With another showdown on the debt ceiling looming, President Obama has two choices: 1) Follow the dictates of the 14th Amendment as to the unquestioned validity of the public debt of the United States or 2) Face impeachment for failure to uphold his oath of office.


We the People can no longer tolerate enslavement to the dictates of private and international credit rating agencies, representing the same Wall Street interests who terrorize, bribe and blackmail our pathetic representatives to Congress. A true President would not abrogate his powers by opening the door to the destruction of the nation's credit, currency and economy.


The present chirping about floating a trillion dollar platinum coin, now officially rejected by Obama, is a gimmick of the worst kind, for it represents a further entrenchment of a system where we must borrow our future from private financiers. We don't need to trick our central bank ­ we need to own it. As the world's greatest sovereign nation, the United States is inherently solvent, unlike the zombie hordes of Wall Street and London.


President Obama faces a historical point of inflection, with precious little time to decide his fate and ours. On one hand he can choose ignominy for sacrificing an entire nation to a clique of finance oligarchs. On the other, he can summon whatever personal courage he has left to rescue his legacy, his party and his country from the jaws of defeat.
What a great American President would do:

Invoke the 14th Amendment. The US Constitution affirms the legitimate public debt of the United States. There can be no arbitrary debt ceiling ­ those debts the people by their representatives choose to incur are valid.


No Cuts. Take Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and other elements of the "general welfare" off the table. If America doesn't "negotiate with terrorists," then we can not capitulate to the austerity ghouls of either party who hold our national interest hostage to the interests of Wall Street.


1% Wall Street Sales Tax. Our budget crisis is based largely on the fact that quadrillions in non-productive financial speculation flow untaxed each year through New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City and other financial centers. If this President had any guts, he would commit to making Wall Street pay for the depression they created. America demands a 1% Wall Street Sales Tax on stocks, bonds, futures, options, derivatives and other securities. This should be implemented immediately, with provisions to protect household-level investment, with revenue divided between the Federal and State governments.


Seize and Nationalize the Federal Reserve: The insane TARP and Quantitative Easing policies demonstrate the power of a central bank. These powers must now be denied to parasitical speculators and provided for infrastructure and physical production. Order the Federal Reserve, en route to formal nationalization, to purchase Century Bonds (0% interest, 100 year maturity) and similar long-term securities, from states and regional authorities for an emergency program of disaster aid, reconstruction and shovel-ready infrastructure.


Begin with a politically-insulated purpose like reconstruction of areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, and the model can be quickly expanded to fund massive new infrastructure projects, public services and a long-overdue rebirth of American industry and agriculture. The banking cartel, fresh of the Libor rate-fixing scandal, can not be trusted until they are reorganized in bankruptcy and cut down to size, their derivatives shredded and their operations re-regulated by a revived Glass-Steagall law. Such a program is now being developed by the growing United Front Against Austerity (http://againstausterity.org).
America accepts the war against Wall Street

Beyond validating the public debt, the 14th amendment further invalidates debts incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States. The so-called banks of London and Wall Street have nothing to do with regulated capital investment, but are parasites, enemies and rebels against the sovereign nation-state for which Obama is the supposed executive.


A great president said of the American Civil War, "Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came." The goal of finance oligarchy, as always, is no less than to dissolve the nation-states and divide their effects. The war before us is not against any fictional terrorists at home or abroad, but against those terrorists with the power and influence to destroy us all.


Mr. Obama, which war will you fight? Wall Street's war on poor and working people at home? Its endless war of imperial conquest abroad? Or the only war that can transform you from a loathed, bitter disappointment into a potentially great figure of history?