It is great to debate what is happening in financial markets, the proposed bailout, etc.But when people start talking positively, as if this were a revolutionary moment, about how the public hates the bailout, how the leftshould propose immediate alternatives, that we should let the whole things go down the tubes,how a bailout today just forestalls catastrophe tomorrow, ad naseum, then I think a lot of peopleare losing their grip on reality. A series of bank failures and what might follow will wreak considerable damage on working people.Let me just speak for myself. If my pension plan (TIAA_CREF, world's largest I believe) fails,I am on the street soon. If the economy really tanks my small check from working for Monthly Review might disappear. That will leave me with a small social security check (don't bet on that not going too if a crisis gets bad enough). No thanks. And what is true for me is very much more true for my mother, my sisters, and every other working person I know. Let liquidity flow to the banks and businesses, asap. If there are a couple of progrssive things in the Bill, good. I'll still be a radical and still be agitating.Not getting on my hands and knees and begging some community college to let me teach again.I put in my time as a worker, so don't hit me with any elitist shit. When the masses are on the streetsfighting for radical measures, Then I'll gladly give up what I have now. In the meatime I'd like to have a roof over my head, so I can continue to educate and engage workers. I live in the real world, the one in which most people here are none too bright, easily duped, racist,and immigrant haters, in which the labor movement is pathetically unprepared to lead anybody anywhereand has to contend with masses of racists in its midst, in which there is a good chance that a bad crisis now will move people right not left. And in which the pain of a depression will far outweigh anylikely gains, and not just here either.
Michael Yates