As the DOW dropped eight hundred points yesterday and closed at a negative 369 falling below 10,000, a dark pall came over this nation where I suppose many are angry and feeling depressed. I just know that many of our fellow Americans are still feeling this way as I type this column.
I must add that when the stock market began to crash two weeks ago and did so dramatically today, it brought upon a fear more damaging to us all than the attacks on 9/11. Those who attacked us are our financial institutions and not some terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda. While that attack upon our nation was a one-day event, this financial-terror keeps on coming. One is left to ask: How do we protect ourselves by an unseen enemy especially when some economists are as confused as we are?
I find myself going from site-to-site to hear or read what economists are saying and it leaves me feeling totally depressed where anxiety sets in. Heading to overseas-markets-sites to see how the foreign markets are reacting at night, it becomes clear to me how our markets will react in the morning. It is as if a financial-nuclear-missile is headed our way and we are powerless to shoot it down. There is not even an adequate bomb-shelter to protect us from this incoming missile. We are not even sure how long this fallout will be. But, we do know that there will be fallout.
While the attacks on 9/11 hit three locations these events are being felt coast-to-coast. When I first saw the DOW down by 800 points, I became literally terrified and actually screamed out for HELP and for the war in Iraq to be shut down. We cannot afford that war anymore. In fact, part of me has felt that the terrorists on 9/11 actually did win. They knew all too well that we would go into Iraq where we have spent over $500 billion dollars to date. We could have used that money right now. Senator McCain was itching to go to war in Iraq and he must pay the price in this presidential election.
As I was listening to Hardball with Chris Matthews tonight, he mentioned in times of crisis, we as Americans need a father figure who is calm and can lead us through a crisis similar to the way Walter Cronkite did during numerous events in our history. Through these horrific financial terror attacks, it is becoming evidently clear that such a father-figure can be found in Senator Barack Obama. In fact today when he said that McCain wishes to turn the page on this economy and move to something else, at least that gave me a sense that he knows what we are all going through.
In this feed, John McCain lashes out at Senator Barack Obama in a tone of hubris and a lack of compassion towards what the American people are feeling right now. Imagine just for one second had Pres. Bush acted this way on 9/11 how the American people would have reacted. I do opine he would have been run out of town. In this feed, you can detect a meanness coming from McCain and his actions were anything but presidential. If anything he raised my anxiety and I do suspect many others who are in terror as a wave-after-wave of negative economic news comes into all of our homes. He did nothing to soothe a frightened nation, but raised our fear and dismissed it entirely as he went after Senator Obama.
His side-kick, Sarah Palin also by lashing out at Barack Obama did nothing to allay our fears only increase our uncertainty of how we are going to make it through these hard financial times. The both of them could not even summon up enough courage to show any compassion towards the American people. I still remember when President Bill Clinton said, “I feel your pain” and these two do not have the gravitas to show exactly how these horrific times are affecting each and everyone of us. No, all they know is attack, attack and attack. The both of them are emotional vampires as they suck the life’s energy from all of us leaving us feeling fatigued beyond comprehension.
The both of them were giving their red-meat to their base, yet were not able to give us any sustenance to get us through these troubled times. If we are to learn anything from these dismal financial times it is this, John McCain and Sarah Palin do not deserve to be elected to the highest office in the land since by dismissing what we are all going through, they have shown their true colors. God help us all if they are elected.
Author’s email address is, xmjmac@optonline.net
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