Unfortunately, because the very people who were supposed to be guarding our well-being by overseeing the banking rules -- the Congressional oversight committees, the Security & Exchange Commission, the Fed and the Secretary of the Treasury -- are many of the same people. Even Larry Summers -- adviser to Presidents Reagan and Clinton; and the "genius" who led the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 -- is now advising President Obama! What? Yeah, THAT Larry Summers. The very same free-trade, trickle-down Larry Summers is now advising President Obama.

NOTE: In plain English, the Glass-Steagall Act was barrier that was put in place after the Great Depression to protect us regular folks' banks from merging with insurance companies and investment houses and becoming poker chips in big-stakes, all-or-nothing games financial Russian Roulette. Arguing against taking down that protective shield, Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat from North Dakota, said, "I want to sound a warning call today about this legislation -- I think this legislation is just fundamentally terrible."

In spite of Senator Dorgan's pleas, the Clinton advisor -- who had been an economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, remember!!!! -- won the day and the repeal of Glass-Steagall was one of the most important milestones on America's headlong plunge toward our current economic abyss.

And, not only were the members of the SEC -FED Reserve-Treasury-Goldman brotherhood dismantling the protective rules that had been in place for 60 years, but we now find out that what few rules that were still in place were virtually ignored.

On The Daily Show, Monday, March 8, 2010, Jon Stewart interviewed Harry Markopolos, the man who started warning the SEC about Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme as far back as 2000. After hearing him tell Jon Stewart that the very same people are still running the SEC today, I, shared his anger at the incestuous scam that is being called capitalism. Because crony capitalism is not, in any way, what Adam Smith or even Alexander Hamilton envisioned.

Markopolos' message was: Nobody was fired. Nobody was even reprimanded for ignoring his warnings that had emblazoned across their cover pages, titles as subtle as "The Nation's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud."

Yet, the SEC didn't even lift a finger to look into the Madoff operation.

And, if you STILL doubt that Wall Street is an exclusive club for insiders and fellow back-scratchers, consider this:

While Stephen Friedman was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he was ALSO a member of Goldman Sach's board of directors ...and he ALSO owned millions of dollars worth of Goldman stock! But, wait. There's more!

As the NY Fed -- under his leadership -- was working a deal that would require AIG to pay billions of its US Government bailout money to Goldman Sachs which would subsequently raise the value of Goldman's stock.

Because the chairman's involvement in Goldman while he was chairman of the New York Fed was a violation of Fed policy, Friedman asked for a waiver, which, after about two and a half months, the Fed granted. As if pushing the rules to the very limits wasn't bad enough, while he was waiting for the waiver Mr. Friedman bought 37,300 more Goldman shares in December, which HE DIDN'T MENTION when he was asking for the waiver.

Gee, d'ya think there might be a conflict of interest? As my son would say, "Well, DUH, Dad!"

If the decisions Friedman made as the chairman of the NY Fed regarding AIG caused his Goldman's stock to increase in value by millions of dollars, I don't know how YOU calculate that little bit of skullduggery, but it sure seems like pretty blatant conflict of interest to me!"

If those "good ol' boys" at Goldman Sachs don't have the rules in their favor, their friends at the SEC are totally prepared to "have their backs" because, according to Harry Markopolos -- who warned the SEC about Bernie Madoff for eight years -- they can probably get away with their scam indefinitely.

Sadly, nothing has changed. The same people at the SEC still work for the very same people they are supposed to regulate.

According to Nomi Prins, a former Wall Street Broker who became angered by the aforementioned grand-scale scam, America's Wall Street bail-out is one of the biggest scams in history. And, Obama went along with the scam.

In her book, "It Takes A Pillage," Prins says the initial $700 Billion "bail out" was chump change compared to the more accurate tabulation of $17 Trillion that the banking industry will ultimately reap from the US Treasury!

And, yet they call those of us who want a public option for health care "dirty lowdown socialists." Talk about the kettle calling the pot black!

Gore Vidal was right when he said of the American system, "The US government prefers that public money go not to the people but to big business. The result is a unique society in which we have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich."


So, friends, according to our friends on the political right, it's okay to give Wall Street and the Banking industry $17 Trillion, no-strings attached to do with however they please. However, for the American public to propose a public health care option at a mere fraction of that price tag, that is considered a slippery slide toward socialism. How does that compute? It sure doesn't compute as far as I'm concerned. And, to think that Obama assured the Pharmaceutical industry last summer that the public option would not be a consideration. Am I disappointed? You bet!

