Video and text excerpts after the jump.

Greenwald:

In one sense, all of this drooling rage is nothing more than the familiar face of extreme right-wing paranoia … But it’s now inflamed by declining imperial power, genuine economic crises, an exotic Other occupying the White House, and potent technology harnessed by right-wing corporations such as Fox News to broadcast and disseminate it widely and continuously.

The United Kingdom’s Guardian:

Britain’s most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming “footsoldiers” in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police’s public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become “viable targets”. So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.

Beck, tracing the origins of a future American civil war to a Republican governor’s refusal to take federal stimulus funds:

We have military exercises going on in Iowa right now. We have a battalion, I believe, in Maryland. People are training for civil unrest all over the country. I believe the answers they give, and they say: “This is for this sort of this kind of unrest or this kind of unrest.” Except, we just had in our stimulus package, a way for, if your governor says no to the money, the legislature can go around the governor and go right to the feds. It’s this kind of thing that would make the federal government say, you know what, we can call up the National Guard. We don’t need your governor to do it. Do you believe those scenarios or is this crackpot stuff?

Though it hasn’t happened yet, it is appearing increasingly likely that Senate Democrats — led by Barack Obama (who seems to be playing a much more active role in all of this than his spokesperson yesterday suggested) — are going to choose Joe Lieberman to serve as their Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the next Congress.  If that happens, there will be one important silver lining:  it will remind many people, who have understandably forgotten due to the euphoria last week, exactly what most Beltway Democrats are, what their priorities and beliefs are, and to whose opinions and concerns they do and do not pay attention.

It is worth remembering that the Democrats who are going to exert dominant political control are the same ones who have provoked so much scorn — rightfully so — over the last several years, and particularly since 2006.  This is the same Democratic Party leadership which funded the Iraq War without conditions (and voted to authorize it in the first place); massively expanded the President’s warrantless eavesdropping powers; immunized lawbreaking telecoms; enacted the Patriot Act and then renewed it with virtually no changes; didn’t even bother to mount a filibuster to stop the Military Commissions Act; refrained from pursuing any meaningful investigations of Bush lawbreaking; confirmed every last extremist Bush nominee, from Michael McConnell to Michael Mukasey; acquiesced to even the worst and most lawless Bush policies when they were briefed on them; and on and on and on.  None of that has changed. That is still who they are.

Every hour of every day brings reams of fresh news reports and commentaries on the Wall Street crisis and the competing bailout proposals wending their way through Congress, but that doesn’t mean you can learn anything from most of them. David Cay Johnston, the great NYT reporter and author (Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich and Cheat Everybody Else; Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill) who has done more to illuminate the flim-flammery at the heart of the US tax code and Wall Street’s post-Reagan machinations, offered this warning to journalists yesterday:

In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don’t repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don’t assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don’t assume there is a case just because officials say there is.

The coverage of the Paulson plan focuses on the edges, on the details. The focus should be on the premise. And be skeptical of what gullible Congressional leaders, most of them up before the voters in a few weeks, say after being given a closed-door meeting on supposed horrors.

The Administration has scared the markets and some key legislative leaders, but it has not laid out a coherent, specific and compelling need for this enormous proposal, which is the equivalent of a one-time 55 percent income tax surcharge. (Instead the money will be borrowed, so ask from whom and how this much can be raised so quickly if the credit markets are nearly seized up with fear.)

Ask this question — are the credit markets really about to seize up?

If they are then lots of business owners should be eager to tell how their bank is calling their 90-day revolving loans, rejecting new loans and demanding more cash on deposit. I called businessmen I know yesterday and not one of them reported such problems. Indeed, Citibank offered yesterday to lend me tens of thousands of dollars on my signature at 2.99 percent, well below the nearly 5 percent inflation rate. That offer came after I said no last week to a 4.99 percent loan.

Here are links to some of the most prescient and on-point analyses of the past several days, starting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s no-strings-attached bailout plan.

THE PAULSON PLAN

Text of the Paulson proposal

Glenn Greenwald, “The complete (though ever-changing) elite consensus about the financial collapse” (9/20)

Glenn Greenwald, “Growing right-wing opposition to the Paulson plan” (9/22)

Glenn Greenwald, “Interview with Notre Dame finance professor Richard Sheehan” (9/23)

William Greider, “Paulson bailout plan a historic swindle” (9/19)

Michael Hudson, “The Paulson-Bernanke bank bailout: Will the cure be worse than the disease?” (9/22)

Sean-Paul Kelley, “Text of the bailout is authoritarianism at its worst” (9/20)

Paul Krugman, “No Deal” (9/20)

Paul Krugman, “Balance Sheet Baloney” (9/23)

Robert Reich, “The bailout to end all bailouts” (9/23)

THE DODD PLAN

Text of the Dodd plan (PDF)

Bloomberg News, “Dodd proposes giving US equity stake for bad debt” (9/22)

TalkLeft, “Follow the Lobbyists: They Strongly Oppose the Dodd Bill” (9/23)

THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES’ RESPONSES

NYT Caucus blog, “Obama Says Bailout Should Include 4 Conditions” (9/23)

WashPost Trail blog, “McCain Lays Out Bailout Principles” (9/23)

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Bill Allison/Sunlight Foundation, “Financial Bailout: Who’s minding the store?” (9/23)

Bill Allison/Sunlight Foundation, “Financial Bailout: Who does Dodd see at his fundraisers?” (9/23)

Bill Allison/Sunlight Foundation, “Financial Bailout: Who does Shelby see at his fundraisers?” (9/23)

Bill Allison/Sunlight Foundation, “Financial Bailout: Who does Bachus see at his fundraisers?” (9/24)

Listen: Jeff Severns Guntzel on Salon.com, Sept. 8, 2008

Listen: Jeff Severns Guntzel on KCRW, Sept. 2, 2008