Federal Government Begins Nationalization of American Banking System

Less than two weeks after George W. Bush signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the calendar has reset itself to the 1930s. And this correspondent, for one, is very worried that the federal government is willfully moving toward de facto fascism.

In a joint statement issued this morning Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Sheila C. Bair announced the formal implementation of the Bush Administration's nationalization of the banking system by means of a "voluntary capital purchase program" under which the federal government will eventually become a shareholder in most of the nation's banks. The first banks to "voluntarily" participate in this new Gleichschaltung, and the prices that purchased their "coöperation," are as follows:

* Citigroup and JPMorgan-Chase: $25 billion each;

* Bank of America and Wells Fargo: $20 billion each, (B of A gets an additional $5 billion for its purchase of Merrill Lynch while Wells Fargo gets an extra $5 billion for its acquisition of Wachovia);

* Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley: $10 billion each;

* Bank of New York and State Street Bank: $2 to $3 billion.

The remainder of the nation's financial institutions will be given the "opportunity" to "participate" in the government's "recapitalization process" by the end of the year.

It looks like inflation has taken its toll on thirty pieces of silver.

To be fair (a soon to be outdated, if not illegal, concept) I must point out that Treasury Secretary Paulson has gone on record as having reservations about the creation of the new Reichsbank. Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg wasn't too crazy about having Adolph Hitler as Chancellor either but, by the time Hitler's National Socialists took control of the Reichstag, the German people would have tried anything that offered even a remote chance of prosperity. The psychologists call group behavior that is motivated by fear the "herd mentality."

I have always believed that one of the truly great ironies of history is that Adolph Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt came to power at essentially the same time, elected by voters that were in desperate economic situations and looking for a scapegoat. Both men had that scapegoat at the ready.

Hitler blamed the German peoples' troubles on "Jewish bankers," although Roosevelt relied on the latent anti-Semitism of America to get the same message across when left off the "Jewish" part while blaming the Depression on "Wall Street bankers."

Roosevelt pushed for the establishment of the National Recovery Administration, whose distinctive "Blue Eagle" symbol and "We Do Our Part" slogan were to let people know which businesses were "supporters" of the New Deal and should be patronized in preference to those that were not. After the enactment of the Nuremburg Laws and the rampages of Kristallnachtin Hitler's Germany, a Star of David marked those establishments owned by Juden and should thus be avoided by "good" Germans.

Are we Americans, in 2008, that much different from the Germans of 1933?

I must answer that question in the negative. We are a nation of lemmings, lost in our herd mentality, waiting to follow each other into oblivion. Regardless of the outcome of the Presidential Election, if the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is a portent of things to come, I'm afraid that we might be choosing an American Reichsführer.

For once, I hope I'm wrong.