Dick,

America is faced with a serious problem. Your politicians don't care about the people who voted them into office. People are fed up. People are angry. Read the manifesto Lizzie posted. Please give it a close read. People lost their homes and livelihoods and Wall Street was part of that rip-off. The rich did ok from it all, and people know that.

Closing down stock exchanges may not be the answer, but leaving them open sure as hell hasn't worked. The expression that fits this situation is this:

I'm so fu#kin' mad I don't know whether to sh#t, wind my watch or steal third.

People began to awake in the early 1980s when the first big economic slump occurred. People began to lose their voices. Neither Ottawa nor Washington cared. We all began to see that the game is about money and using money to keep people down. Gradually, with communication being available to the voiceless, people are coming together.

Playboys And Playgirls

Oh, ye playboys an' playgirls
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Ye playboys an' playgirls
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Not now or no other time.

You fallout shelter sellers
Can't get in my door
Can't get in my door
Can't get in my door
You fallout shelter sellers
Can't get in my door
Not now or no other time.

Your Jim Crow ground
Can't turn me around
Can't turn me around
Can't turn me around
Your Jim Crow ground
Can't turn me around
Not now or no other time.

The laughter in the lynch mob
Ain't a-gonna do no more
Ain't a-gonna do no more
Ain't a-gonna do no more
The laughter in the lynch mob
Ain't a-gonna do no more
Not now or no other time.

You insane tongues of war talk
Ain't a-gonna guide my road
Ain't a-gonna guide my road
Ain't a-gonna guide my road
You insane tongues of war talk
Ain't a-gonna guide my road
Not now or no other time.

You red baiters an' race haters
Ain't a-gonna hang around here
Ain't a-gonna hang around here
Ain't a-gonna hang around here
You red baiters an' race haters
Ain't a-gonna hang around here
Not now or no other time.

Ye playboys an' playgirls
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Ye playboys an' playgirls
Ain't a-gonna run my world
Not now or no other time.

Just a silly little song, but it's taking on new meaning. Do rational people really think that medications cost as much as pharmaceutical companies charge? Do rational people really think the meals served to US troops in the Iraq war were worth $18 a piece? Do rational people really believe that the fifty-or-so billion dollars unaccounted for in the Iraq war was spirited away by tooth fairies? Do rational people really think that when average people are stripped of everything they've worked for they will lay down and die or simply go away? The manifesto Lizzie posted IS the voice of the people, and the people are angry--angrier than Wall Street, Ottawa or Washington can imagine.

Fifty years ago one paycheck could support a family. Today, it takes two or three. Why is that? Ford mentioned that if average people could understand the banking system there'd be a revolution tomorrow. Tomorrow has come. IMO, it's late, but it's here.

Where was the main-stream media when people first went to Wall Street to protest? Who muzzled the papers, the TVs, the radios? And by what right? We've seen so many examples of manipulation, and having seen those examples we've turned our backs and ignored the obvious. The obvious is biting us all. The sickness called Capitalism can no longer be supported by the average person. And people are coming to realize that.

In a very pragmatic sense, shutting down stock exchanges won't change much. But leaving them open hasn't changed a damned thing. When ya got nothing, ya got nothing to lose. North America has lost the stabilizing influence of that thing called the middle class. It no longer exists. One job just doesn't cut it anymore. Families fell apart, kids left to fend for themselves for over two generations. Now we wonder why we've got problems.

The system that got us to this state is a system people do NOT trust, and why should they? Why should any of us? I think a door has been opened, and I don't know that it can be closed again. Frankly, I'm not sure it should.

Why are there no economically poor politicians? Why when very rich people say they are not being taxed enough do we ignore their statements? Why when stock market manipulation causes people to lose their homes do we not see our jails filled with the trash that did it to them? Why do we see inequities in our penal systems that have an over representation of native North Americans, people of colour, people from disenfranchised backgrounds? There are NO answers forthcoming from anyone, because the answers people receive are horse droppings.

Crime pays, especially white-collar crime, and imo all other crime results from that. When US troops and cops point their guns at average people, something's very wrong. It's been wrong for at least a century. YMMV