IT'S TIME TO RALLY FOR FINNCIAL REFORM BEFORE THE RIGHT SEIZES THE ISSUE WITH DEMANDS TO BREAK UP THE BIG BANKS
By Danny Schechter
Author of THE CRIME OF OUR TIME
To paraphrase Marat-Sade: "the Election came, and the election went, and unrest turned back into discontent.'
The Dems lost two Governors, one an unpopular former high honcho at Goldman Sachs, not exactly a populist crusader, and picked up one house seat in a Congressional District no oever heard about before.
They hope that all the recovery-is-coming news will stem the tide of growing disenchantment with the centrists in Obamaland who have been swimming hard to stay in place.
As the sense of crisis seems to be abating thanks to lazy media reporting, Rahm Emamuels suggestion that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste seems itself a distant memory.
We may or may not get a health care reform but how many of us now believe it will transform much or even significantly lower costs as long as the industry is allowed to dilute proposals for both public option and single payer.
While Nancy "the Hare" Pelosi is pushing for a vote right away, Harry "the tortoise" Read says we will have to wait until next year.
So much for a sense of urgency, but at least there is some motion on that ocean.
Not so for also urgently needed financial reforms that are being blocked by our friendly financial tycoons, even as our kissing cousins across the pond move to break up their big banks.
Inaction is scary enough but even more alarm bells are bring rung by Eliot Spitzer, once the "Sheriff of Wall Street" until his pecker got in the way of his assaults on the pecking order.
George Washington of Washington's Blog reports:
"Yesterday, Elliot Spitzer said that the White House's defense of the financial status quo will give Republicans powerful ammunition in the 2010 elections.
Democratic cheerleader Markos Moulitsas (the "Kos" behind Daily Kos) wrote the following about the Democratic losses in several state elections:
"Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:
