Bamboozled Again!!

(a note: This was my first effort to design and write this blog. It was written on my birthday as the Wisconsin Uprising rolled along, months before #Occupy Wall Street!  In a side bar commentary that has since been lost in cyberspace, I commented on how I felt something BIG was emerging.  I love it when that happens.--Lefty)

On Bailing Out the @#&* Pimps, Hustlers and Thieves of Wall Street 

Okay, sure.  My mother did teach me that it's not nice to swear or call people names. So, over the years, I've usually tried to refrain--if for no other reason than to avoid getting my mouth scrubbed out with a bar of soap.

Brother Lefty Smith, S.O.B.*

Yet--other than the senseless bloodshed of war--I can't think of anything that gets me more riled up than the fact that we got hustled, snookered,  and then fleeced by the the Minions of Mammon on Wall Street again, allowing the likes of Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, AIG and Bank of America to pull off the slickest bank heist in history.  Completely bamboozled, we stood by as these guys set up a scam that tanked the economy; forcing millions of families out of their homes and out of their jobs, and depleting the savings and pensions of most of the rest of us. Then we picked up the tab as they looted the U.S. Treasury and continued on their merry way--footloose and fancy free.

I wish I could say that this was the first time.  But, like Yogi Berra once said, "it's deja vu all over again!"

Although admittedly my memory ain't what it used to be (and probably never was), I remember when the money guys looted the Savings and Loans system back in the Reagan-Bush era, not long after the supply siders, neo con artists, and other free market hucksters had hoodwinked enough people to send a crew to Washington that claimed that "deregulation" was a good idea.

In a binge of greed and deception, the flim flam men immediately started to skim and scam, spinning mergers and fraudulent deals. Back then, like now, they ramped up real estate values on massive speculation without adequate capital backing--and very quickly made ridiculous amounts of money.  And when the whole thing went belly up, they screamed "bail out"!  Without a parachute, the tax payers took the plunge and forked over $87.9 Billion!  The economy still tanked.

But this time, maybe, just maybe, the middle class in this country--the people who actually work for a living and produce real goods and provide real services--are stepping up to the plate to take these guys on. As events unfold in Madison, Wisconsin and elsewhere it seems clear that lots of people who would usually just sit back and pop open a beer after working their tails off all day are taking action to reclaim our democracy.
    
As well as the folks confronting  the cronies of the Uberwealthy on their attempt to gut the people's right to organize a union, there are others actively taking on the huge banking behemoths that continue to make ridiculous profits--literally at our expense!

One Organization from my hometown of Chicago, The National People's Campaign, is coordinating a Call Your State Attorney General Campaign, Tuesday,  March 29 to support serious prosecutions of these Wall Street bandits.  For those of you that believe that high time to call these guys on their BS, that is a call you can make. There's more info here: Crime Shouldn't Pay!!  If you don't get around to it on Tuesday, you can still make the call, though you might have to do the legwork and look up your state's Attorney General's phone number.

Another idea, something that a lot of us can do immediately, is also gaining some headway. (See Sara Ackerman, Daily Kos). Rather than just bail these fat cats out, we ought to just bail out.

If you have deposits in one of the mega banks, go find yourself a credit union or a cooperative bank, a place where you are a shareholder and get to elect the BOD.  (Even a smaller private bank is a better option than the unholy four: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase or CitiBank.)  Don't allow these huge financial corporations to use your money to make ridiculous profits and then turn around and use some of it to lobby against your interests and buy elections with unregulated campaign dollars!  Do what you can do to personally de-fund their efforts. Take your money and run!

And on your way out the door, tell those greedy, arrogant, @%# to...........!

Oops. Sorry, Mom.

And while we're on the subject:

I guess I DO ramble on........

In case you missed it, I posted this rant/ditty on YouTube months ago.  Although the brief rant is a bit dated because Congress already did act and do at least a bit of Wall Street reform the song is more relevant now than ever! 

When and if you're done, scroll down just a bit further.  I'm calling on you folks to make the call!

P.S. I guess as a sincere, if often bumbling, Hippy Buddhist/Christian Zen practitioner (with strong Hindu, Taoists, and Sufi Islamic leanings and a keen interest and respect for Native American spirituality), I know that it's not a good thing to get too attached, too self-righteous about all this stuff. I probably should reflect on the karma of name-calling at the new moon or something, make some effort to repent. Yet, in defense of those of us who have simply had with the incessant greed, arrogance and patent immorality of the current ruling elite, I do remember reading in the New Testament that the only times that Jesus appears to have gotten really, really pissed is when he called the current clergy a bunch of snakes--and threw the moneylenders out on their ears!