I must say that I did not hear anybody shouting as loudly as I would expect them to shout if they were trying to warn us about this particularly unsettling financial mess our country has plunged into.

Nobody except my pal J.B. He’s been telling me for the past year and a half that this sub-prime mortgage scam
goes way deeper than anyone has realized. And I must say I didn’t want to believe him. And other friends I spoke to made light of his concerns. He told me “the sky is falling” and I was unwilling to buy into the gloom and doom.

And he was dead on. He spoke of mortgage fraud throughout the industry. And he spoke of an unwillingness of anyone in a position of power to step in and hold anyone accountable.

Not George Bush, not Dick Cheney. Not Greenspan, Bernanke or Paulson. Not John McCain. Not Barack Obama.

There is nobody without blame who has an office anywhere close to Washington D.C.’s Capitol Hill. No Republican, no Democrat.

I point to the highest levels of government, because all I expect from the local powers that be is that the trash be picked up, the roads maintained, and my tax money be spent wisely, please.

But the big boys in our nation’s capital – I expect them to have their eye on the big picture. What exactly does the Treasury Secretary do? How about the head of the Securities Exchange Commission? The Chairman of the Federal Reserve?

Did they all really miss this? How the devil does that happen? I mean, J.B. is a bright guy, but he doesn’t get Secret Service reports on his desk every morning. He doesn’t have a staff of supposed experts on all things financial at his beck and call. And he called it to the letter!

I hate to sound like a wild-eyed conspiracist, but this whole deal stinks to high heaven. Or actually the lowest reaches of hell. And Mssrs. Bush and Bernanke and Paulson really had the audacity after being deaf, dumb and blind to the problem until the whole deck of cards began dissembling at their feet to ask the American people to hand them almost a trillion dollars with no strings attached?

If they didn’t even know the problem existed, why would anyone want to give them a blank check to fix it? Did they suddenly find a copy of Dick and Jane Go To Wall Street tucked under their blankies one night? Please.

I’m not generally very impressed with the functioning of our elected officials in Congress, but I must say I am relieved that somebody put their hands up and said “Maybe not.” I applaud those on both sides of the aisle who were unready to hand a blank check to the boobs who dropped the ball. And I applaud those who insisted that something be done to ease the plight of those who have truly suffered from this financial freefall.

I am not a believer in trickle down economics. You want to help the guy at the bottom, then help the guy at the bottom. He’ll spend his money and the big boys who provide the products or services he spends it on will get their share. They can use it to invest in their companies, overpay their CEOs, raise the pay of their average line workers, or do whatever else floats their boat.

I will tell you that this mess does not alter my choice for President this November. And it doesn’t make me feel any more secure in my choice, either. Forget heading back to Washington; McCain and Obama should indeed postpone their campaigns and take a turn on “Dancing With The Stars,” for all the waltzing around the issue they’ve been doing. They’ve been striking more impressive postures than the wax figures in Madame Tussaud’s museum.

So where do we go from here? You got me. I expect our elected representatives to pull on their big boy and big girl pants and get back to work. Apparently a lot of our senators and representatives have been bullied into inaction, afraid that should they make the wrong move, and they’ll be cast out on the street when the ballots are counted next time around. I’d just offer them the thought that if they don’t figure out a way to turn things around, they might find a whole lot fewer people showing up at the polls to vote for anybody.

New topic ...

The term “community organizing” took some nasty shots when the Elephants gathered in Minnesota for their convention. That’s been sticking in my craw ever since. I believe Ms. Palin said – with a sneer in her voice, in reference to Mr. Obama’s early political involvement – something like, “This is more than a community, and it needs more than organizing.”

Pardon me, ma’am, but while I understand you can see Russia from your porch, I don’t believe you see the forest for the trees. Your party has cultivated the reputation of a hands-off style of governance, leaving responsibility for most issues in the hands of local government. In a system of local government, the bottom layer of the pyramid that holds things up would be the community organizers.

Community organizers take over where government leaves off. Community organizers make sure that the least served of our cities and towns are cared for when they are unable to speak out on their own. Community organizers knock on doors and remind people to vote. Community organizers wave the lantern when an issue arises that neighbors need to be alerted to, before government acts without their input.

“Community – A social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.” I can’t see anything in that definition that would say the United States of America is anything other than a community. I salute the organizers – paid or unpaid – who do their best to be our eyes and ears when the powers that be, those we were told we could trust, go deaf, dumb and blind.