By Seth Grossman, Political Columnist
During this Christmas holiday season, many of us will again be spending lots of time with kids and grandkids. Once again, why not use this time as an opportunity to engage the young people around you in some political discussion? You can undo a lot of the brainwashing they get in public school or college.
During the past few months, many teachers and college professors taught their students this lie they got from their unions that tea party conservatives like me are bigoted and ignorant puppets of the rich and powerful, while occupy Wall Street speaks for most middle class Americans.
But the opposite is true. In January of 2008, liberal Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine tried to get our state government to mortgage the Parkway, Turnpike and Expressway for $30 billion ? and to hike tolls by 800 percent to pay for it.
Did any of today?s occupy Wall Street liberals oppose that plan? Did any of them talk of the dirty deals that Corzine did with Goldman Sachs in the 1990s to get his $600 million personal fortune? Did any of them mention that Goldman Sachs or a similar Wall Street firm would have gotten a 1 percent ?transaction fee? ($300 million) from the deal? Did any of them publicly defend ?free speech? when thousands of conservatives protested and stopped the scheme, or when Steve Lonegan and I were arrested for simply handing out leaflets outside the town hall meeting in Cape May Court House?
Did any of today?s occupy Wall Street liberals oppose the Wall Street and Fannie Mae Freddie Mac bailouts that started in October, 2008? That was when Democrats like Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bob Menendez, Frank Lautenberg and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Republicans like President George Bush, Sens. John McCain and Mitch McConnell, and House Leader John Boehner to borrow and spend trillions of dollars in a few months. They also let the Federal Reserve Bank print another trillion dollars, backed by nothing but worthless bundles of bad mortgage loans.
No. It was conservatives who adopted the TEA (taxed enough already) party label and who held large and small rallies around the country to protest this outrage starting on April 15, 2009. It was tea party conservative Republicans who organized and campaigned against leaders of their own party who betrayed them with those bailouts. We voted dozens of them out of office in June primary elections.
Did any of today?s occupy Wall Street liberals publicly oppose or campaign against any Democrats who backed these bailouts in 2008 or 2009, when it was still possible to stop them?
Did any of them say an unkind word about Jon Corzine or how he made his money back then?
Just one Corzine deal that made a fortune for Goldman Sachs was in 1994. The Wall Street firm invested heavily in worthless Mexican bonds, but then got Democratic President Bill Clinton and his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin ? former CEO of Goldman Sachs ? to bail out the corrupt Mexican government with $50 billion in of U.S. government loans and guarantees.
The Wall Street bailouts were approved by only a very narrow margin in the House of Representatives. Had occupy Wall Street joined tea party conservatives in 2008 and 2009 to stop them, many of the ?1 percent? they now complain about the most would no longer have their wealth and power. Many of them would probably be in jail.
Jon Corzine is but one example. If taxpayers didn?t borrow and spend billions to bail out Goldman Sachs in 2008 and 2009, Corzine would probably have been broke and disgraced three years ago. He would not have gone back to Wall Street as a big shot running M.F. Global so he could lose $1.2 billion of his clients? money.
President Obama and liberal Democratic politicians claim that these bailouts saved our economy from going into a Great Depression. But again, the opposite is true. There is no economic recovery in sight because the same swindlers are still in charge.
Millions of private investors like me are still not investing with American banks and businesses to create jobs. My savings and retirement funds are still tied up in gold and silver bars, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand bonds, and other investments that can?t be manipulated by the same Wall Street crooks and their friends in Washington who robbed us three years ago ? when the ?occupy Wall Street? liberals were silent.
Your kids aren?t learning this in school. You have to teach them.
(Reprinted from December 21, 2011 Current-Gazette Newspapers of Atlantic and Cape May Counties, http://www.shorenewstoday.com/snt/news/index.php/politics/19513-occupy-liberals-were-silent-on-bailouts.html?)
Somers Point attorney Seth Grossman appears on 92.1FM 8-9 a.m. Saturday. For information see www.libertyandprosperity.org, email
sethgrossman49@gmail.com or call (609) 927-7333 . Breakfast discussions are held 9:30-10:30 a.m. every Saturday at the Shore Diner on Fire and Tilton roads in Egg Harbor Township.
(Image source – http://theoldspeakjournal.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/wall-street-bailout-big.jpg?w=604)