The Erin Hart Show - Listener Forum

Erin
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Joined: Jan 1, 1970
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L'Shana Tovah to those celebrating the dawn of 5769--there is a comfort that the Jewish calendar has survived this long on a day when a lot of people lost at least 8 percent of value in their 401ks.

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama sounds reassuring and sober. "Step up to the Plate" he tells Congress. And yes, they must. John McCain just sounds cranky and out of it.

I know, I hate it too. WE need reform and more guardians at our financial gates. But this stock market plunge will likely hurt Mom and Pop businesses too, students who need loans, a young couple about to buy their first house--when I think of them I can swallow a bailout for now.

This is what happens after 8 (really 28 if you count Reagan with a brief respite during the Clinton years) years of lies and an economy built on the false premise that free markets can solve everything. (HAH--does anybody really believe the deck is NOT stacked to favor Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex and the super wealthy?)

I tend to trust the opinions Warren Buffet (who advised Obama) and Paul Krugman (of the New York Times), sadly more than I trust G.W. Bush and the right wing reactionaries who are fanning this mess whining about Nancy Pelosi and trying to insure a house while it is burning down, to borrow an excellent phrase uttered by a professor today on "To the Point".

This is what happens when greed has no governors, when capitalism is unfettered and money is virtual. This is what happens when people are told over and over again that the "market is smart" when it is not (and it certainly isn't brave); when people are told over and over again that government in all forms is bad and greed is good.

Not even Adam Smith believed that, (even invisible hands need a brain) so please, can we have sanity back now? Can we work together to forge a government that builds bridges to somewhere; helps people earn loans; educates our children and helps people get health insurance? A government that is of and by the people that saves our planet and frees us from the crack cocaine of foreign oil?

A government that helps us live within our means because we all have enough? A land of the free and home of the brave where the greedy idols are not worshipped and where truth, values and the common good are again celebrated?

Where bipartisanship is rewarded and admired? Where problem solving and deliberate action is admired and respected instead of denigrated and despised?

Yes we can and Yes we must take our country back. Even Wall Street, the bums, who deserve a lot of punishment for their sins. We must face our own sins as well, and save and work for our future.

Our only hope is for a change in government, just as fast as we can get to Nov. 4th.

A diversified nation deserves a diversified government and a diversified economy where we all pitch in and work together to work for our own good. Think what would have happened if, as former President Bill Clinton suggested, if we had built an economy more broadly by encouraging investment in green technologies and alternative energies, instead of going from boom to bust in 2000 and 2008 with Techs and mortgage derivatives built on computer-based trading, and unscrupulous lending, not reality.

Imagine a world where we trust that a President and Vice President won't sell us out to the highest bidder, start wars for oil and economic hegemony, form privatized armies who owe their loyalty to no one. Imagine a world where we can trust and elect good leaders, a world where they really think of Main Street and Rural Route One before they think of wars of so-called choice and the capitals of greed.

A Happy New Year where sweet truth flows through our veins and justice comes to our mountain tops as well as our valleys. Hope may spring eternal, but justice takes work, let's get busy helping ourselves to the best country we are capable of being.


Posted Sep 30, 2008, 1:36 am	Last edited Sep 30, 2008, 2:34 am by Erin