OUOTE OF THE DAY, CHARLES BLOW IN NEW YORK TIMES

“The Fierce Urgency of Now has melted into the maddening wait for whenever.”

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THE BANKS? WHAT WILL WE DO?
MORE FRAUD: THE CRIME OF OUR TIME GOES ON
PRESS THE PRESS FOR BETTER COVERAGE?

Sat: I am off to Berlin tonight to take part in the Prix Europa events, and then later in the week. I will be winging it to South Africa for the POWER OF REPORTING conference at Wits University. This is just another indication of how “mainstream” my views are outside the United States—where the majority of humanity lives. For them, the “Balloon Boy” story has few legs and stirs little hand wringing. They put it down to more American madness.

The front page of the New York Times reports today on a new whopping US deficit, and the fact that the biggest banks have been a benificiary of the financial crisis. The newspaper of record reports on the record that they are “MINTING MONEY.” It also explains that they were benificiaries of GOVERNMENT POLICIES that lowered interest rates and provided bailouts.

Comments Naked Capitalism.com on the story headlined ““Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth:”

“The reason for the tart headline is that this view should be conventional wisdom by now (well, it is among folks who understand financial services, but not in the wider world). And it should have been widely commented on when first and second quarter bank earning came out,. Instead the meme was “isn’t it wonderful those banks we thought were dead are actually making money!” No one wanted to look to closely and ascertain that the pretty profits were the result of government props, not sounder fundamentals. The one who came closest to saying the truth was Meredith Whitney, who described the earnings as “manufactured” (recall the role of AIG swaps unwinds in 1Q results) but added that the banks could keep it up for another quarter or two.

The New York Times story warm up indicates that comparatively few are in on the role of the government support in the supercharged profits. The price provides a short recap and notes that the Federal aid is contributing to lofty bonuses”

So dear readers what might be done about this. Clearly, once again Congress is being bought off while the the Administration besides expessions of “disappointment” has sold out.

Reports Bloomberg News: “White House officials say they are growing frustrated that the banking industry is fighting President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul financial regulations after taxpayer bailouts helped firms restore profits and near- record compensation for executives.

Their anger is directed even at firms such as New York’s JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that have paid back their government assistance and reported a surge in third- quarter earnings this week. The issue, according to administration officials, is the industry is generally on sound footing because of government help and lobbying against Obama’s regulatory plans goes against the nation’s long-term interest.

“We are disappointed by the lobbying of anyone in the financial industry against regulatory reform, considering the obvious need for change on that front,” Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama, said”

Oh the frustration, Oh the disappointment, Oh, the lack of action. I hate to break it to you but unless people get out in the streets on this issue, nothing will change. There is no guarantee that anything can be changed, but it shouldn’t be for a lack of trying. I have been thinking about what might be done, drawing on my own experience. Here’s a short essay on which I would welcome responses and, of course, better ideas. Ideas however are easy. Action takes a commitment. My colleague David DeGraw has challenged the passivity on the issue on his Amped site. Here are a few ideas of about ramping up a campaign WHERE you live.

Ok, here goes:

AS THE BIG BANKS POST RECORD PROFITS AND PAY OUT OBSCENE BONUSES,
WHAT SHOULD WE THE PEOPLE DO: STAND UP OR ROLL OVER?

By Danny Schechter
Author of The Crime Of Our Time.

On February 1, 1960, four students sat down at a lunch counter at
the former Woolworth’s store in Greensboro North Carolina.

4 students!

They were protesting racial segregation. They were denied,
service, harassed and arrested.

Greensboro was and still is a backwater, yet their courage and
commitment sparked and helped drive a national movement that
would, within a few years, transform this country.

Martin Luther King may have had the dream but they had a scheme—a
way of getting attention, a way of showing that if you want to
make change, you have to be willing to act.

Few us remember their names. I knew one, Joseph McNeil, because he
went to my high school in the Bronx before heading for AT&T, a
traditionally black college, more famous as the school at which
Jesse Jackson played football.

Today there is a marker down the street from where the Woolworth’s
once stood. (At least there was when I was last there in the 80′s) Woolworths
had been one of the best-known brands in Americafor decades.

The chain went from fame to infamy to out of business. Lunch counters
were soon out and so was Woolworths. It would later be bought up, broken up,
and sold off by an avaricious private equity firm, which,
in a mad search for profits, drove thecompany under. Stores survived
in the UK and Australia but not in the USA.

Sound familiar?

