June 22, 2010 -- When Barney Frank spoke to a group of supporters at the Brookline Democratic Town Committee meeting June 13th, he lied. In response to my charge that he opposed the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, he said that he voted against the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill. He did vote against it, but not because of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which his own statements from the time show. The truth is, as he stated on the floor of the Congress in July 1999 , he fully supported the repeal of Glass-Steagall and its separation of commercial from investment banking, declaring that, "It is a good piece of legislation for setting forth the conditions for the financial services industry," and that, "It does a very good job of creating the conditions in which the capitalist institutions can flourish, and that is a good thing." Frank emphasized, "We want capital to move freely. We gave the financial institutions everything they have asked for."

Any honest citizen today knows we have given the financial institutions "everything they have asked for," at the expense of our nation's economy and our well-being. We gave them $24 trillion in bailouts, and they don't intend to stop asking. Now their request is to leave derivative transactions without regulation, and to not reinstate Glass-Steagall. Barney Frank has spoken out loud and clear in support of their cause, defending derivatives, and putting the Glass-Steagall amendments sponsored by Rep.'s Hinchey and Dingell into the garbage bin. Did the Democratic supporters cheering for Barney at the Brookline event know that he was lying, that he actually fully supported the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, and that he is now doing everything possible to prevent it's reinstatement?

The process to deregulate the financial services industry followed the deregulation of trucking, telecommunications, airlines, and agriculture in the 1970's. During that period, we shut down our physical production, while we allowed a new mountain of financial instruments to devastate the integrity of our currency and economy. A 1984 report from J.P. Morgan made clear the intention of the London-Wall St. financial interests to wage a full-scale war to break the Glass-Steagall Act, and return to the pre-FDR era of unbridled financier cartelization. Titled "Rethinking Glass Steagall," the report summary was explicit: "Fundamental changes in our economy, important shifts in the demand for financial services, and the resulting competition among different classes of financial institutions in recent years have produced what is aptly termed a revolution in the financial services market. In this environment, competitive inequalities inherent in the rigid segmentation of the financial services industry provide another compelling reason to rethink Glass-Steagall." The specific repeal of the act in 1999 was in direct response to the merger of Citicorp with Traveler's Insurance Co., which Greenspan allowed to go through even before Glass-Steagall had been repealed.

Since then, as a royal flunky for the financial interests of the City of London and Wall St., Barney Frank has fully carried out these demands. That's why Barney Frank has to go, and we must now wage a fight to defend the interests of the nation and people against the London-centered speculators. The only way to do this, is to fully reinstate Glass-Steagall, allow the insolvent institutions to go under, and restore credit for rebuilding the real economy. The solution now must be approached from the standpoint of the future. What must we do now, to get where we want to be in 50 or 100 years? Our grandchildren will not be proud of us for a bailout, but they will be glad we chose to kick out the financiers and fought to defend the interests of the nation.

--Rachel Brown