We Can’t Afford to Skip This Election

Source From http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=news

Talk about getting played.

Two days ago, The Washington Post reported that many of the companies that were bailed out by the Democrat-ruled Congress are contributing money to … Republicans.

Hello.

General Motors, which two years ago was teetering on the precipice of financial ruin and would have been pushed off had it been left up to the GOP, managed to scrounge up $5,000 to give to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a man who ranted that bailing out the auto industry was un-American because it amounted to subsidizing failure.

I guess that since GM is now a success story thanks to the Democrats, it can afford to have as short a memory as the voters who are blaming them for the economic downturn.

Then there are the banks.

According to the Post, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs all gave $15,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and 23 companies that received a billion or more from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program have formed political action committees – committees that are giving most of their money to Republicans.

In other words, they’re giving their money to the party which has, for months, vilified them as corruptors of the capitalistic idea of sink or swim. These companies are subsidizing GOP politicians who used the bailouts that saved them from ruin to whip up phony fears about taxes and deficits, as well as fears among the prejudiced and paranoid about President Barack Obama plotting to use the bailouts to carry out a socialist agenda.

But now that election time is upon us, and all the prognosticators are claiming that the GOP is poised for big wins, the companies that got the bailouts aren’t behaving as ingrates as much as they’re behaving as gamblers hedging their bets – as if they haven’t gambled enough.

Some claim that they are giving to the Republicans because they don’t like the fact that the Democrats are pushing for tougher financial regulation.

Besides, one whiner said, Obama called them fat cats.

Yet while GM and the banks played Obama and the Democrats, what they did offers yet another example as to why black people shouldn’t allow themselves to be played by sitting out this midterm election, to allow this country to revert back to business as usual.

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Talk about getting played.

Two days ago, The Washington Post reported that many of the companies that were bailed out by the Democrat-ruled Congress are contributing money to … Republicans.

Hello.

General Motors, which two years ago was teetering on the precipice of financial ruin and would have been pushed off had it been left up to the GOP, managed to scrounge up $5,000 to give to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a man who ranted that bailing out the auto industry was un-American because it amounted to subsidizing failure.

I guess that since GM is now a success story thanks to the Democrats, it can afford to have as short a memory as the voters who are blaming them for the economic downturn.

Then there are the banks.

According to the Post, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs all gave $15,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and 23 companies that received a billion or more from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program have formed political action committees – committees that are giving most of their money to Republicans.

In other words, they’re giving their money to the party which has, for months, vilified them as corruptors of the capitalistic idea of sink or swim. These companies are subsidizing GOP politicians who used the bailouts that saved them from ruin to whip up phony fears about taxes and deficits, as well as fears among the prejudiced and paranoid about President Barack Obama plotting to use the bailouts to carry out a socialist agenda.

But now that election time is upon us, and all the prognosticators are claiming that the GOP is poised for big wins, the companies that got the bailouts aren’t behaving as ingrates as much as they’re behaving as gamblers hedging their bets – as if they haven’t gambled enough.

Some claim that they are giving to the Republicans because they don’t like the fact that the Democrats are pushing for tougher financial regulation.

Besides, one whiner said, Obama called them fat cats.

Yet while GM and the banks played Obama and the Democrats, what they did offers yet another example as to why black people shouldn’t allow themselves to be played by sitting out this midterm election, to allow this country to revert back to business as usual.

There’s too much at stake here.

To be sure, many of the companies that received bailouts have also given money to Democrats. But the ones who are giving money to the GOP are doing so for reasons both arrogant and ominous.

Arrogant – because even though their greed and risky business practices almost plunged the country into another Depression, they still don’t want to abide by any new financial regulations or guidelines. Ominous – because Republicans don’t believe in scrutinizing corporations as much as they believe in scrutinizing poor people on welfare.

And look what that has wrought over the past two years.

It has wrought a meltdown of the mortgage industry; something that was powered by largely unregulated, high-interest subprime loans. Around 54 percent of those loans went to black people, according to United for A Fair Economy – and the foreclosures that ensued are poised to erase much of this nation’s black wealth.

It has wrought a prolonged recession that has pushed black unemployment to 16 percent.

And these companies, who claim to be miffed at the Democrats’ push for financial regulation, want the chance to do this all over again – by supporting Republicans who badmouthed them when it was politically expedient, but who don’t want rules in place to stop them from doing it all again.

That’s why black people can’t sit this midterm out. If so, the only winners