The below October 1 article was written by Mumia Abu Jamal, a political prisoner currently on death row in a US prison. Mumia is a radical African American journalist and activist who has been wrongfully imprisoned since 1981 over the shooting of a police officer. He writes weekly columns from death row. For information on his case, and to get involved in the campaign for his freedom, visit http://freemumia.com.
By the time you read this the $700 billion bailout will
have been old news, one of the biggest transfers of wealth
in history.
But it will not heal that which ails the nation as it trips
and stumbles like a drunken sailor on shore leave.
The reasons are simple.
For the problems are systemic, built into the rapacious
nature of the machinery humming all around us. The Rube
Goldberg-like contraption of democratic forms at the
service of the financial services industry is a bottomless
maw, a gaping mouth that is never sated.
Why was there no alarm when millions of people lost their
homes to foreclosures made inevitable by variable mortgage
rates? When millions lost manufacturing jobs to low paying
service gigs? When living standards crumbled, and when take
home pay fell to 1973 levels?
Where was the alarm?
There was no alarm — for this was the "blind hand of the
market" at work, the levelling way of globalism, the new
world order moving through, preparing the way for the
triumph of capitalism uber alles.
Few were the politicians who gave voice to this immense
social suffering. Fewer still used their power to try to
assuage their pain, for they too were drunk on the wine of
globalism.
But when the ripples spread upwards, from the foreclosed
homes to the foreclosing banks — and from the banks to
investment houses, Congress stirred from their drunken
stupor, and rang alarm bells loudest.
"It's an economic 9/11!", some bellowed; "It's a financial
tsunami!", yelled others.
When US citizens were hoodwinked into ruinous sub-prime
loans, and millions were faced with foreclosures,
where was the alarm?
More importantly, where was the help for those who were
endangered?
Nowhere. Nowhere.
If they helped them the present economic crisis would've
been mitigated.
Instead, we're in a situation where a scam artist sets up
shop in a street-corner, playing a fraudulent 3-card monty
hustle, and along comes a cop.
The cop, instead of rousting the scam artist, rifles the pockets of every passerby, and delivers the stolen loot to the scammer.
The scam artist, of course, is the financial investment
houses; the cop, of course, is Congress — and you are the
passerby, hustled and robbed by both of them.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote, 160 years ago, that
the state was but the executive for capitalism. After what
we are all seeing, who can doubt it?
The Empire is crumbling.