Break up the banks. Regulate the financial industries, to within an inch of their existences. Roll back corporate legal protections. Make liable the officers of corporations, for their debts, and for their deeds. Resurrect the rallying cry of a hundred years past: bust the trusts!AIG gives "failure bonuses" to the cretins whose dalliances in derivatives brought the company and part of the nation to her knees? Spin off that division whose traders are owed the 165 million in bonuses, under fund it, and cause it to go bankrupt.
Enough!
I doubt that Keith Olbermann had the audience that Jon Stewart had when he thoroughly exposed the systemic problems with CNBC last week. But, Olbermann’s “Special Comment” was a searing populist condemnation that should resonate with all Americans searching for their moral center during America’s crisis in capitalism.
Keith Olbermann opened his comment by labeling what is going on “an atrocity from the banks.”
Olbermann called for CEOs like Vikram Pandit of Citigroup to be fired. Pandit, as Olbermann explained, is using bailout money to fund “a new $10 million executive suite for himself and his key associates.”
Rightfully, Olbermann went after the "far right":
“The far right in this country, without the slightest provocation, screams "socialism," and the sheep who follow it, who do not know what the word means and do not know it is only being used because "communism" now rings laughably hollow. In this cry of fire in a crowded unemployment line, there is outrage.”
And then, surprisingly, Olbermann’s “Special Comment” took an unexpected turn after he cried out in true Teddy Roosevelt fashion, “Bust the trusts!”
“…If the monopolies of radio or television rear up to support the corporate structure, to say a contract is a contract, even though that isn't true for a union these days, only for an AIG Trader. Take the invisible, unused Sword of Damocles they still fatuously insist hangs over their heads, and make it real.
Enough!
Make sure both sides are heard. Re-regulate the radio and television industries to limit station ownership and demand diversity of management and product. Re-instate the old rules that denied one man all the voices in a public square. End all waivers of multiple ownership of television stations and networks and newspapers in the same market.
And, yes, if a voice of the privileged classes unfairly uses his cable platform to call our neighbors who are the victims of this, "losers" to insist he alone speaks for the real people.
Or if another, indicts without equal time for defense a particular elected official, and then offers himself as a candidate for that very official's seat, in violation of all canons of good or even fair broadcasting then tell the cable industry that the free ride is over and it is time that it too be regulated by the FCC.
Enough!
