Excerpt from Danny Schechter: The Bush Bullydozer Strategy to Preempt His Successor

In his recent article for the Huffington Post,  journalist Danny Schechter comments on the mind games that led to the
passing of the $700 bailout bill.


Danny Schechter: The Bush Bullydozer Strategy to Preempt His Successor

Then Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman brought their power points to the hill in an unusually alarmist nighttime hush-hush "briefing" to "prove" that unless Congress acted immediately, the whole system would melt down. They argued something had to be done and they just happen to have that "something" in hand: a three page emergency plan for a mere $700 billion that had to be passed now!

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to add a role for Bankruptcy courts to adjudicate foreclosures, she was shot down. Paulson, even went down on his knees to beg her to withdraw the idea because it was complicating his "clean" proposal.

Has anyone looked into who was pushing this, at the role of China which demanded to be "made whole" on its loans and investments, or who would benefit the most? Nah.

Did the media hold debates featuring the more than 400 top economists, including two Nobel Prize winners who opposed this hastily conceived"Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008." Nope.

To add more anxiety to the process, it was suddenly announced that a military unit trained in crowd control was being brought back from Iraq to prepare to contain expected civil unrest. Congressman Brad Sherman of California's 27th congressional district told the House that he personally knew of several Congressional representatives who have said they were threatened with the prospect of all out martial law should they vote in opposition to the $700 billion bailout.