I've been listening through Bill Moyer's archives all day while cleaning the house...  This clip of his interview with Benjamin Barber really caught my attention.  I said to myself, "Oh yeah, he's talking about Privatized Gains (ie, Greenwich, CT) and Socialized Risk (ie, the Cross-Bronx Expressway in the South Bronx) -- very true, of course, as we've all learned with AIG, Bear Stearns, etc..."  Then I noticed the date of the interview:

December 21, 2007.

After the Credit Collapse in August 2007, but before even some of the most pessimistic economists...  But he's not an oracle or a prophet -- he's "just" a social scientist/theorist!  :)  And a good citizen because he's paying attention, and asking the right questions.  (Man, I appreciate insights like this...)

BILL MOYERS: But isn't all of this [Rampant Consumerism/Debt] part of what keeps the hamster running? I mean, it--

BENJAMIN BARBER: -- It is. But part of the problem here is that the capitalist companies have figured out that the best way to do their job is to privatize profit, but socialize risk. That is to say--

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

BENJAMIN BARBER: --ask the taxpayer to pay for it--

BILL MOYERS: Yes.

BENJAMIN BARBER: --when things go down. The banks now that have just screwed up so big, not one of those banks is going to go under because they'll be bailed out by the feds. 'Cause the feds, the federal government will say we can't afford this gigantic multi billion dollar bank to go under. Happened with Chrysler 20, 30 years ago.  [Barack put an end to this last week, as long as the Chapter 11 process goes quickly, that is...]

BILL MOYERS: Got to keep the wheel going.

BENJAMIN BARBER: And, therefore, it's impossible to fail if you're a business. You never get punished. Now the whole point of profit is to reward risk. But what we've done today is socialize risk. You and I, and all of your listeners out there, pay when companies like sub-prime market mortgage companies and the banks go bad. We pay for it. They don't.

Here they are.  All 12 of the below-listed Democrats took bailout funds (by way of Bank Lobbyist "legalized bribes", that is) and voted against Foreclosure Relief this week:

Baucus (D-MT)
Bennet (D-CO)
Byrd (D-WV)
Carper (D-DE)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Johnson (D-SD)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Specter (D-PA)
Tester (D-MT) 

Bill Moyer's reported last night about President Obama's good buddy Dick Durbin's losing effort at desperately needed reform:

"On Monday an exasperated Senator Durbin told an interviewer that although, quote, "We're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created, the banks are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, and they frankly own the place." Let me repeat that: one of the Senate's own leaders says the banks own the place. And just yesterday, as if to prove Durbin's point, bankers killed the Senate's latest effort to staunch that wave of foreclosures, squashing a measure Durbin says would help one million seven hundred thousand [1,700,000] Americans save their homes."

But I agree with Dave Ramsey (a huge Republican, that I love despite his anti-Obama hints) when he says we can't wait for Washington to fix our problems.  These "12 Democrats" show us this week that they're going to protect the banks, despite the disruptive and stultifying upheaval that foreclosure will cause to 1,700,000 Americans and their children.  Bill Moyers goes on to profile Steve Meacham of City Life/Vida Urbana of Dorchester, MA.  The profile of Meacham is one of the best profiles I've ever seen.  I'm not kidding.  Please do watch it if you get a chance.  This guy is for real, and he's been doing it for years.  He knows the true effects of the Bank's financial "innovation" in the past 30 years.

As Moyer's website says, Meacham:

...is fighting on the frontlines of the foreclosure crisis. Meacham and his colleagues at City Life employ a community organizing strategy they call the The "shield" is a strategy of legal defense: teaching City Life members about their rights under the law, plus providing access to volunteer legal assistance. The "sword" is a public relations strategy, where City Life organizes protests in front of banks, and eviction blockades in front of people's homes.

Let's face it, Washington Democrats are not going to help us or our neighbors.  Spiking the Anti-Foreclosure Amendment this week proves it once and for all.  The rarest thing in American politics is a Republican or other entrenched power (the Banks) admitting to a mistake.  It's just never going to happen.  Funny how "Moral Hazards" only apply to the public, and not to their actions or governance decisions.

So let's stop paying into the banker's system, and resist their strong-arm evictions in the name of "market forces."  We can all start by cutting up our credit cards.  But if you know of someone about to be foreclosed on, help them RESIST and STAY in their home.  As Mecaham's group does on a daily basis, let's help them "create the moral space for people to feel like they have the right to resist, because they're told by almost everybody that they don't. You know, their first reaction is, "There's nothing I can do because the bank owns the building now." And that is part of a disempowerment that goes far beyond that situation.  And part of the reason that people love to come here I think is that not only are we giving them solidarity and support in fighting the bank, but in so doing, it's like a, kind of upsetting this whole apple cart of disempowerment that they've been fed for years and years and years."

My point:  We have to help create the moral space to fight banks:  "IT IS OK TO STAY IN YOUR HOME AND OK TO DEMAND LEGAL PROTECTION FROM PREDATORY LENDING."  Until the public gets that legal protection, we must help our neighbors fight.