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Return to Prudent Banking

Last weekend I hosted a free screening of the movie Inside Job at the Kent Library. This documentary shows us how the financial industry pillaged the American economy during the Banking Crisis of 2008. One of the key causes of the Great Recession was the transfer of assets from the balance sheet of banks to the speculative markets. This was made possible by deregulation, specifically the repeal in 1999 of key provisions of the Banking Act of 1933, also known as the Glass-Steagall Act, allowing banks to gamble with their depositor’s money. When the housing bubble burst and the banks lost their bets, they came to you and me with their hands out, claiming to be too big to fail, and demanding that taxpayers foot the bill for their recklessness. They got what they asked for, and they are even now smoking cigars and patting each other on the back for having once again tricked the rubes out of their money.

This system of privatized profit and socialized risk must end.

There is an inherent conflict of interest when bankers who have control of funds deposited by individuals and small businesses are the same people who are creating the financial products into which that money will be invested. FDR knew this back in 1933 when he signed the Glass-Steagall Act into law. It is important to remember not only why he did this, but also that in doing so he did not destroy the country’s banking system or stifle investment in American business. On the contrary, confidence in the banks was restored and the nation began the climb out of the Great Depression.

One of the attendees at the move screening, David Spring, told us about a bill in Congress (H.R. 1489: Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011) that would reinstate the separation between commercial banking and the securities business in a manner similar to the Glass-Steagall Act. Last Tuesday, David brought a resolution before the King County Democrats calling for passage of H.R. 1489, and I was happy to vote along with him and a super majority of the voting members of the KCD Central Committee to pass the resolution.

Now it’s up to everyone reading this to call or write their Congressperson to urge them to co-sponsor and pass this vital legislation. (If you are in the 7th CD, thank Jim McDermott for being the first legislator from WA to co-sponsor this bill.) Please email this widely and also pass this along to your Facebook friends and post to your Twitter feed.

Brian L. Gunn

 

P.S. I found a great site for contacting members of Congress! It is called POPVOX, and I used it to post a comment and to lobby Reichert to support H.R. 1489.
Check it out here and send a message to your congressperson right now! http://pvox.co/gPYMt8
As more people speak out, this site tracks the votes and displays the results on a graph and a map.
Very cool!
Brian

Democrats Pass Resolution Opposing “Money as Speech” and Corporate Personhood

Progressives won a victory at the Washington State Democratic Central Committee meeting this past Saturday in Wenatchee.

State Committee members from all across Washington State voted to pass a resolution entitled “Amending the U.S. Constitution to Reserve Constitutional Rights for People, not Corporations”. (Related platforms and resolutions have been passed in Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Maine.)

The Resolution calls on our state legislature to pass a joint resolution urging Congress “to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to establish that a corporation shall not be considered a person eligible for rights accorded to human beings” under the U.S. Constitution. The resolution goes on to say that the amendment should stipulate that “the use of money to influence elections or the acts of public officials shall not be considered a protected form of speech.”

In passing this resolution, the State Democrats took aim at the infamous Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that permits unlimited corporate cash to influence our electoral politics. Back in January on the anniversary of the Citizens United decision, I organized a “Rally to Legalize Democracy”. Nearly a hundred people turned out at the Regional Justice Center in Kent despite rain and wind. As I stated at the rally, this is not about being a Democrat or a Republican. This is about being an American. As Americans we believe in the idea of one person, one vote. In recent Supreme Court decisions, money equates to speech, in other words: one dollar, one vote. This is undemocratic, un-American and must not be allowed to stand.

Everyone should join MoveToAmend.org in making a nationwide call to push Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. We need to turn resolutions like the one passed in Wenatchee into organized citizen action in the form of protests, rallies, and initiatives.

Here’s something you can do right now: Call your Washington state representatives and ask that they sponsor House Joint Memorial 4005.

Brian L. Gunn

 

P.S. This month MoveToAmend.org co-founder Riki Ott will be in Washington State for a series of Town Hall events that will focus on the hijacking of our American democracy by the influence of corporate and big money interests. Find out more: http://www.washclean.org/hijacked.htm.

Celebrate Earth Day: Protect and strengthen the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts

As Earth Day approaches (April 22), it is ironic to remember that it was under the Nixon administration that the Environment Protection Agency was created, and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts were passed. Of course, the Republican Party of the early 1970s bears little resemblance to the Republican Party of today.

Four decades after the creation of the EPA, the Republican Party now seeks every opportunity to undermine (no pun intended) the agency’s regulatory authority in order to further the economic interests of the industries that fund their election campaigns. The latest attack comes in the form of the Vitter-Bishop bill just introduced in Congress (H.R. 1287 & S. 706).

In the words of The Wilderness Society Senior Policy Advisor David Alberswerth, “This legislation puts the foxes in charge of the henhouse. Under this bill, the oil and gas industry would essentially run the Interior Department’s offshore oil and gas program and the BLM’s oil shale program. It also mandates the destruction of the fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, eviscerates the Endangered Species Act, allows polluters to continue dumping greenhouse gases and endangering the public without any EPA oversight under the Clean Air Act, and restricts the right of Americans to use the federal courts to enforce environmental laws.”

Please contact your WA legislators and ask them to vigorously and publicly oppose this assault on our right to breathable air and drinkable water. While you’re at it, ask them to step up to co-sponsor the anti-fracking bills H.R. 1084 and S. 587. Kudos to Adam Smith for being the first (and so far only) Washington legislator to get out in front of this important legislation. Watch the video to see why hydraulic fracturing, like mountaintop removal, is an extraction method that must be stopped.

Thousands rally in Olympia

In solidarity with Wisconsin citizens protesting the hostile takeover of public sector jobs and unregulated privatization of public works contracts proposed by WI Gov. Scott Walker, thousands of people here in Washington rallied at the state capitol  in Olympia yesterday. Amid chants of “What’s disgusting…union busting” and “Hey, hey,  ho, ho, Scott Walker’s got to go”, workers from IBEW, the Teamsters, SEIU and other unions carried signs defending the right to organize and bargain collectively that is under attack in Wisconsin. Other signs warned of the growing disparity between rich and poor in the US that is being exacerbated by unbridled privatization that puts tax dollars collected from the working class into the hands of corporations  driven by the profit motive rather than the common good. A large display created by Movement for the People contrasts the actual preamble of the Constitution, beginning with the familiar words, “We the People of the United States,” with a preamble recast as “We the Corporations, Transcending the boundaries of Nations, In order to protect us from the People, Insure our right to Extract and Exploit, Provide the Defense of Profit with Impunity, and Secure the Blessings of Wealth and Privilege for those who have it already, Do ordain and appropriat­e this Constituti­on of the United States of America.”

Because that what this is folks…a fight for our human rights as outlined by FDR in his Second Bill of Rights in 1944. Make no mistake: we can have a democracy or a plutocracy, but not both.