Since I posted yesterday’s appeal to labor to really dive into the financial crisis, I’ve gotten a number of calls or emails pointing to various statements made by labor leaders. As I said yesterday, I’m truly glad that John Sweeney, Andy Stern and others have made strong public statements.

   BUT…statements are not enough. We are facing an unprecedented crisis–and, as I said, opportunity. One side wants to hand the executive branch a massive amount of power to run our economy, financed by our tax dollars and bailout the free-marketeers who, once again, have made a mess of the economy.

   We have the opportunity to shift the debate in the country in a dramatic fashion and give market fundamentalism the burial it so richly deserves (I’d suggest, however, an unmarked grave so no one can unearth the corpse again).

   But, in my humble opinion, unless we lead mass numbers of people into the streets, we will not get that. Though even some Republicans oppose what they see as a socialist bailout (I love it), at the end of the day, even a compromise is not enough. It  will likely include new regulation (a good thing) and maybe even punish the execs who got us into this mess by capping their salaries (and maybe a few will go to jail for fraud).

   But, that is not the same as driving a stake through the heart of market fundamentalism, which would be a much broader attack on so-called "free trade" and a push for real health care reform (single-payer, not a warmed-over version of "universal health care" that keeps the private insurance industry in the game), for example.