BAIL OUT OR NO BAIL OUT: THAT IS THE QUESTION
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistDespite all the reshuffling of our belongings to storage–as we are going to become homeless by next Tuesday–I’ve been keeping up on the developments surrounding the firestorm with bailing out Wall Street to the tune of $1 trillion dollars or more. (Because $700B is too low a number.)
What I find disturbing is how John McCain thinks that this can be his “shining moment” where he comes in to save the day–in classic John Wayne style.
First he makes contradictory statements that the bailout plan will be approved and that Congress is making progress, but apparently things have gotten so bogged down with resistance from conservative Republicans and some Democrats; that the realistic chances of this passing any time soon–even by next Monday (at the White House’s insistence) is almost next to nothing.
But then McCain does a curious flip-flop by first suspending his campaign–and then claims he needs to hurry to Washington to get things going. (Even though he has already stated that he knows next to nothing about the economy.)
However–he has time to do some media interviews and then pisses off David Letterman all at the same instant; by claiming he “can’t make it”?
(I don’t blame Dave for being upset. I would be too!)
When McCain
finally gets to Washington, his role in the bailout becomes even more
clear: He’s just a minor functionary at best. His place in the crisis is nothing more than a small footnote and an unimportant one at that.
Not a real player at all.
Because what it boils down to is whether or not Congress has the stomach to swallow this massive bailout plan–which is mostly the GOP’s cause in the first place. (With their love affair for a deregulated market.)
Democrats on the other hand face little backlash from this appropriation measure–because in classic Democrat style–they are always the ones to come in and clean up the Republicans’ mess–long after they leave office.
But it still leaves the American people with two choices: Do something
now and delay an even more painful recession down the road.
Or do nothing at all, watch everything collapse, then pick up the pieces afterwards.
If I were a betting man, I would go for the latter.
Because we may need that $700B later to rebuilding our shattered financial system–not use it to bail out the fat cats of Wall Street.
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: bailout, Congress, Democrats, financial crisis, John McCain, Republicans, Wall Street
TAXPAYERS ON THE HOOK FOR TRILLIONS IN BANK BAILOUTS
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistWhen Bush said that the Iraq war would only cost taxpayers $50B back in 2003; he should’
ve grabbed Cheney’s crystal ball and fast-forwarded the
real amount of the conflict by a factor of 3000; by presenting the American public in 2008 with a staggering bill that will reach anywhere between $1.3 trillion dollars and $3.2 trillion. (The latter used as a safety-net in the event that a future President Sara
Palin decides to stick it out in Iraq on the likelihood that John McCain kicks the bucket prematurely during his first and only term in office.)
So when the media and the government tells the people that we are only going to be on the “hook” for as little as $25 billion to $50 billion, I
wouldn’t be cashing in your chips just yet.
The true
staggering amount that the government will have to bail out one major institution after is far retching than just a small paltry amount revolving comfortably around the $25B or $50B number in retrospect.
Many of the banking institutions and mortgage lenders hold
trillions of dollars in holdings, liens, and treasury notes–which are being sucked down the hole of debt created by the foreclosure market meltdown.
Do you honestly
think that both the mortgage industry and the banking institution–which has been
deregulated by the Republican Party these last 8 years or more–will only be slapping each one of us
lightly with pitiful amounts of
accrued debt by the time all this mess is sorted out and taken care of?
Dream on.
The American taxpayer is going to be
screwed up the ass over the next couple of years or so–depending on how long this foreclosure crisis lasts–and be stiffed for hundreds of billions in higher taxes; just to cover the
huge losses incurred by the mortgage industry and possible
trillions tacked on by the failing banking system–as each major bank falls prey to sour and bad loans.
Then we have the credit crisis which has yet to be addressed. And when that costly endeavor is over too…?
There may not be much of an America left to by cheap beer with anymore.Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: bailout, Federal Reserve Bank, foreclosure crisis, Iraq, media, President Bush, tax payers
WHY SEX EDUCATION AND CONTRACEPTIVES ARE STILL VITAL
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistTeen pregnancies are no laughing matter–no matter how much the Republican Party keeps cracking jokes and making fun of the whole idea; while denying funding for sex-education programs and covering contraceptives all the same time. (Like McCain has done.)
The truth of the matter, is that abstinence is no substitute for proven sex-education programs and contraceptives.
