Foreclosure Prevention Act For Whom?

Ok, call me crazy but I thought a foreclosure prevention bill is suppose to be designed to help average folks stem off foreclosures. So will someone tell me how a foreclosure prevention bill would contain bail-out money for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries? What do these clowns in Washington have to do to prove to the American public where their loyalties lie. Why is it that when average Americans seek help from their government they are treated to: rely on capitalism and the free enterprise system, but when these CEO’s, who get million dollar bonuses whether their companies succeed or not, make bad business decisions it is ok for the government to bail them out. Who says we are capitalist? I guess the poor are, but the rich sure as hell aren’t.

WASHINGTON — The Senate proclaimed a fierce bipartisan resolve two weeks ago to help American homeowners in danger of foreclosure. But while a bill that senators approved last week would take modest steps toward that goal, it would also provide billions of dollars in tax breaks — for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries, as well as home builders.

The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.[1]

These representatives of the people have made the argument that they don’t want to bail-out consumers who have made bad credit choices. Let’s say for the sake of argument that some mom and pops did overextend their budgets and purchased homes a little out of their budgets. These people made bad decisions concerning thousands of dollars, while these CEO’s have made bad decisions in the millions of dollars. I can never understand how so many Americans have bought into the false narrative that the government safety net for them is bad, but that it is ok for corporations. It is this same mentality that allowed so many Americans to bite the bullet during the Depression while their rich counterparts continued to live high on the hog. We are being treated to a similar situation today, while many Americans are facing dire economic straits the hedge-fund managers, CEO’s, and other Wall-Streeters have not only lost any buying power they have actually increased their wealth.

Congressional Democrats are also hearing from consumer advocates and other groups who say that the Senate bill does little to help Americans in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.

“The Senate legislation gave corporations and Wall Street billions in tax breaks,” Terence M. O’Sullivan, the president of the Laborers International Union of North America, said at a news conference on Tuesday to denounce the bill.

“Tax breaks for corporate home builders won’t help stabilize the housing market, won’t create jobs and won’t prevent a single foreclosure,” he continued. “If anything, this multibillion-dollar windfall will make things worse.”[2]

It doesn’t seem to matter who is in the White House or who is in the majority in the House the results are the same. The moneychangers continue to rob from the public coffers with little resistance or oversight from those elected to protect us. Instead of bickering about who is bitter and who isn’t, who has more experience, or who is out of touch maybe our candidates could discuss how they are going to deal with coming economic meltdown and the continuing transfer of wealth from the average American to the super-rich. What a campaign about issues? God forbid.

Senator McCain has made it clear that he has no intention of changing course on the war or the economy. And instead of focusing on the real enemy of the American people the Democrats are arguing about the most insignificant things in an effort to distance themselves from each other. They need to be distancing us from the ill-fated policies of Bush and his clone McSame. But who wants a campaign that deals with issues, when we can have the “Desperate Candidates” soap-opera? In the meantime the folks who need foreclosure relief the most will lose out to the likes of American Airlines, Goodyear, and General Motors all of whom I guess are subject to foreclosure.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16bailout.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16bailout.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Is This Ironic Or What?

In what has to be one of the most ironic moments in US political history, John Edwards arguably the best progressive candidate in the Presidential race is being ignored. Mr. Edwards is being ignored not because of his ideas or policy positions. It is not because he is not a tireless and exciting campaigner. No, my friends it is because he is a white male. Despite both other candidates call for and representations of change, no one is pressing the issue of changing the status quo more than John Edwards. In normal times with the mood of the country, Mr. Edwards would be the front-runner. However, times are different. I never thought I would say that being a white man in America is detrimental to being elected President. It sounds crazy just saying it, but here we are. With history weighing in the balance, Mr. Edwards could not have picked a worse time to run for President. There is Hillary Clinton making a bid to be the first woman nominated by a major Party and Barack Obama trying to become the first black man nominated. Unfortunately for Mr. Edwards the march towards history will not be kind.

