As in the song "Lawyers In Love" we have a land, a nation with too many in high places willing to do anything for money neglecting people, honor and principle but a change is coming. No more falling for the lie of living only individualistic and independent lives leaving us divided and conquerable by powerful special interests but a people, a nation collaborating for the greater common good in various groups all across the nation. A land of people working together to help one another with a vision moreover as Jesus would have us be. Love, Mercy, Forgiveness, Kindness....something about another Land. The change is coming

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Financial Reform Betrayed Under Cover Of The Oil Spill

Public perception and opinion is everything. In American politics it shapes and controls everything that bribes and backroom deals do not. In the broad light of day it is difficult to get away with the corruption but they do and in the case of Wall Street reform and Goldman Sachs it would have been very difficult to have taken the money and watered down the financial world's very deserved punishment but that is exactly what happened and only happened because financial reform suddenly fell out of the news completely. And it fell out of the news not because there was high suspense involving the regulations that should have fallen upon these Wall street firms but because there was suddenly a crisis, a disaster that captured the publics imagination, the oil polluting of the Gulf Of Mexico. Under the cover of the oil spill congressmen betrayed the people, shattered by the financial crisis, by merely slapping the hand of Wall Street firms. The result is a financial reform bill that is more farce that force.

--It does nothing to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated commercial (normal) banking from investment (casino) banking.

--It does not cap the size of banks.

--It does not link the pay of their traders and top executives to long-term performance.

--The so-called Volcker Rule has been watered down and delayed.

--Blanche Lincoln’s important proposal that derivatives be traded in separate entities which aren’t subsidized by commercial deposits has been shrunk and compromised.

--Customized derivatives can remain underground.

--The consumer protection agency has been lodged in the Fed, whose own consumer division failed miserably to protect consumers last time around.

How could this ineffectual compromise have happened?
Wall Street and for that matter any corporation that threatens a politician with millions in election opposition is easily intimidated without the publics backing and awareness of what is going on and so it was with the ensuing settlement of this reform bill. Politicians knew they might as well go along with the big money because the public was witnessing then nothing more than the Gulf Of Mexico oil spill disaster on the news. The bottom line is if the people do not know you are engaged in a courageous act against the rich and powerful then you might as well give in to the rich and powerful because just maybe they, the rich and powerful, won't make it as hard on you at election time. And so that is how it all turned out. The oil spill covered up and blacked out the news coverage of the precedings on financial reform and Goldman Sachs so that it became out of sight and mind with the American public. Interesting how just as the congressional procedings on financial reform ramped up we had a man-made environmental catastrophe in the form of an oil leak and just as you are witnessing now that oil leak is sealed at virtually the same time the financial reform is passed and if not with almost perfectly choregraphed timing the Goldman Sachs case also settled. Some things just have to be done with a distraction but some distractions just cannot be allowed to go on for show. As one manipulating dictator once said in so many words - if you make it outrageous enough the public will never believe the collusion. You wouldn't dare would you.

So once again it's about the influence of the powerful rich and their lobbyists. If you don't demand real campaign and lobbying reform you will get no other real reform and the rich and powerful will continually get their chance to run this country into the ground so bound up by greed, so addicted to their drug called money and so under it's reckless power. But it goes on and on, YOU let it go on and on.....America, you America the people, We The People let it go on and on. You could have a beautiful government if you only believed in it. You have the tools and the checks and balances but how long will you allow yourselves to be so manipulated with fear. How long will you continue to be blind fools for and intimidated by the power of money.

In Luke 16:13 it says you cannot serve both God and money.

Under God there is integrity, principles are upheld and honor stands.

And so therein is the real answer. Transformation within then reaching out to change from the inside. That is how you develop the inner constitution to stand up for what is right. It is a product and fruit of inner transformation. but I don't expect all that would push for honorable government to be Christians. Sadly it even looks as if those that would oppose the change would be of the religious right but Christian and religious right have never been the same thing that is at least according to the scripture above. There are however a lot of good samaritans out there that believe in the integrity of what America can be along with those Christians that want the integrity of serving God over money. If you have a calling to be in government consider that there is not a better calling than to bring honesty and honor to government once again. A government not with it's eyes on money but with it's eyes on truth honor and justice, the principles of God. The hard truth is the only way one can truly resist money corruption is to know on the inside that you do not rely on money but rely instead on God. Believe that or not we have a lot of work to do.

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