We're still in Iraq and according to commentary from the Obama Administration on NPR last evening, we are already hedging the withdrawal date of Aug. 2011 with "we may need to reconsider that time line," etc.

And, expanding the Afghanistan war isn't quite what anyone expected from the "peace candidate." But, it's just one more indication that its' silly for any of us to blame Bush or Obama - - or any person who is elected President - - for the course of our ship of state. It should be obvious by now to everyone on both sides of the political dividing line: the democratic process and those whom we have elected are not in charge of our government any longer.

It is being guided by private interests - - the biggest and most influential is BIG OIL. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledged in his recent biography that the US invaded Iraq because of oil. But, I doubt those of us who identified oil as the motivation for the invasion long before the actual invasion will ever hear any apologies from those many, many gullible people who bought into the 935 confirmed lies Bush & Company told to scare the bejeebers out of everyone to justify the invasion. (Source: Fund for Independent Journalism and The Institute for Public Integrity.)

Obama hasn't reinstated Habeas Corpus. Torture is still an official US policy option in regard to those detainees that are designated "special cases." So, America is still in violation of the Geneva Conventions that banned all torture.

A recent headline on AlterNet.com stated: "Seymour Hersh: "Executive Assassination Ring" Answered to Cheney, Had No Congressional Oversight." The story behind that headline speaks to an issue that may very well still be in place if Obama's pattern of adopting and extending Bush era doctrine is any indication. Am I disappointed? You bet I am.

Obama's first act after his election was to assure the financial markets with the choice of Larry Summers as his chief economic advisor and Timothy "I don't need to pay no stinkin' taxes like the riffraff do" Geithner as his Secretary of the Treasury. Sheesh!

What kind of change is that? Treasury, the Fed, the SEC are all just revolving doors for the same fraternity of former Goldman Sachs CEOs and their teams of insider scam artists.

And, as far as our hope that Obama would scale back America's military pursuit of what seems to be an ever expanding array of military bases and outposts in foreign countries -- a number that former CIA analyst Chalmers Johnston says is nearing 1,000 bases in 160 countries. We now have the newly formed Africa Corps that has begun to move into oil rich countries on that continent to "help those governments stabilize their countries." And, in Columbia, we now have a baker's dozen of military bases in preparation of ...what? Dare we even speculate? Should Chavez be worried? Venezuela has lots of oil and oil does seem to be the common denominator that serves as a "magnet" for American military involvement.

And, also nearby, thanks to the recent earthquake in Haiti, that country is virtually under US military occupation. Am I the only one who wonders why Haitians are being displaced right now...today! ...to allow for the expansion of a military base? In preparation of what?

Could it be we decided Haiti is an ideal staging area that will allow us to prepare to go to war against Venezuela? Or, maybe we are getting ready to pursue the oil in the Amazon Basin ...or, maybe, we want to pursue Bolivia's deposit of 50% of the world's lithium that we will need when America phases out gasoline engines and replaces them with electric engines powered by lithium-batteries.

I'm sure I'm not the only progressive who is not pleased with the surprisingly conservative path Obama has chosen for domestic policy; and an equally surprising military-dominant foreign policy around the world.

Though many of us had hope that Obama would represent more change than he has been able to accomplish, or has wanted to accomplish, it could be that he has joined other recent Presidents who have become merely the outward face of government -- who, upon entering the Oval Office, discovered that the real decision-making in regard to wars, foreign policies, etc. take place out of sight, behind the visible facade that we euphemistically call "democracy."

I grapple with the question: Is there a difference between the parties? If you trace the campaign finance donations to Senators and Congressmen on both sides of the isle from special interest groups, one is hard pressed to ignore the perception that special interests own both sides of the isle.

That problem is exacerbated now that the Supreme Court is filled with Judges who proclaim they have no tolerance for activist judges, future elections will see that special interests won't even have to hide behind 600 public relations firms it is alleged that Exxon hired to obfuscate the global warming issue. Exxon can take a few billions of its profits and sink those dollars directly into the election efforts on behalf of anyone they choose to support. Two hundred years of protecting the common citizen down the drain.

How long before there won't be anyone left who actually believes that democracy is still the active ingredient in our government? Not to put too negative a spin on the issue, but I, for one, have begun to wonder about that notion more and more lately.

Thomas Jefferson also said, "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

Man! I sure wish there was a way to bring Thomas Jefferson back to life. He could remind us just how far away from self governance we've allowed ourselves to drift. And, maybe this time, we'd take his advice.