is rushing full-bore towards handing 5 percent of our economy to speculators, no strings attached. Good progressives like Paul Krugman [2] openly admit that "to this day [the bailout proponents] have never been able to explain clearly why buying up bad mortgage assets at market prices will solve the credit crunch" - and yet leading voices like Krugman have used their platforms not to aggressively advocate for a real solution, but to instead play armchair political strategist, telling us that this is the best we can get from the current Congress.

Though we know that simply adding a $700 billion tab to the national debt will help raise the very interest rates we are supposedly trying to keep down with this bailout, the U.S. Senate will allow only an rigged, politburo-style "vote" [3] on an amendment that would actually pay for this bailout with any kind of tax.

Meanwhile, as Free Press's Josh Silver points out [4], the national media debate is dominated - like it was in the march to the Iraq War - almost exclusively by voices who say that A) anyone, including the hundreds of award-winning economists, who opposes this bailout is a Luddite know-nothings who are too stupid to even know how to balance their own checkbooks [5] and B) we must do exactly what the White House says or end up looking at the smoking gun of an economic mushroom cloud. And perhaps worst of all, many of the major institutions on the left have sat on the sidelines, as one of the century's most significant economic decisions is made - a decision that will have lasting ramifications for a generation.

This isn't me writing a Goodbye Cruel World (GBCW) [6] diary. What we are watching is both parties in Congress and - more painfully - much of the vaunted "progressive infrastructure" writing a Goodbye Cruel World letter to the country - forcing a once great and vibrant American economy wave goodbye to its place in the world.

At this point, the only thing that can stop the madness is the House of Representatives, as the Senate version of this bill is so loaded up with corporate pork that its going to fly through the upper chamber tonight with ease. I know - relying on the House of Representatives as our national savior is not a confidence builder, especially when we are watching both parties and Big Business's entire machine try to ram this bill down America's throat.

But Republican Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) has given us all a final call to arms: He said that if there are enough calls to House members demanding that this bill be voted down, it may stop it in its tracks. So get on the phone and make as many calls as you can.

Whether this bill passes or not, our country is in a lot of economic trouble, and with both parties complicit in using this trouble to sop Wall Street with public money, it means that no matter who wins the election, we have a huge amount of work to do - both to pressure those in office, and to actually build a progressive infrastructure that actually takes its mission seriously and doesn't sit around navel gazing while the biggest of big decisions are made.

Oddly, I've felt very a bit lonely in this last week, even though what I've been advocating for is a majority position in the entire country. I've felt a bit lonely inside the political/media/movement world. I've been called everything from an idiot, to a cheerleader for economic disaster.

If I've been inspired by anything, it was the cameo appearance of democracy on the House floor on Monday - an appearance made possible by hundreds of thousands of regular Americans using the telephone, email and letters to insist that there is a better way. There is - and always has been. The problem is, those representing us in Congress, in our political membership organizations and in our media are too afraid or too corrupt to care. That is what we must ultimately change - and if this crisis and its aftermath shocks us or angers us into realizing that that's what we have to change, elite etiquette be damned, then maybe there will be a silver lining.