After almost 220 years and 43 Presidents, all of whom were white males, the tide appears to be changing. Because of these history making events the Edwards campaign has been ignored and minimized by the media and a lot of the voting public from the start. It seems that the Democratic primary voters have decided to vote for anyone, but the white guy. This is not to say that the other two candidates are not capable or attractive. It is not to say that they do not present ideas and visions of America that the voters like, but no one has articulated the current struggles that America faces as well as John Edwards, in my opinion. So as the country and the Democratic voters flirt with history, a white male that seems to finally get it goes unnoticed.

There will be voices that say it is about time for the changes we are witnessing and I for one could not agree more. I have to ask myself though what is better, to have a history making President or a President that will make history. While I believe that either Obama or Clinton will do a better job of being President than any Republican, is that good enough for us? We are at a defining moment in American history and I for one do not want to choose a President that’s just better than a Republican. I want a President that will have the courage to take on the entrenched power structure that has allowed the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the wealthiest Americans. While I applaud the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for their historic significance, I don’t have confidence that they will take on the difficult task of reforming a system that is thoroughly corrupt and broken.

My sense is that they will attack some of the symptoms, but leave the disease intact. After George Bush this may satisfy a great many Americans, I however will not be one of them. I am not looking for Bush-lite in the war on terror, corporate influence over our democracy, or empire building. I want someone who will repudiate in no uncertain terms the past and not just the past eight years. I was watching Bill Maher on HBO and he had Tony Snow on the panel and listening to him trying to continue to justify the policies of this administration and the status quo was more than I could bear. What it did do was further illustrate to me the depth to which the propaganda has reached. This is no time for band-aids, we need to tear down the old and create something completely new. If I hear one more person say we are “fundamentally sound” as a nation, I am going to scream.

We are not fundamentally sound as a nation. We have hundreds of people imprisoned without trials in Cuba, we have over 2 million of our own citizens imprisoned, we have 150,000 troops in Iraq with no plans to get them out, we have over 40 million citizens without basic healthcare, we have just 1% of the US population owning 38% of the wealth, we have millions of people who are getting or about to get evicted from their homes, we have racial tensions boiling just under the surface, we have homelessness and poverty at record levels, we are torturing our fellow humans, we have a democracy that is being sold to the highest bidders, we are continuing to replace living wage jobs with service oriented minimum wage jobs, and we have a two-party system that is not responsive to anyone.

It is time we stop kidding ourselves, we have some serious issues that need to be addressed. We need a President that is willing to lead the fight to reclaim America for all Americans. It has always amazed me how the wealthy have used their talking heads to discredit those who talk about real change. Obama and Clinton are only offering to change how we do things, not changing what we are doing. John Edwards is saying we need to change not only how we do things, but also just as importantly what things we do.

The media has ignored him and they have labeled him a hypocrite. Here is what I don’t understand; when a poor person speaks out against the wealth discrepancy they are labeled a communist or a socialist that is jealous of the wealthy. When a rich person speaks out against the discrepancy they are labeled a hypocrite. My question is this, “who can speak out against the wealth gap”? The answer is no one can. The media will continue to ignore, denounce, and misrepresent anyone who has the nerve to speak out against the corporate raping of America.

I believe in John Edwards. I believe in his determination, his commitment, and his honesty. The American people are being offered a hoax. The hoax is that they are being offered the appearance of change in the candidate’s appearances, while the candidate that offers true change in substance is being marginalized. This is the real irony of the election, because it is the white guy.

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John Edwards Big Gamble

In an interview on Sunday, John Edwards dropped a bombshell and took an enormous gamble. My first thought was why would he make such statements on the eve of the Iowa caucuses? My second thought was to consider the viability of his proposal. I wondered if this was some last second ploy to pander to the anti-war voters in Iowa based on some last-minute polling data. The thing about the Edwards campaign is that he has never shied away from providing details to accompany his policy statements and Sunday appears to be no different. While others have continued to throw out generalities and vague statements concerning Iraq and ending our involvement, Mr. Edwards has taken the bold step of actually outlining steps he would take to do so.

