Running Backwards

[nattyreb]

Running Backwards
[col. writ. 2/26/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal


Few sciences are more complex than economics, for despite the plethora of formulas claiming to define its workings, economics remains a bedeviling mystery that confuses and confounds the best minds time and time again.

That's often because our economic ideas are formed not only by our experiences but by our beliefs, and as such, we defend our ideas based not on evidence, but on our theoretical constructs -- again, what we believe.

We are free marketeers, or Keynesians; we follow the theories of Adam Smith, Henry George, David Ricardo or Karl Marx the way we follow our favorite basketball team, win or lose.

Sometimes those theories blind us to the bigger game of life outside our doors.

Much of the current economic crisis is the direct result of the economic theory of deregulation, made, not under George Bush alone, but in the waning days of the Clinton administration. For it was in 1999 that Clinton's treasury secretaries, first Robert Rubin, and later Larry Summers, advocated the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a 1933 law which prohibited commercial banks and investment banks from functioning in the same house.

The reason? None other than ole FDR. President Franklin D. Roosevelt explained as much in his famous "Fear Itself" inaugural speech of 1933, when the nation was reeling in the grips of the Great Depression. Roosevelt said,"...there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money..."*

In November 1999 President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, essentially repealing Glass-Steagall, by tearing down the brick wall between commercial and investment banks. The securities industries went on a tear, making millions, billions and then tens of billions on speculation with other people's money-- until the house of cards came crumbling down in November 2008.

The speculation business didn't just become toxic. It was poison in the 1930's, and came back to life in the late '90's more poisonous than ever.

By then, both political parties were parties of deregulation, for both were instruments of corporate power, and both were the authors of today's Great Recession, if not the Depression to come.

--(c) '09 maj

[*Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1st Inaugural Address, 1933 ("The Only Thing to Fear Is Fear Itself" speech), repr. in Labour & Trade Union Review (No. 194: Feb. '04), p.6]
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The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: Prison Radio

Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- will be released soon!
It will be available from City Lights Books at a 30% discount weeks before you can get it at any other bookstore, or from Amazon.
Sign up for an email alert and when the book becomes available for sale you'll receive an email letting you know: Jailhouse Lawyers, Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.

In support of Mumia and the publication of JAILHOUSE LAWYERS, organizations around the country will be holding "More Than a Book Party" events on or around Mumia's birthday, April 24, 2009.

If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com


Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!

Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC

Please mail donations/ checks to:
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[Sourakhata]

Those moneycrats are always the cause of the disease yet they're always proposing us remedy that are even worst than the illness itself. It's the pyromaniac firefighter. No people's revolt, this madness will never stop.