This bailout bill – or call it what it really is, an extortion bill – is the first salvo in a longer and much larger battle. Government actions this year and this bill have created an enormous ideological and political opening. We can start to overturn the neoliberal model, but it won’t happen by itself.
We saw what happened this week. The massive outpouring of real democratic opposition killed the first version, Paulson’s pig with some lipstick applied by the Democrats. So the same forces came back and threw some mud on the pig. They larded it with tax cuts – as if average people’s economic woes could be solved by conservative orthodoxy. The post-bailout narrative is already being written, and that is there will be no money for the government programs that are needed to revive Main Street. Single-payer healthcare would actually save us all money, but they say with a straight face that it’s socialism, after passing the biggest socialist expenditure in world history. Alternative energy and mass transit could create millions of well-paying domestic jobs, but there’s no money for that we’ll be told.
There are big opportunities ahead, we need to start organizing now to seize them. In NYC next week, The Nation is sponsoring an emergency town hall, ”Progressives Respond to the Wall Street Crisis,” on October 10. Clearly, the government won’t do what’s right for main street, unless main street steps up the pressure, stays informed, and gets even more active.
This is just the beginning!
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