Abstinence just means you
abstain from partaking in sex. It doesn’t protect you from unwanted pregnancies or sexually-transmitted diseases. (Should it occur.)
Contraceptives–in conjunction with sex-ed programs–
will to some extent.
Bristol Palin is paying the price for such a mistake–either on her part as an uninformed teenager, her lack of a solid education, or her mother’s staunch opposition for sex-ed and contraceptives. (Which could’ve saved her from being pregnant in the first place.)
But she is paying that price nonetheless.The sad fact to this whole affair is that McCain’s supporters, the religious right, and the so-called social conservatives whom are against teen pregnancies from the start (but have no problem with voicing their opposition to abortion) are rallying around Palin–acting like she’s some kind of
heroine for allowing her kid to get pregnant at such a young age and seeing the baby to full-term.
But they don’t see just how
hypocritical their stance on such a matter really is.
They refuse to see why sex education and the use of contraceptives is so vital
to our society is these days.
Whatever the down side to this matter eventually becomes, it won’t make the problem go away overnight. Bristol still has to deal with being a young, unwed mother–the same problem which thousands of teenage mothers have to go through every day here in the United States.
But the issue is still there. And sex-education and contraceptives are still a much needed deterrent against unwanted pregnancies.
Even if the Republican Party doesn’t want to deal with it–
especially during one of their election years.Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: abstinence, contraceptives, hypocritical, John McCain, politics, Republican Party, Sara Palin, sex education, teenage mothers
TWO ISSUES THAT NEITHER PARTY ADDRESSES
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistOver the last three decades, I’ve noticed a curious thing about our society.
We often bitch and complain about our material needs, the national deficit, high energy prices, food prices, wars, conflicts, the Cold War, social injustices, AIDS, women’s rights, abortion, gun rights, government corruption, infringement of personal rights, the environment, global warming, gay marriage, cronyism, corruption within our own government, the draft, military readiness, the war on terrorism, global warming, government incompetence, negative attack ads, our patriotism, values, a lack of morals, religion, God, the Bible, our stance in the world community, science, technology, warrantless spying, lack of affordable healthcare, universal healthcare, pensions, living wages, minimum wages, education, a lack of good education, college tuition, national security, borders, illegal immigration, school shootings, the right to live, the right to die, assisted suicide, free speech, dissenting opinion, the Constitution, racial intolerance, racial bigotry, xenophobia, terrorists, Muslims, Roe v. Wade, and so on.
Literally, the list is
endless on how much we focus our attention on everything but
two outstanding problems which has been a mainstay in this country of ours:
Poverty and homelessness.
Why hasn’t our nation devoted more of its attention and resources to these two problems than just go about acting like the above list is more
important while constantly
condemning millions of Americans to a life of both?
Whatever happened to compassion and caring in this great nation of ours?
Certainly, there could be
more done to address these glaring issues by ourselves. But neither the government, nor the two-party system has shown that much
willingness to buckle down and really start addressing and
fixing the problems which cause both poverty and homelessness.
If we are the richest nation in the world, why
do we still have these problems? Why do millions of Americans constantly live in the throes of abject poverty and in the grips of being homeless every day?
Why does the majority of Americans spend their waking moments living from paycheck to paycheck, while others spend yet another year out on the streets of the United States?
Can anyone answer me these questions?
Our two-party system cannot. None of our candidates won't. They are too busy beating each other over the head--then addressing the real core problems our country has endured for a generation or more.
One of the things that the foreclosure and credit card meltdown had created was a
glut of people seeking a place to live until this hellish mess that the current administration had created blows over.
But in the process, it started jacking rents up so obscenely that not many people have been able to escape the nightmare that was once considered the American Dream:
Living in your own place.
What was once considered
reasonable rent has now left millions of Americans
struggling to make the monthly rent on such stagnant incomes.
And every year for the past 4 years now, rents have skyrocketed to levels not seen in recent memory.
What is our government’s response to this problem?
Nothing.The Bush administration and Congress had no plan for renters getting caught up in this catastrophic mess. But they
did have an answer to mortgage lenders and roughly 400,000 struggling homeowners though:
By bailing them out to the tune of $25 billion dollars or more.What about a renter’s rescue package–hmm? How about diverting some money to the rental industry so that some financial pressure can be taken
off people like myself; whom is facing the all too real nightmare of being
homeless in the next six weeks?
