davydog

Do you want a government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers? Do you want to reward Wall Street for the massive fraud it has perpetrated on the American People while regular citizens get foreclosed out of their homes? No? Then do something about it, goddamn it!

Here are a couple of suggestions:

At VoteNoBailout.org you can use their handy online tool to send your message to your congressional representative and both of your state’s senators. No clue who they are? No problem. Just provide an address and your message will automatically find them.

The Backbone Campaign’s “No More Bubbles, Busts or Bailouts!” web page offers some useful alternatives to bailing out Wall Street’s corporate and financial felons.

Below is the text of the online “letter” I sent to my legislators today. Plagiarize it if you must, but I’m confident you can make up your own.

Vote NO on More Bailouts!

On July first my employer cut my salary to zero when the company I worked for found itself in trouble in the midst of a slowing economy. Shortly afterward I began receiving unemployment insurance. The amount of that compensation, however, is just enough to allow me to either pay rent or to buy groceries and pay basic bills. It’s not enough to do both.

Today, one day past my 49th birthday, my mobile phone will be shut off. My land line will soon follow. In the coming days my electricity will be scheduled for shut-off as well as my water/sewer service. Although I subsist on a very spartan diet that includes no meat and little dairy, it’s not frugal enough to leave enough money left over to pay rent.

Fortunately, I have just enough left in savings to (hopefully) pay October’s rent. But unless my situation quickly changes, I’ll celebrate Thanksgiving at my new home on Portland’s streets, or perhaps under one of our many bridges.

In the meantime, Congress is set to, once again, extend another unholy bailout to the wealthiest among us in order to extract them from a catastrophe of their own making. It’s folks like me, without sufficient income to even pay for the basics, who are getting stuck with the tab.

Before I do much more whining, I’ll admit that I’m not overly worried about myself. I’m still healthy, have abundant skills and am reasonably confident that I’ll figure something out before my situation becomes too bleak. And one “bright side” of failed relationships, at least in my case, is that my teenage daughter will find shelter under her mother’s roof even if her father loses his.

But many other Americans find themselves in far more desperate circumstances, including millions of our most vulnerable citizens: our children, our physically and mentally ill, our elderly, and so on. Why should ANY of us pay for Wall Street’s rapacious plunder? If this is all our much celebrated “free market” has to offer normal citizens, why should we want to have anything to do with it?

My understanding is that the Bailout legislation is being rammed through Congress in a matter of days. It looks like an illegal power grab by the White House and their richest friends on Wall Street. Why does this legislation allow the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars? In an era where the already obscenely rich continue to rape and plunder, why should we Americans put up with another one of the biggest transfers of wealth from working families to the ultra-rich in the history of the United States?

My unemployment insurance is scheduled to end in a few months. But even while those benefits are still available, they’re not enough to allow me to pay rent AND eat or pay basic bills. Just one OR the other. How does it help “the economy” to shower more riches onto those who have already pillaged and plundered, while they continue to greedily grab everything in sight? Why should payment for their many crimes come at the expense of those of us just trying to keep at least one nostril above water?

Congress should help regular citizens and their families stay in their homes AND keep food on the table. Americans must insist that wealthy executives disgorge their obscene profits, fees and bonuses that made them ultra-rich while they ran the economy into the ground. Please vote No to the Bailout legislation.