Yay for people!

Took a walk before lunch today. (I work at the Library of Congress in the Madison Building. I can see the Capitol Dome from the steps as well as the endless fencing hemming in the equally endless renovation to the grounds surrounding the Capitol.) Code Pink was staging a protest in front of the Cannon Office Building. About ten people lay sprawled on the steps dressed as nurses, executives, various business types. They were doing a call-and-answer routine. Someone would shout "Bailout?" and the rest would respond, "Over my dead body!" - hence the sprawling on the steps. It looked rather uncomfortable. One of the nurses kept switching positions, ostensibly in futile attempts to straighten the banner lying beside her. Another woman looked like she stepped out of the thirties, and looked like she was asleep. A man, the organizer I assume, was rushing about taking pictures of them and leading most of the call-and-answer. One guy, a Hunter Thompson wanna-be, was really into it. Loud, fiery, he projected his "Bailout?" from deep within his politically indignant bowels.

Then the police started to gather. A couple were already there when I arrived, and more showed up. Just to watch from across the street, it appeared, but I suppose also to lend a hand if things turned ugly. One officer was filming the entire thing with a digital camera. And was he ever devoted! Different angles, steady shots - the man was a pro. I wonder now how much he would've filmed if things had turned bad for Code Pink. I think the highlight he needed to capture was the official warning of dispersal. Another officer shouted it out through a bullhorn.

And then, one of the women got up and congratulated everyone on a job well done. Lesson no. 1 for staging a lasting protest: only make it look like you're leaving. They got up and starting chanting again, and posing for the cameras. The nurses were the shock-troops here. One wouldn't leave the police cameraman alone. She gave him the whole spiel. I could only catch snippets but the jist was we the taxpayers shouldn't bail out the plutocracy of the government and big business. The organizer was some CEO, I think.

The other nurse posed for the cameras so they could get good shots of the signs on her front and back. The one on her back was folded over, so it was hard to read. But the one on her front said "No Bailout!" The police gave another warning and this woman just ate it up, nodding smugly. The organizer and "Hunter Thompson" started shouting for an end to the plutocracy and tripped each other up. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be shouting the same thing at the same time, or something different each time or what, but they ended up drowning each other out and "Hunter" knew it. He looked off to the side smiling. At least he could see the humour in it.

The protesters had a bullhorn too. One of them asked to use it and the man holding it said no. He was actually pretty funny, immediately starting in on Cheney. "Where's Cheney? He's getting the getaway car ready for the biggest heist in history! I think I can see him coming down Independence Avenue!" The biggest heist in history? I don't know. What about that 99 cent taco from Taco Bell? Then, amid the shouts of "Down with the plutocracy!" and "Bailout? No way!", one of the women shouted "Yay for people!" At that point I left.

A businessman walked up beside me. "Looks like some people who spent a lot time in campus protests," he said to me. "I wouldn't know," I told him, "but I suppose they would rather 25% unemployment."

I respect their resolve and we certainly need to have a lot of oversight so this bailout doesn't fail under the weight of yet more fraud. And this $700 billion check can't be used to pay out severance packages to the worst offenders in this crisis. They should be investigated and some sort of sentence passed if it's proven they acted illegally instead of just neglectfully. But what would any of that do if this bailout didn't happen and the biggest banks in the world have no way of covering their debt?

This effects every single taxpayer in America. We're not bailing out the bad guys, we're bailing out the system under which we all buy cars, buy homes, pay bills, and get by everyday. It's the economy, stupid! The justice system is nothing without the free market system that's given us a great amount of liberty, as is education, the military, everything.

Those liberties went unregulated and unwatched for too long. If this bailout were a government measure to help out some high-end friends, it wouldn't have been held up this long. And I believe it was the Republicans who've held it up. The bailout is necessary. I don't want to lose my job. Do you? We labour under the assumption that my money is mine, and yours is yours. It isn't. It doesn't even belong to the government. Money is the wind that steers the ship. Sometimes it blows strong, sometimes weak. If you don't keep an eye on changes in the weather, you find yourself in the middle of a storm. Do you then try the captain and hang him while the ship is sinking? No, you save the ship and then recriminate. Not the other way around. Yay for you and me if we can keep an eye on those steering the ship this time so we don't find ourselves talking about 25% unemployment again in another few decades.