America’s Independent Party Presidential candidate Alan Keyes has released a statement on the financial industry bailout rushing through the federal government this week, denouncing the plan and its supporters as various shades of socialism and elitism:

What I have to say about the bailout is that, with a concrete proposal on the table, it becomes much more obvious what is actually going on right now, and I think that we have to confront it. And I’ve noticed a little bit with satisfaction that some voices are being raised which call this by its right name and which understand that what we are watching is the transformation of our nation from a society that was based on a concept of economic freedom to a socialist society.

And unhappily, it means that, in the elections and the parties that are offered us in terms of the Republicans and Democrats, we’ve got what I would call the bureaucratic socialists — the people who believe in government domination for its own sake, like Barack Obama, who are essentially communists in their orientation and who want to push us down a socialist road which represents the supremacy of that government bureaucracy; and on the other hand, you have what I think of as the corporate socialists — the people who are pushing us down a socialist road because their corporate clients now see themselves as the kind of premier recipients of the tax dollars of the American people and can operate in an environment where, after they have made profit through risk-taking that could not be justified on a sound business basis, they can then be rescued from the results with taxpayer dollars while keeping their profits intact.

Keyes continues painting a bleak picture of the present relationship between the people and the government, and calls on Americans to take back their power “directly”:

We ought to be debating not some bailout, not some so-called rescue plan, but whether or not we are in fact, as a people, ready to accept socialism as our form of government. But since we have amongst our political elites so few voices — though some have been raised — that will tell the truth, the debate is not centering on these realities, but instead it is centering on a bunch of buzz words that act as if this is once again the government doing something for the rest of us, when in point of fact, all it is the consolidation of a form of government that will leave the American people out in the cold, bearing the yoke, but no longer having the power to do anything that really determines the destiny of their country.

And I have to say over all, that the spectacle is heart-breaking, and it confirms the sense of urgency I still feel that if the American people have sense to wake up and take directly the power that is being taken from them — don’t take these phony choices, don’t accept these phony alternatives — if they don’t find a way to wake up, then they’re only going to wake up into the bondage that is being prepared for them.

The entire statement can be read here.