Thursday, January 27, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Nothing changes. Guantanamo (still open for business), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (still “making progress” rah-rah-rah), the rich and powerful still getting richer and more powerful with your  morally indefensible tax cut for the rich, and Bradley Manning still in solitary confinement. The government commission’s report on the causes of the financial crisis was a scathing indictment of lenders, banks, Wall Street and regulators, detailing greed and incompetence and concluding that without real reform we will go through this again since the “reforms” that have been passed and signed into law have been so watered down that nothing’s really changed much. Of course, the report was rejected by the Repubs, not unexpected since it’s their friends and patrons who are accused of causing the crash. However, the fact that nothing substantive has been done to avert a future crisis is not just the Republican’s fault, Mr. President; it’s your failure to lead. There is no defense for your timid and less-than-enthusiastic push to bring real reform to the financial marketplace. Derivatives still being traded, private trading by banks, lenders back offering credit cards to poor risk consumers, and banks are still foreclosing illegally (see the this morning’s article in the New York Times about the National Guardsman in Michigan whose home was foreclosed in clear violation of federal law while he was in Iraq - and he has no chance of ever getting it back). In the 1500s, the Medicis’ credo was, “Money to get power, power to protect money.” Still as true today as it was 500 years ago. Still the credo of the Republicans. I really Hoped you were different. Not one of those who practiced the cynical art of politics vis a vis Machiavelli. A lot of other people Hoped you were different, too. That’s why you’re sitting there in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. right now. But we were all mistaken. Maybe hoodwinked. Once you got there, sat in that chair behind that desk, savored the taste of power, and began to understand the job and the power that comes with it, you joined the Republicrats, the party that always takes over no matter who wins the election. Maybe you were conflicted a little about it at first, but you’ve accepted it full on this past year. Power to protect money, that’s the credo, and nothing changes. Unless, of course, young people take to the streets and change it. Like in Egypt and Tunisia and more to come.