The best short characterization of the current banking/foreclosure mess that now threatens us with another episode of “shock doctrine” capitalism is Randy Wray’s. Here it is:

Mike Konczal is writing a terrific series on the foreclosure crisis. The other day I read Parts 1-3 of it at New Deal 2.0. I recommend it as providing a very clear explanation with some diagrams about what’s behind the crisis, and a discussion of some possible ways in which could represent big trouble for the broader economy. The Administration is responding to the crisis with noises about its concerns that the big banks might again be damaged and also with its hope that the banks can clear up the foreclosure paperwork problems in a fairly brief time.

Tom Hickey, a frequent and excellent commenter at Warren Mosler’s and Bill Mitchell’s blogs offered this comment to Mike:

Interview with Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODE PINK and “fair trade” advocacy organization Global Exchange, at the “One Nation Working Together” rally at the Lincoln Memorial on October 2nd.

Criminal background checks may keep parolees out or work long after their debt to society has been paid. Bad for citizens, good for the bottom line of for-profit prisons.

One month before the midterm elections, hundreds of organizations–many of them major organizations the Democratic Party needs to help them get-out-the-vote (GOTV) for November–will send a message to Democrats: No matter how much you beat upon the base for raising its voice and offering healthy criticism, progressives will still vote for you.

“There will be no Arizona in Massachusetts!” echoed hundreds of revelers of all races, religious, ethnic and national backgrounds at the South End’s Titus Sparrow Park, the first major campaign rally for incumbent Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray.

Two recent actions leave this Larue feeling hopeless.

The two-phase civil lawsuit, brought by Cindy and Craig Corrie against the Israeli Defense Forces, seeking a judgement of wrongful death in the matter of their daughter Rachel, near Rafah, Gaza, on March 16, 2003. resumes today in Haifa. In this phase, the defendant government will seek to rebut the plaintiff’s case, presented last spring.

Attorney Coakely has shown a fundamental inability to understand basic Constitutional principles like Due Process and Equal Protection under the laws, not to mention CORI violations that have resulted in a huge Defamation lawsuit against the Boston Herald, Reporter Jessica Van Sack and and Boston NBC affiliate WDHD Channel 7: They falsely reported that Joanna Marinova, an award-winning (video) prison reform activist had sex with an inmate, in order to shut her down.

Carol Rosenberg, a journalist for the Miami Herald and one of the few journalists who continue to follow operations and proceedings at the Guantanamo Bay prison reports “an emotionally ill detainee still being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was first recommended for release by the Pentagon in 2004.”