Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > She said that the Paulson plan was in the works for 6 months. Did I > mishear her or is that true?
>From a Democracy Now! transcript, Sept. 24: [...] AMY GOODMAN: And then, of course, this week it’s not only about passing this legislation, but it is passing it by Friday. NAOMI KLEIN: Absolutely. You know, and a lot of people have even described this Paulson plan as an economic PATRIOT Act. You know, one of the mistakes that I think they made, honestly, Amy, is how short it is. It’s just three pages, which means—you know, usually these pieces of legislation are much longer, so people don’t even bother reading them in that moment of extortion—you know, “Pass it now, or else…or else the sky falls in.” So, you know, in this case, I think they made a miscalculation. You know, there was an interesting article in Time that just came out, where they actually say that they have been working—you know, this is a quote—it says, “[Paulson] and his team [have] been working on [this] proposal for more than six months.” So, it’s quite surprising that it is as pared down as it is. It’s three pages. And the craziest thing has happened: people have read it. Regular people have read it. It doesn’t take that much time. And, you know, you read Section 8, which is just so stunning, just so bold in its demand for total and complete impunity. And that’s really what’s getting in their way, is people are reading this text, and they’re frankly shocked by it. You know, we heard Henry Paulson say that he thought it would have been presumptuous to put in clauses calling for regulation. This is absolute nonsense. Section 2 of the same document talks about how they have the right to hire contractors to administer this huge operation, and we know that that means contracting with some of the very firms who are going to be bailed out. And then it says that it would be—they would be contracting them without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts. Amy, that is just as—that’s Iraq levels of impunity, or even more. I mean, basically what they are saying is that we want to be able to contract with companies but exempt those companies from the existing laws that bar conflict of interest, that have whistleblowing laws. I mean, the laws exist on the books, and they are actively excluding these contracts from those laws. So the idea that they didn’t want to be presumptuous is complete nonsense. They are being extremely presumptuous, because they are actively excluding these contractors, these would-be contractors, from existing oversight. We have to be very clear about this. [...] http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/24/naomi_klein_now_is_the_time _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
