Taking on the Fed

It is not everyday the corporate-banking establishment gets what it deserves. In fact, for over two hundred years, hyper-rich elites have basically called the shots within the Western mainstream political and financial establishment. It could even be argued that so-called Western civil society – in its institutional, economic and governmental practices – has been so well “managed” in favor of the powerful capitalist minority that the very conditions of everyday life have come to necessitate a certain kind of perpetual corruption, inequality and political alienation.

Private interests have now so thoroughly co-opted and distorted effective democratic processes that contemporary citizenship has been reduced to 1) having the superficial leadership choice between a small handful corporate-sponsored pitch-men, and 2) a brand of freedom anchored in simple decidions as to which wasteful and ecologically insane commodities to consume, and build their equally insane and superficial identities.

But last Thursday (November 19, 2009) the United States congress - in a bipartisan vote - defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and dominant corporate establishment in order to pass an amendment, sponsored by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson, mandating a genuine and probing audit of the Federal Reserve Bank. That's right: the U.S Congress stood up to the mega-powerful elites.

As journalist Ryan Grim noted:

“In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.”

Despite key committee Democrats attempts to suddenly introduced their own amendment – an amendment that would have essentially gutted the major transparency provisions - Democratic Rep. Grayson convinced 15 of his colleagues to join with Republicans to provide overwhelming support for a strict audit of the Federal Reserve.


Key Democratic support was gained only after a letter was posted early Thursday from labor leaders and progressive economists. The letter, organized by the liberal blog FireDogLake.com, called for strong and committed support for provisions brought forth by Ron Paul. The letter helped Paul and Grayson show their Democratic colleagues that the liberal base was indeed behind them.

Populist anger over Wall Street bailouts, the banking industry influence over Congress, and the impenetrable secrecy with which the Fed conducts itself has long been brewing on both the Right and Left (and in between), but neither political party can capitalize on it because they're both dependent upon and subservient to the same elite interests which benefit from those policies.

While most of the realities of U.S economic policy do not fit comfortably into the simplifying and distracting Right-Left paradigm, independent analysts are beginning to point out the long-standing pathologies inherent in current economic systems.

As former constitutional law and civil rights litigator Glenn Greenwald writes,

The pillaging of America's economic security by financial elites, with the eager assistance of the government officials who they own and who serve them, is the prime example of such a conflict. The political system as a whole -- both parties' leadership -- is owned and controlled by a handful of key industry interests, and anger over the fact is found across the political spectrum. Yesterday's vote is a very rare example where the true nature of political power was expressed and the petty distractions and artificial fault lines overcome.

Could it be that American citizens and pundits alike are beginning to see through corporate media sleight-of-hands and gimmicky distractions and seek out truly bipartisan and trans-ideological constraints of elite financial power?