Why do we constantly keep diverting
billions of our own dollars to rescue financial institutions whom create these fucking messes in the first place? All it’s doing is giving these big business conglomerates more
incentive to do more of the same damned thing over again–years down the road!
But not surprisingly enough, neither party really
cares about the little guy. People like myself–whom is in the process of packing and wondering where the hell my wife and I are going to go next:
Into a smaller bedroom unit or will we be spending the next several years out on the streets because we lack
the money and resources to find affordable housing?
No…
Both the Democrats and the Republicans have both shown considerable indifference towards the poor, the homeless, and the impoverished by continuing to bail out Corporate America at the expense of the taxpayer–and leaving us all to fend for ourselves the best we can.
Because this is America, right?
This is what it means to aspire for our own American Dream? To live in constant poverty or be homeless–because our system of government favors the rich and wealthy than it does the concerned welfare of its lower-caste citizens?
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: Democrats, government, homelessness, issues, poor, poverty, Republicans, resources, society
MCCAIN'S 'LATCH-KEY' WAR FINISHED BY 2010
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistFor weeks now, John McCain’s desperation was only beginning to set in–soon after Barrack Obama returned from his successful tour of the Middle East and Europe.
But ever since the Iraqi government wanted the US to start withdrawing our troops from that battlefield, John McCain’s desperation only increased ten-fold.
From his negative attack ads portraying him as a ‘celebrity candidate’ rather than a
real Presidential candidate–to his false troops ad which openly accused him of ‘shortchanging our wounded troops’–John’s perfect little ‘hero’ world has begun to fall apart at the seams.
Since the surge has worked to some degree, it’s only perfectly
logical that we withdraw our forces and focus them elsewhere–like Afghanistan for example. (But that’s only
if either candidate has a clue as to what is
really going on over there. This other war is totally different from Iraq.)
But why is John McCain accusing Obama of wanting to ‘legislate’
failure from the bench–when we are clearly
winning in Iraq?
Simply put, McCain is still trying to paint Obama as an inexperienced candidate whom can’t make the right decisions as President.
Unfortunately, what John McCain fails to grasp is that his unwavering support of an unpopular war has led the majority of Americans to say that this conflict was a
mistake–similarly echoing American opinion from another failed conflict only a generation ago. (Vietnam.)
Secondly, since we are
winning the war in Iraq, why not leave? The one question that John McCain has thus far failed to answer is this one:
Why do you feel the need to overextend our stay in a country that clearly wants us out
?
Is it because John wants one last ’gasp’ of a Cold War victory over an enemy that he can neither see nor properly identity in Iraq? Is it because he wants to put the ghosts of a painful past–finally to rest? (By sticking us in place inside a war that is now largely over?)
Or is it because John McCain himself doesn’t want to embrace the very victory that he originally set out to have?
A latch-key victory with strings still attached?
Whether or not he wants to accept it, John McCain must face the reality of the new Iraq. That when October 2010 finally rolls around–we are
gone largely from a country we illegally occupied for the last 7 years.
Victory or not, our job is
done.
It’s time to focus our troops onto something else.
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: 2010, Barrack Obama, Iraq war, John McCain, negative attack ads, troop surge, troops, Vietnam, withdrawal
OBAMA TAKES THE JOHN MCCAIN CHALLENGE AND WINS BIG
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistI feel sorry for John McCain:
The current lame-duck candidate for the GOP.No one asked him to challenge Obama a few months ago to take a trip to the Middle East–
let alone expect Obama to call John’s bluff.But he did both and now McCain is grinding his government-paid dentures in agitation and frustration over just how
popular Obama was seen over in Berlin this past week.
While John had perhaps a dozen voters join him in a German restaurant in Ohio for a quick photo-op, Barrack Obama had over 200,000
people attend his speech over at the Wall in Berlin, Germany; speaking to a crowd of people whom represented the hopes and dreams of better US-European relations. (Which have soured considerably under the Bush presidency.)
And what does John McCain have waiting for Barrack Obama when he comes back? Nothing but
bitter acrimony and divisive comments about the
same trip he once challenged Obama on the matter of foreign policy.
Why?
Because John McCain was expecting Obama to fall on his face when he went.
He was expecting Obama to eat crow over the recent success of the surge and come back feeling humiliated and subdued; while getting an invigorating boost
in his lackluster polls and standing with most American voters.
That didn’t happen.
What
did happen was the exact
opposite!