“To me, that is a continuation of the occupation of Iraq,” he said in a 40-minute interview on Sunday aboard his campaign bus as it rumbled through western Iowa.

In one of his most detailed discussions to date about how he would handle Iraq as president, Mr. Edwards staked out a position that would lead to a more rapid and complete troop withdrawal than his principal rivals, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who have indicated they are open to keeping American trainers and counterterrorism units in Iraq.[1]

According to the interview Mr. Edwards would call for the immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 US troops, followed by the withdrawal of the remaining troops within 9 or 10 months. Mr. Edwards’ plan would leave a force of 4,000 to 5,000 troops for embassy duty and protection of aid workers. This plan of course is the most accelerated withdrawal of any of the other major candidates; it also flies in the face of the military, the State Department, and conventional wisdom. There are many who predict a complete collapse in Iraq if we withdraw.

While many will view this as a desperate effort to garner last minute votes in Iowa, I see it as a long-term strategic move to tap into the larger anti-war vote in America. In the last mid-term Congressional elections the voters of America elected the Democrats to end the war. In what has been the best example of spinelessness in the history of our country, they have failed to do so. In fact they have provided Mr. Bush with every piece of legislation and funding he has sent to them. Despite the “surge” is working rhetoric and the “good news” from Iraq, there is still a large number of voters, especially Democratic voters who are very disappointed with the efforts of the current Congress and their jellyfish imitation.

The anti-war movement in this country has been minimized and under-reported from the beginning by the MSM. Make no mistake about it, just as Mr. Edwards has declared war on the corporate elite and their disproportionate share of wealth in this country, part of his wide-ranging agenda is to also end the occupation of Iraq. Mr. Edwards recognizes that part of the historically high profits being made is a direct result of our involvement in Iraq. There is the war-profiteers being supplied at taxpayer expense, there is the high cost of gas being fueled by the instability in Iraq, and there is the corruption of Iraqi politicians that continue to allow them to drag their feet on reconciliation. We must begin to show some resolve not just against the terrorist, but also against those who are stealing us blind under the guise of terrorism. We need to think about all the costs we have paid since 9/11, I would venture that the cost of each one of those 2,900 plus lives has been to the tune of over 2 billion dollars each. Think about that for a moment. If we were to include all costs associated with homeland security, the two wars, and the war profiteering and corruption since 9/11, what has it been for each life lost.

I believe that what Mr. Edwards is saying is we must begin to put this all in perspective and the way to do this is by dialing down our involvement in Iraq and allowing the Iraqis and the rest of the world to take a part in this reconstruction. Since 9/11, we have not had a national conversation about what sensible and responsible responses we should be pursuing. We all just jumped on the Neo-con bandwagon and went off half-cocked around the world to extract our revenge. We must move away from the temple of 9/11 where too many have been worshipping and begin to look realistically at the world and our place in it.

“That is a very important question for the president of the United States because it is very much a judgment call,” Mr. Edwards said. “Do I believe that we have had a moral responsibility? I do. The question is, How long does that moral responsibility continue and at what juncture is it the right decision to end what we have been doing and shift that responsibility to them?”

“Let’s assume for a minute that come January 2009 we still have a significant troop presence in Iraq, which I think is likely,” Mr. Edwards added. “If that is the case, then I think another 9 to 10 months of American troop involvement and expenditure of taxpayer money with an intense effort to resolve the political conflict and intense diplomacy, then at that point America has done what it can do.”[2]

The time has come to end the crusade. We must begin to refocus on America and all that ails us. Many will say that this is the beginning of isolationism, they would be wrong. What it is, is the beginning of cleaning up our own house before we begin to clean up the world. We have a major struggle before us here at home, the struggle of corporatism and wealth strangulation from the top. The war on terror has been a distraction and it has allowed us to watch the biggest disparity of wealth accumulation in our nation’s history. It is time we focused on this struggle or it won’t matter what happens in Iraq or anywhere else in the world.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/us/politics/02edwards.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/us/politics/02edwards.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1199297375-nTvB2yKgo93g2bIG+4mpqg

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