Monday afternoon, I happened to turn the TV on just as the House of Representatives was voting on the $700 billion Bush-Paulson-Pelosi bailout bill. Watching the split-screen coverage of traders on the floor of the U.S. Stock Exchange as they stared, transfixed, waiting to see if the public, through its representatives in Washington, was going to save their skins, was exhilarating. And then, when the bill went down to defeat, and the market went back to plunging, I was thrilled.

Here's why: I'm tired of living in a de facto plutocracy. I also believe we are on the verge of a revolution in participation in government, powered by new technology that is making it possible for many more of us to connect together and have a meaningful voice in the process. The bailout bill, and the process by which it is being jammed through Congress, is an affront to those democratic values. We can do better. And the vote Monday showed, in nascent form, how the same forces that are eating away at the underpinnings of "broadcast politics," the capital-intensive way of electing a President whose demise we've been chronicling here at techPresident, are also starting to unsettle "business as usual" on Capitol Hill.

I wondered what the presidential candidates and other politicians were saying about the Federal Reserve's unprecedented interventions in the financial sector, including today's provision of $30 billion to guarantee JP Morgan Chase against the risks it will incur as it takes over Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar (and inherits its subprime portfolio).

It's not that often, after all, that the government decides to socialize someone else's losses--I can't remember many manufacturing businesses or agricultural businesses that were deemed "too big to fail." So, while looking for their public statements from today, I also went online to follow the money trail a bit further.