Formal segregation may be gone, even if an interracial couple
couldn’t get a marriage license recently in Louisiana, but class separation
and inequality in America has deepened sharply The middle class
that the Greensboro 4 hoped to join as college graduates is only a
memory for many.

Black communities across this country have been savaged by the
foreclosure crisis. Black unemployment is twice that of whites, a
figure that in real terms stands at 20% or more. That means 40%
for minorities!

Millions of families are going backwards to homelessness, and
insecurity. Downward mobility is now a mass phenomenon. If you
don’t believe me, look at your bank statement.

At the same time, the large banks, run by the miscreants FDR called
“banksters” are reporting super profits and giving out obscene
profits. Their lobbyists are blocking new regulations and eroding
old ones. They are presiding over the largest transfer of wealth
in history from the working poor to the flamboyant superrich.

Racialization has been displaced by financialization. Now the
“action” in the Tar Heel State is down the road in Charlotte where
the Bank of America is based.

But can we still Bank On Banks Like The Bank Of America?
(You may not recall but the first bank to go in the great Depression
was the Bank of the United States.)

Banks R’Us. Today, there are bank branches in almost every neighborhood—except
the poorest ones where pay day lenders reign with their usury on
their mind and in their interest rates. When it comes to credit,
the poor pay more—and the banks know it and profit from it. There
are also mortgage brokers galore in every community. Fraud is
their middle name.

They are there to do business but they could also become
convenient targets for civic engagement.

So what is to be done? So far, very little has been. While the Banks are
agressively lobbying; citizens groups are passively sending
e-mails. Never before have so many allowed so few to dominate the
discourse. The banks are clearly winning over the regulators and critics.

Nevertheless, protests against the big banks are beginning. There
will be one at the end of October at the American Banker’s
Association convention and greedfest in Chicago.

But you don’t have to go to “Sweet Home Chicago” to find targets
of outrage, or even trek down to Wall Street. You know where you
bank! Yes many branches are just made up of ATM machines. They
want your money, not to hear from you! But the bigger branches are
not far. They advertise everywhere. They are everywhere, doing
business as usual.

Your money in; their profits out.

That could change. Think of the Greensboro 4, just a few people
then made enough noise to get things going.

Today, you don’t have to call them sit-ins, just polite but firm
and “protracted” conversations with the banksters. If a million
people called their 800 numbers at once, what would happen? Why
not informational picketing to advise consumers about how they are
getting ripped off with high rates and excessive fees? Why not
bring the pain of excessive debt and dispossession to the people
who are causing it and profiting from it? Student loan victims, are
you listening.

What if families who can’t afford day care turned their favorite
branches into day care centers? What if their profits and bonuses
were posted neatly on their windows? What if…. (You fill in the
blank!)

Lets say, concerned folks assembled at bank key bank branches
during the noon hour—Mondays at Chase, Tuesdays at BOA, Wednesdays
at Wells Fargo, Thursdays at Wachovia etc and then spent dress down
Fridays at Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley?

I am sure the bankers will welcome the opportunity to “dialogue”
with their enraged critics and customers. This can only work if it is
done regularly, week after week. One shots won’t work. They may make
protesters feel good but that’s all they will accomplish.

You will be surprised because the acts of a few can inspire action by the many.
Think of Brian Haw, camped out in front of the Parliament in London every day since the Iraq
war started in 2003. He knows we are in a marathon, not a sprint!

You get where I am going? I am not sure where Fred Douglass
banked, back in the days when companies like Lehman Brothers,
before its fall, were financing the slave trade, but his mantra
that without struggle, nothing changes still survives.

Nothing will change without making them uncomfortable. Anger, if
not ‘deployed” like an unguided missle, has its uses.

The Banksters are terrified of what they call “economic populism.”
I prefer to call it economic democracy. Even Barack Obama
understood that years ago when he worked as a community organizer.
I am not sure if he still does.

No one’s going to win a Nobel Prize in Economic Fairness for this
type of non-violent activity but it will bring this issue out of
the back pages of the business section where it is safely buried
and into the front lobes of people’s minds.

Where are the activists blocking foreclosures or rallying at unemployment
offices for extended benefits. Where is the push back against the health insurers?

It’s so simple. The Greensboro 4 understood it decades ago. If you
don’t stand up, you might as well lay down.

News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org. His new
film and book, THE CRIME OF OUR TIME is on the financial crisis as
a crime story. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

For more on the banks, see Anewwayforward.org. Join the fight for financial reform and accountability.