This week, the Center for Media and Democracy [3] is launching its new campaign on the "Banksters" with a new companion website [4], www.Banksterusa.org, and a new portal in our online encyclopedia called the "Real Economy Project." [5] We are so fortunate that Mary Bottari [6] brought this much needed effort to demystify economic issues and spur people to take action to CMD, with the support of our founder, John Stauber [7], and our Board [8].

I see this project as the beginning of a new phase in CMD's life of weighing in on crucial issues in the media and before Congress and trying to make a real difference in outcomes. In many ways, this new effort is a return to our roots and builds on CMD's long-standing mission [8] to "inform and assist grassroots citizen activism that . . . promotes economic justice." At the same time, this effort really takes the gloves off in aiming at both the spin and the underlying policies that have undermined the promise of the American dream.

It's on target, tough, and innovative. I hope you'll enjoy being part of this exciting and important new effort! Here's our release:

Fight the Big Boys on Wall Street with www.BanksterUSA.org

The Banksters have pulled off the biggest heist of all time. They have crashed the global economy, throwing 7.5 million Americans out of work, emptying retirement and college funds and forcing many into hardship and homelessness. Yet they continue to be rewarded with trillions of taxpayer dollars that underwrite their Bankster bonuses, they prey upon the vulnerable with ballooning bank fees and macabre investment schemes such as "death bonds" and their taxpayer-subsidized lobbyists swarm Capitol Hill to prevent the passage of any meaningful reform of the financial system.

The Smackdown Starts Now

This fall is a critical time. Congress is now taking up a series of bills to restore confidence in the financial sector. If you want to rein in the Banksters and if you think America deserves better than a "boom and bail" economy, you need to muscle up and weigh in. Only you can tell Congress to prioritize the interests of Main Street over the interests of Wall Street.

Bust the Banksters at BanksterUSA

www.BanksterUSA.org [9] is the go-to site for updates on the financial services re-regulation fights in Congress and for progressive netroots campaigning against the big boys on Wall Street.

Our "Action Center" [10] is a hotbed of popular campaigning on the crisis.

We know that it is wrong that a full year since the Wall Street meltdown no employee of any major American bank or blue chip financial institution is behind bars. Compare this to the Savings and Loan crisis 20 years ago. No less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 were jailed.

Our motto? Too big to fail, but not too big for jail! Click here [11] to email the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI and tell them to get cracking!

This week Congress is debating a key Obama administration reform proposal, one that would create a new "top cop" for consumers in the form of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency [12] (CFPA). This new agency will tackle abusive lending practices and protect consumers from the deceptive tricks and traps of the financial services industry. We need to pass a strong bill to empower the agency to do battle with the Banksters, but the Banksters have promised to "kill" it.

Click here [13] to tell Congress to ignore the Banksters and "Put a New Sheriff on the Block" with a Consumer Financial Protection Agency!

Our Action Center highlights the upcoming "Showdown in Chicago" which promises to be the largest grassroots protest against the Banksters of the American Bankers Association. The Action Center will also help us ramp up the campaign against Goldman Sachs' despicable "death bonds" – an investment scheme you have to see to believe.

Sign up to get the latest news and receive regular email alerts and action items. The Banksters may have the big bucks, but we have the big numbers. The only way to win reform is to make our voices heard!

Don't Let the Banksters Write the History of These Turbulent Times!

The Banksters may be whitewashing, but we can Wiki! We need your help to build a fully-sourced research companion to BankstersUSA.org on the web. It is a collection of editable Wiki profiles of the financial institutions, CEOs, lobbyists, front groups, issues and legislation related to the crisis and the bailout. It builds on our powerful Sourcewatch Wiki with its proven capacity to raise critical information in the Google-sphere so it can be easily found and used by citizens and journalists. We need citizen journalists to help us build this important resource and document the truth about these turbulent times. This Wiki is not a place for editorializing, but for quality research based on top-notch source material. Please visit the "Help Out" section of our Real Economy Project Wiki [5] portal to learn more. It is easy and fun! Our motto? "Fair, accurate and documented."

About Us

The www.BanksterUSA.org [9] site and our larger Real Economy Project are part of the Center for Media and Democracy [14] (CMD). CMD was founded in 1993 as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, public interest group focusing on exposing corporate spin and government propaganda. CMD brought you the book "Weapons of Mass Deception" before the Bush team failed to find weapons in Iraq, and we exposed "Fake News" in the media and the "Pentagon Pundits" on cable news. With this new effort, we will debunk the spinmeisters of the powerful financial services industry and help ordinary Americans take positive action on the financial crisis and the real economy.

Lisa Graves [15] is the Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy [14] based in Madison, Wisconsin.