Sherman: Fear fueled bailout

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id...tionid=3510203

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(Gold9472: Did anyone count the amount of references to 9/11 the media has made over the last couple of weeks when discussing the bailout? Talk about using 9/11 for all it'$ "worth.")

California Democrat Brad Sherman
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 03:27:37 GMT

SEP vice presidential candidate Bill Van Auken explained on the World Socialist Web Site Wednesday the anti-democratic noises made surrounding the Wall Street bailout.

In an article titled "The Wall Street bailout and the threat of dictatorship" the Socialist Equality Party candidate made a stinging connection between what was being doled out by former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson in in the Washington Post when he groused "[It] is now clear that American political elites have lost the ability to quickly respond to a national challenge by imposing their collective will."

Even more blunt was the Times of London, part of the Murdoch media empire which intoned in a headline column "Congress is the Best Advert for Dictatorship."

There were many financial industry voices being raised in the wake of Monday's vote that rejected the USD 700b bailout "complaining that the American political system is too susceptible to popular opinion and insufficiently obedient to the will of the corporate and political elite."

Van Auken wrote, “The furor over the vote in the House serves as a warning that capitalism in crisis will inevitably move toward new forms of rule capable of defending the economic dictatorship of finance capital by means of an open political dictatorship against the working class.”

The Los Angeles Times on Thursday, in an article on the Senate passage of the bailout measure, noted in passing a statement by Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman from the San Fernando Valley in Southern California which shone a spotlight on the dark undercurrent of authoritarian rule hidden so nicely by the brightly smiling and blithely double-talking Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Sherman was a nay-sayer on Monday's vote and noted, “The one thing that’s been proven is the absolute fear-mongering that’s being used to drive us is false.” Adding, “I’ve seen members turn to each other and say if we don’t pass this bill, we’re going to have martial law in the United States.”

The Los Angeles Times was silent as the grave on this amazing statement.

The World Socialist Web Site has long warned that the growing concentration of wealth and widening social inequality in the US are ultimately incompatible with democratic forms of rule. These deeply anti-democratic tendencies are being accelerated by the eruption of the financial crisis and the response of the American ruling elite and both of its political parties.

As Van Auken wrote:

“The crisis is being utilized to effect an ever more immense concentration of economic power that is incompatible with political democracy. Three banking behemoths—Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase—are gobbling up their failing competitors and now control fully a third of US bank deposits... These intense social antagonisms cannot be contained within America’s existing political set-up.”