Before the total melt down of our financial markets this week, way back in May of 2008, the Texas Observer recounted the progression of events that led to the “shadow banking system” that is about to screw the taxpayers into $700 Billion of corporate welfare, while we still don’t approve of helping ourselves.

Reading the complete article will show you how we got into this mess. Reading the end of this post, will tell you how we can get out of this mess.

The chief author of this mess, John McCain’s campaign adviser, Phil Gramm. The whole article is well worth a look:

Friday, December 15, 2000, with Christmas break only hours away, the U.S. Senate rushed to pass an essential, 11,000-page government reauthorization bill. In what one legal textbook would later call “a stunning departure from normal legislative practice,” the Senate tacked on a complex, 262-page amendment at the urging of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

There was little debate on the floor. According to the Congressional Record, Gramm promised that the amendment—also known as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act—along with other landmark legislation he had authored, would usher in a new era for the U.S. financial services industry.

“The work of this Congress will be seen as a watershed where we turned away from an outmoded Depression-era approach to financial regulation and adopted a framework that will position our financial services industry to be world leaders into the new century,” Gramm said.

John McCain’s Gramm Gamble by Patricia Kilday Hart – The Texas Observer.

Enron should have been the wake-up call, but, of course, since our political process is so polluted with lobbyists money, Congress has conveniently looked the other way while keeping their hands out for table scraps of the pillaging of the American financial system.

This November, you have a choice to choose the course of our country- to go with a top Harvard scholar, Barack Obama, or a man who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis (John McCain). Their choices of Vice Presidential candidates also vary as much, the Harvard man picking a seasoned politician who at one point challenged his credentials, and the other picking a beauty queen who went to five different colleges to earn a degree in broadcast journalism. If you are wondering how loopholes as big as this entered our system, one only has to look at the caliber of our elected leaders. We’re getting exactly what we should expect as long as we keep voting for candidates based on things like skin color, stands on hot button issues like abortion and gun control- which are often used as a distraction while we’re robbed blind.

There is a reason there are only four members of Congress who aren’t millionaires. Us.

You are about to let your legislators put our country forever in the hole to save the asses of people who’ve never cared one iota for your welfare. You’ve been relegated to life as a cash cow- to be milked for all you’ve got, so they can get rich and poweful, while we struggle. Until we fix campaign finance- taking the money out of politics, the Phil Gramms of this Country will continue to get rich, while screwing you, your kids, your grandkids and their grandkids into trillions of dollars of debt.

I’ve yet to hear position statements from our local Congressional choices, Mike Turner (R) or Jane Mitakides (D), on how we should proceed with this bail out, and it’s highly unlikely we will. Both are well moneyed, political simpletons who believe that serving in Congress is akin to joining a country club, instead of representing your interests.

This bailout is either going to be a turning point in American history, or our final chapter. It all depends on how you vote this November.