In the aftermath of the Massachusetts Senate vote last Tuesday, we now have a concrete fighting chance to block the reappointment of Wall Street puppet Ben Bernanke as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by preventing his Senate confirmation next week. This afternoon, Bernanke’s support was eroding hour by hour. The defections from the Bernanke camp feature Democratic senators who are up for reelection this coming November.

They have read the tea leaves from Massachusetts, and they know the pitchforks are out, so their response is a mad rush to acquire economic populist and anti-Wall Street cover. The obvious way to do this is to turn against Bernanke and defeat him in the upcoming confirmation vote. Leading the charge late today were Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, both endangered Democrats. GOP Senator Corker of Tennessee is now waffling about whether or not he will support Bernanke. The pressure is building on self-styled Democratic economic populists like Sherrod Brown of Ohio to prove that they are worth something. What will Senator-elect Scott Brown do? If he votes for Bernanke, he will have betrayed his voters in less than a week, and will not survive his own re-election campaign in 3 years. Democratic majority leader Harry Reid, succumbing to overwhelming pressure from the Obama White House, announced late this afternoon that he will fall on his sword for Helicopter Ben, but this self-destructive pledge may not survive a weekend in Nevada, where the economic populist pitchforks are as finely honed as anywhere. It is therefore time for all responsible citizens and all persons of good will to mobilize in the days ahead to secure the defeat of Bernanke. Such an event would symbolize the turn of the tide against Wall Street in the struggle to decide who will pay for the current depression — the people or the bankers and hedge fund hyenas.

We stress that this is a battle which can be won. Two senators, Bunning of Kentucky and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have placed holds on the Bernanke nomination. This means that a supermajority of 60 votes will be required to bring Helicopter Ben’s nomination to the Senate floor. As of now, no one can know whether these votes will be forthcoming. Republicans have little reason to favor Bernanke over their own careers.

The Obama White House, despite its most recent efforts to re-create a populist persona for the chief executive, is foolishly supporting Bernanke — a move which undermines all other economic populist posturing Obama might engage in. Individual Democrats, especially those facing the hour of truth in November, know very well how much Bernanke and his Federal Reserve elitists are hated by Americans. For the moment, this game is therefore out of control and highly vulnerable to the application of mass-based political pressure. If Bernanke can be defeated, the Wall Street-Federal Reserve lockstep will be momentarily broken, and the path to auditing the Fed and, more importantly, nationalizing it as a bureau of the Treasury will be wide open.

Late this afternoon, pro-financier spokesmen on Bloomberg and CNBC were talking about a scenario in which Bernanke would remain no matter what as chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the unconstitutional body which sets interest rates in accordance with the wishes of the privately owned Federal Reserve districts, above all the New York one. In this scenario, Donald Kohn, the current Fed Vice Chairman, would take Bernanke’s place as the Chairman of the Board of Governors. Kohn, it will be remembered, is just as odious as Bernanke.

About a year ago, Kohn’s impudence, arrogance and elitism were highlighted during a Senate hearing when he indignantly refused to reveal the names of the AIG derivatives counterparties who were receiving some $70 billion of US taxpayer money in return for their worthless and toxic financial derivatives. If Bernanke and Kohn should attempts to maintain their power over the Federal Reserve, meaning in practice short-term interest rates in this country, they will create laboratory conditions for a massive economic populist revolt which could well lead to the seizure and nationalization of the Federal Reserve as a bureau of the US Treasury and a public utility to provide 0% credit for production in the interests of the American people. That would put an end to almost a century of financial insurrection by the Wall Street financiers and their puppets against the Constitution — a blatant illegality which goes back to the days of Woodrow Wilson.

All opponents of the illegal, unconstitutional, and failed Federal Reserve system must now realize that this is the hour of action. It is time for every serious intelligent person to send two e-mails and place two phone calls to the Washington and local offices of their senators demanding that they stop Bernanke. Obama should also be warned that Bernanke is an insult to the American people.

Those who have been complaining about the Fed for decades now have a real chance to do something about it. These chances are very rare, but this is the best one in many, many decades. Even Paul Adolph Volcker, who had been responsible for an obscene 22% prime rate three decades ago, had an easier time getting reconfirmed than Bernanke. Once Bernanke has been defeated, it will be time to secure the ouster of Treasury Secretary Geithner, the former head of the New York Fed and currently the most visible member of the entire Obama cabinet.

The basic outlines of a criminal indictment for Geithner on tax fraud and securities fraud can be culled from virtually any daily newspaper. Geithner ought to be accompanied on his trip home by White House economic czar Larry Summers, the woman-hating former president of Harvard who managed to destroy about a third of the Harvard endowment as a result of his fanatical devotion to the riskiest of financial derivatives. This and more will be within our reach if Bernanke can be checkmated over the next week or two.


Mobilize Now to Oust Bernanke as Fed Chair
Source: www.tarpley.net, January 22, 2010
By: Webster G. Tarpley