Democrats won a massive electoral victory with a promise to bring change. Now close to two years later, the preference is for 'incremental' change. By that, Democrats mean that the banks continue to wallow in their unprecedented bailout which they use to gamble on exotic and toxic new financial instruments, a more lucrative business activity. On top of that, loans for small businesses continue to be virtually non exist. I believe that if banks are taking customer deposits and are not lending, they are no longer engaged in legitimate banking activity and their charters should be revoked. Bankers continue to enjoy incredible bonus payments while the Pay Czar concedes that he really has no authority to stop them. 'Shaming' them has proved to be largely a waste of time.
Foreclosures continue unabated while banks continue to scoff at government efforts to offer aid, placing homeowners in trial mortgages and then tossing them out when no one is looking. The banks have punked the administration completely by stonewalling homeowners seeking help. A friend of mine recently called to ask for a loan modification and was transferred to a call center in India to speak with an indifferent, incoherent customer service agent with a script.
Whole neighborhoods are being lost to foreclosure, and banks are not compelled to maintain their bank owned properties and pay taxes. The death of legislation to give bankruptcy courts power to lower interest rates was a great victory for the banksters.
The health care bill handed millions of news customers to the industry, and revenues have gone up significantly for health insurers,as much as 30 percent more. Meanwhile my aging mother is still grappling with an inability to find an affordable, effective insurance policy.
The unemployment rate continues to be high as the corporate class has found a way to profit tremendously without hiring. The notion that tax cuts for the rich will translate into more jobs is ludicrous. The rich do not and never have wanted to pay for labour. They always look for the cheapest labour supply, and the US will never compete with Third World countries.
I realise that the anti-change forces have launched an unprecedented campaign to prevent any meaningful transformation from taking place in the country. In the face of unprecedented oil spills, the climate bill is on life support and folks continue to rally for their high paying oil jobs, even as other sectors of the economy and other people's jobs are wiped out on the Gulf Coast.
Disillusionment and economic pain have wounded Obama's base. Can we really believe in the change he promised? Are we giving up to soon? Do we need to revive ourselves and come up with new weapons to fight the war to take our country in a new direction, or are the powers that be - the corporate class, the right wing media (all networks included), the Supreme Court and the rich campaign contributors just too powerful? Are the enemies of change embedded within our ranks in the form of so called Blue Dogs, and is Obama the only one to blame?