Malaki actually
endorsed Obama’s 16-month troop withdrawal plan; rather than give McCain more hate-filled political rhetoric for his GOP campaign!
That in
itself boosted Obama’s foreign policy credentials, while his trip to Berlin shored up his stance as an able-bodied
Commander-in-Chief.
Someone whom could
talk at the same level of everyone else–instead of treating our allies like chumps and every event in the Middle East as some kind of video game that we can
win simply by force and numbers alone.
Neither Bush nor McCain have proven themselves as capable leaders in either field. They still harbor the same Cold War malaise of the past 40 years; with one looking for a pariah-ic victory in Iraq, and the other still fighting the ghosts of Vietnam.
Obama on the other hand? He spoke from the
heart and spoke of everything which has not only kept this country divided for the last 8 years, but of things which most Europeans have long since abandoned since the Cold War ended:
Walls.You won’t hear this kind of talk from John “Lame Duck”-McCain. On his mind, anyone who isn’t with him is a ‘defeatist’ and only looking for America to “surrender” to the same
invisible enemies that he still hasn‘t been able to identify to this very day.
But in the long run, McCain has already surrendered his chances of obtaining the White House Presidency.
While Obama on the other hand–? Has won big by taking the very
risks that McCain simply refuses to candidly embrace as a whole.
Only because he’s plain afraid to.John McCain just simply doesn’t have the courage necessary to face today’s changing world–while embattled with his own fears of the past.
Obama does. And that makes him a more worthwhile candidate for President.Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: Barrack Obama, Berlin, John McCain, lame duck, risks, speech, trip
IF THE MILITARY SURGE IS SO ‘SUCCESSFUL’–WHY NOT JUST LEAVE?
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistThe moment this Iraq war started to turn itself around, the military brass started to panic.
What if things do calm down–then what do we do?No one had any answers to that question. Neither did Bush nor McCain–both a strong advocate of ‘staying the course till victory is
declared’.
The military surge was in answer to the spiraling, out-of-control violence that threatened to tip Bush’s Iraq war into complete chaos without any way back.
So in went 30,000 troops whom pacified much of Baghdad and the surrounding areas. And while that did seem to shake things up a bit, there was still no progress on the political front.
Just recently, Malaki demanded that the US draw up a time table by next year–a
withdrawal date for all US troops to leave his country.
That–in effect–set off alarm bells all over the place. Not just for the Bush cabal, the military brass, but McCain’s camp and his supporters.
“We can’t leave!”--was the rallying cry for all involved.
“Setting withdrawal dates just plays into the enemies’ hands!”How odd that they would make such a statement–wouldn’t you think? After all, if the military surge is a ‘success’–why not just take Malaki on his offer and get the hell out of Dodge?
Pull all our troops out and push them into Afghanistan–where the real war is presently?
Trouble is, this would play right into Obama’s campaign strategy of troops withdrawal within a year and a half of him getting elected President; whereas McCain just wants to continue Bush’s feeble excuse for victory–by keeping our troops in a country that wasn’t even a
threat to begin with, but no longer poses much of a challenge for our military forces in the here and now.
And neither Bush nor McCain wants to see Obama get a boost from a viable plan that clearly countermands what they've had in play for the last 6 years.The insurgency has pretty much died out by the time the surge was completed–with no measurable amount of enemy casualties to show for an effective campaign. The only thing that the military brass was using were ridiculous charts and bar graphs to
show our incremental surges of progress–but in the end, it didn’t have that
electrifying of an effect on Congress as it did have on Bush and the war profiteers.
You would think that they would've been happy
by now!But no...they still aren't.
Now–with Malaki demanding that we leave his country far sooner than McCain or Bush would’ve liked–the military brass is now more worried about everything being ‘undone’ by such a withdrawal or even a ‘timetable’ for such.
Why–if things were such a ‘success’? Why worry at all? It’s a bit puzzling how the military should be the exact
opposite instead of fearful and agonizingly uncertain.
As they are now.
Which means, that all this talk of “success” is either vastly overstated, or the plain fact of the matter is that the Iraqis and Malaki have finally grown tired of the US’s mess left at that their doorstop to clean up after 6.5 years of brutal occupation–
and have demanded
that they leave.No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.
And we have to leave; having overstayed our welcome.That is the nature of a war-torn country growing fed up with their incompetent occupiers--
is it not? Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: Bush, Iraq war, John McCain, Malaki, Obama, timetables, withdrawal
