Outward

I was consumed Monday afternoon by the national drama in which our banking and governing systems now find themselves. I read both news and commentary on the news voraciously, looking for those special hidden messages that would reveal a truth. Frustrated, I declared, "I'm just not sure what to do!" My daughter calmly replied, "Milk the cow."

Sigh. She is right. Jeff and I did begin paying attention to those hidden messages several years ago and were able to change the path we walked upon to avoid what we saw as inevitable pitfalls. It was really hard a lot of the time. We went against most of what we'd been taught to expect of our "future" and certainly against the expectations of our friends and family. We just kept putting one foot in front of the other when we couldn't see any obvious path to the goal we had in mind. We've worked for peanuts, lived in a teepee, and learned skills most folks consider "unskilled labor". But the payoff is that we now feel flexible, adaptable, healthy, cohesive, and thus, in most ways, secure. So why am I still scared?

Because so many times in my life, I've experienced situations that were blatantly unjust, damaging, and irreversible. We've put blood, sweat, tears, and all of our cash into home and business contracts that were abruptly terminated. Without cause, without notice, without recourse other than protracted, expensive legal battles. I've also experienced times where I was flat out wrong myself and needed some serious adjustments to attitude and behavior that took time, intense focus, and no little personal pain to correct. I've made bad decisions, been in the wrong place at the wrong time, been victimized by those I respected, and frequently gotten the short end of the stick.

In short, I've had a grand human experience. Life is good AND Life sucks. Sometimes both at the same time. We have crashed and burned and gotten back up again. And crashed again. And tried again until we felt that our daily living more closely represented our deepest values. My life certainly doesn't match the "American Dream" anymore if what is meant by the term is a big house and a big car and a powerful job title. However, we are absolutely engaged in Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

I am angry that the folks who have the ability to seriously disrupt my life continue shouting that they have to save the credit system or something really terrible will happen. They never say what - it is not to be named. Sheesh. Crashes are terrible. Depressions are terrible. Lack of food and shelter and warmth for our elderly and our children should not be tolerated. But sometimes, the bad stuff cannot be avoided without giving up what we were initially working towards. I've pasted below a few of the most articulate articles that seemed to scrape the fear smear from the facts. We are in for a rough time no matter if Congress approves total immunity of the current administration or not. I want our government, of the People, by the People, and for the People, to hold onto a last remaining truth and go into the tough time without telling me it is for my own good. It is going to be bad. And we are going to come through it.

Perhaps the one news "find" that disturbed me most was this article from the UK Telegraph from October 30th, 2006. The depth of the playacting in Washington is revealed by this paragraph (remember, from 2006!):

"They should examine a recent report by the New York Fed warning that whenever the yield on 10-year Treasuries has fallen below 3-month yields for a stretch lasting over three months, it has led to each of the six recessions since 1968.

The full crunch hits 12 months later as the delayed effects of monetary tightening feed through, even if the Fed starts easing frantically in the meantime. By then it is too late. "There have been no false signals," it said.

As of last week, the yield curve was inverted by 29 basis points, was continuing to invert further, and had been negative for over three and a half months. If the Fed is right this time, the recession of 2007 is already baked into the pie. Those speculative positions may have to be unwound very fast."

This article was announcing the reactivation of the Working Group on Financial Markets created by President Reagan, now known as the Plunge Protection Team. You'll note that the membership of this Group is nearly identical to the Oversight Committee proposed by many Congressmen. The real prophecy is this line: "The only question is whether it uses taxpayer money to bail out investors directly, or merely co-ordinates action by Wall Street banks as in 1929. The level of moral hazard is subtly different."

In response, many Representative on Monday actually seemed to hearing the hundreds of thousands of Americans asking for a higher integrity:

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio): "The normal legislative process that should accompany a monumental proposal to bail out Wall Street has been shelved. Yes, shelved! Only a few insiders are doing the dealing. These criminals have so much power they can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest lawmaking body in this land. All the committees that should be scanning every word that is being negotiated have been benched. And that means the American people have been benched. We are constitutionally sworn to protect this country against all enemies foreign and domestic, and yes, my friends, there are enemies....The people who are pushing this bill are the very same one's who are responsible for the implosion on Wall Street. They were fraudulent then; and they are fraudulent now.We should say No to this deal".

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas): "We have seen no bill. We have been here debating talking points ...House Republicans have been cut out of the process and derided by the leaders of the House Democrats as "unpatriotic" for not participating in supporting the bill. Mr. Speaker, I have been thrown out of more meetings in the last 24 hours than I ever thought possible as an elected official of 800,000 citizens of N. Texas....Since we didn't have hearings, since we didn't have markup, let's at least put this legislation up on the Internet for 24 hours and let the American people see what we have done in the dark of night. After all, I have never gotten more mail on a single issue than on this bill that is before us tonight."

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: "The $700B bailout bill is being driven by fear not fact. This is too much money, in too short of time, going to too few people, while too many questions remain unanswered. Why aren't we having hearings...Why aren't we considering any other alternatives other than giving $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren't we passing new laws to stop the speculation which triggered this? Why aren't we putting up new regulatory structures to protect the investors? Why aren't we directly helping homeowners with their debt burdens? Why aren't we helping American families faced with bankruptcy? Isn't time for fundamental change to our debt-based monetary system so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks? Is this the US Congress or the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs.

Tomorrow, October 1st, the Senate will vote on the Bailout Bill. BBC News offers this lovely summary:

It is possible that the sense of global crisis may - perversely - offer a way out of this.

American voters simply have not seen this as a crisis that affects their real lives on Main Street - it is seen as a welfare scheme for the humbled plutocrats of Wall Street.

If the problems deepen and people suddenly see unemployment rising because businesses cannot get money from the banks to pay their bills and honour their payrolls, then that sentiment might change.

That is the optimistic assessment - that American lawmakers and voters having registered their pain and anger will eventually fall into line and give the US Treasury the money it wants.

And lastly, I offer a true gem of reason and integrity I found on Sharon Astyk's blog:

"What is the distinction between “pathological poverty” and “ordinary human poverty?” Well, cast back in your heads to your grandparents or great-grandparents. Among the stories of hardship in post-war Europe and Asia, of recurring crises across the Globe, and of the Great Depression in America are likely to be moments that distinguish between the pathological poor. “We were very poor, but there was always food on the table.” “We were poor, but we didn’t really know it.” “It was a struggle, but we were happy.” We will also hear stories the other side of poverty - the pain of hunger, the blind terror of being turned off with no place to go, the deaths and the pointless losses and tragedies.

The question becomes how do we turn this story into one where most of us can say “We were poor, but we had enough - just enough, but enough.” And where our kids may grow up not really realizing just how poor we were? How do we accustom ourselves to the ordinary human unhappiness (which, after all, isn’t unhappiness every moment, merely a recognition that most people aren’t happy all the time) that is our shift in wealth, without allowing ourselves to fall through the floor, into the deeper stages of collapse?"