posted by admin on Jan 11

He Didn’t Start the Fire…

When I close my eyes and think 2009, I see a panorama of events beginning with the inauguration of our first minority President of the United States of America…then…the transition…like the first rent house I lived in, newly inaugurated President Barack Obama moved into a house full of “stuff “left by the previous owners …and not good stuff.

Today it seems the public is having a hard time remembering pre-Obama…let me remind you – this man inherited this mess – our country has been spiraling out of control for the last 9 years and one more makes it a decade. Our public discourse seems to be taking on a likeness to a major football game…the Democrats versus the Republicans – each side trying to score points by any means possible. And now, only the middle of January and we are starting to have a memory lapse…maybe Obama did start the war…we did not have any terrorists acts under the previous administration…ok stop, when I heard that one you know I screamed…HELLO…remember September 11…2001!!! Come on let’s take a walk down the 2009 memory lane…

Do you remember…right before the election was over…the escalating war, the burst of the housing bubble…sub prime loans…. the banking institutions needing a major loan from the government…without the loan the institutions would not be able to lend out monies… remember John McCain suspended his campaign to deal with this…both McCain and Senator Barack Obama had to fly in to get briefed as candidates and then both voted to give the loan to the banks. Ok, then the banks did not loan monies, and boy we heard a lot of reasons…had to maintain a certain amount of money by law…too risky…had to pay large bonuses…had to have lavish parties…waiting on the stock market.

Before unpacking his belongings from Chicago, President Obama got a knock on the Whitehouse door… the car companies arrived…they could not get loans…they needed government assistance too. The banking institutions being the first to come begging was a great strategy… the banks did not get as scrutinized as the car making companies. The public (that would be us) knew the banking representatives got to the meetings In Washington via private planes…boy did we know, the “news” did not let up for weeks at a time…next time the car people came we knew they drove there…the more we watched and listened, the madder, we the public, seemed to get.

Then the reality set in for a lot of people…foreclosure, job loss…the economists were saying the public needed an infusion of cash, without monies somehow reaching “main street”, we were facing a 1929 type Depression…monies were coming…cities and states were hearing “shovel ready” projects…job creation…additional unemployment months…green jobs… The Obama administration, released funds in a stimulus known as the American Recovery Re-Investment Act (ARRA)…this was so ridiculed by a lot of elected officials with one hand while receiving the very much needed funds with the other hand.

Then we started the Health Care “debate”… and the tone was loud…so loud that it was very hard for me to listen to understand. I heard death panels’…socialist…big government…liberal…republican…democrat… tea party… propaganda. The town hall meetings were democracy in action – the freedom and right to voice…holler grievances to representatives…we have the right to protest any upcoming legislation; however, the propaganda that was put out to confuse the public was done by self interest parties and not for the greater good of the Health Care debate…believe me it was obvious. What I want to know is how can I get my monthly insurance premium to cost less and why can’t I have some insurance options? Thinking about the cost of going into the hospital for more than one night is scary…something most of us will have to face one day…we really needed to talk about real health care reform.

“Being a home town girl living in a hometown world”…there are some unwritten “American rules” that go without having to say…like how you “do” the line at the grocery store…holding the door for the person behind when you go into the store…showing respect when speaking to elders…waiting your time to speak…speaking truth…the list goes on and on and it is slightly different relative to the neck of the woods you live in the US of A. Behavior that says we, the public do not tolerate rudeness, lies, immoral behavior, hypocrites…or at least it use to be that way…when reminiscing about this past year, I feel a little sense of loss for “that time”.

As I find myself moving on into 2010, I can’t help but be reminded of a time in third grade when my teacher asked me to go to the board on the first day of school and work out a math problem…this was a very intimidating experience and I could not really focus…until she said…no one was allowed to be afraid in her class…to show where their understanding of what she was teaching was at… that in her class she believed that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different…but she said…I also believe that I will get you to trust me and to know that I care about what you are thinking…and I will keep trying to show you in a very dignified way what I need for you to see… good advice for us fellow Americans.