The Reality Is

I thought I was just about finished with my comments on the whole McCain/Palin ticket, yet, there is more to say.

Sunday, September 14, 2008 rocked the financial world of the United States to its core. It took Alan Greenspan to come out and say this was the worse he had seen it. It was reminded of the Great Depression, also under a Republican president also. I watched the news on CNN as Lehman Brothers employees, many stopping by in their khaki shorts and flip flops, to unpack their offices, their jobs gone with the wind. The investment bankers played Monopoly and lost. It was sad to see and I thought about some of my classmates at the University of Iowa when I was working on my MBA back in 1998.

The numbers are bad. 6.1% national unemployment. 6.4% Missouri unemployment. 11% black unemployment. The middle class, in the words of Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden, "I don't care what you call it, the middle class is dying." What has caused this?

Let's see, trillion dollar tax cuts that benefited the wealthy class - like those Wall Street CEOs and investment bankers at Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Let's see, AIG is on the verge of collapse and the Chinese won't come in to save it. Let's see, 1% of the population controlling and owning 23.4% of the nation's income. Let's see, six years of deregulation of the financial markets. Let's see, the highest foreclosure rate since the Great Depression. Let's see, gas over $4 a gallon.

The Republican candidate is clueless about the economy. He doesn't know how many houses he owns and basically has lives off his heiress mistress-turned-wife. The tax cut that Senator Barack Obama proposes is for 95% - that's ninety-five-per-cent - of the U.S. population. It is only those making over $250,000 that will be taxes under an Obama/Biden administration. It is necessary to point this out, it is not the lie that the Republicans keep trying to get poor, white, uneducated Americans to believe.

The reality sits when I look outside my house. My new neighbor, across the street, renting a small two-bedroom house in a middle-class neighborhood, has a John McCain sign out front. Clueless in that they are voting against their economic best interests. We've been stabbed and left to bleed under President Bush, the bloodletting will be even worse under two people who admit to being clueless about the economy.

In the midst of the nation's economic crisis, John McCain had the nerve to say the economy is fundamentally strong. In the words of Senator Barack Obama, "what economy are you talking about?" It is not the economy that has us stretching a chicken breast to feed a family of five. It is not the economy that has a box of cereal pushing $5. It is not the economy that costs $89 to fill up the gas tank.

Senator John McCain, on his CNN interview talked about the American worker being strong. I have news for him, it wasn't the American worker that destroyed the economy. Americans, black, white, Hispanic, have all wanted to work and do work hard. It wasn't the American worker that destroyed Wall Street or camped out in all-minority neighborhoods to push, lie, and bully borrowers into subprime loans so the broker could get a commission. It wasn't the American worker that sent the jobs overseas in favor of cheap international labor. It wasn't the American worker the destroyed companies and walked out with fat CEO golden parachutes. It wasn't the American worker that engaged in an illegal war that has bankrupted the country and saddled my children with debt.

It is coming down to this, would Americans vote for the black guy who had the education and the vision to get us out of this economic mess of the last eight years of the right-wing fundamental, neo-con hijacking of the Republican Party and America. Or would they let their prejudices guide them and end up in the worse economic times?

Time for a reality check.