HELP: A Cuban named Lincoln? And trading Bush for McCain

By Weekly Archive On Jun 25, 2008

HELP:
A Cuban named Lincoln? And trading Bush for McCain

By
Alvaro F. Fernandez
alfernandez@the-beach.net

Gasoline
prices are north of $4 a gallon. More people are dropping into the no
health insurance category — close to 50 million already.
Unemployment is shooting upwards. Education is leaving too many
children behind. Good teachers are not paid enough. CEOs from large
corporations ‘earning’ tens of millions a year too much, while
the companies they lead report huge losses. The rich are becoming
richer; the poor have less and less — while the middle class, the
wide stripe on graphs that once was the U.S., is rapidly turning thin
line. The president and vice president, and their sycophants, say
torture is OK — as long as it’s us doing the dirty work. There are
classes of terrorists: the ones we detest and others we protect.

Democrats
and republicans look eerily similar. Money dominates who we elect.
Once elected, money makes it almost impossible to unseat politicians
— no matter how bad.

On
the local front, speaking Miami, we’re usually ahead of the pack.
Mismanagement of tax dollars is the order of the day. A better system
of public transportation is needed. So politicians are putting it on
our
backs
— raising the fares. A half-cent at a time taken from our pockets,
more than 800 million dollars has been raised since 2002 to address
public transportation woes. Now we’re asking where that money went.

We
are a poor city with some of the richest people. Fisher Island, the
country’s zip code with the highest median income, doggedly fights
an increase for their workers to earn a living wage. Think about
this: Let’s call you one of the poor in the Fisher Island crowd.
You earn a paltry $5 million a year. An increase for someone who cuts
your grass from $6 an hour to $9 may represent a few hundred more
taken from your 5 million — what you might spend for a fancy meal at
the “in” restaurant on Friday. You fight it!

A
small group dominates foreign policy in Latin America. And the south
turns against us — rightfully so, as far as I’m concerned. Cuba
politics is still a thorn on our side. It’s also one of the many
reasons we’re such a poor city — Miami, that is. Families are
divided as a political move — no, it’s not Fidel, but George and
his crowd doing it, while Lincoln and his ilk pushes for it.

A
Cuban named Lincoln? What’s wrong with that picture?

I
can continue… I hope you understand. It’s 2008, and the U.S. is
not the same place we once knew. It may be our last chance to save
this place. To save the planet?

Are
you registered to vote? I am. I wish I could vote twice. Not allowed,
I know. Although in Miami I’ve met people who vote twice, even
three times in one election. Dead relatives have also been
franchised. Still, the government doesn’t want some of us to vote
at all. Ask the black man; ask the brown man. It’s not a right, but
a privilege, I’ve been told. For who? If you doubt it, ask Jeb:
Yeah! He the brother who saved (stole) the presidency for his older
sibling. How long will we be paying for that:
Iraq, the economy, civil rights, Geneva Conventions and torture…
Oh! so much more.

You
want more. I can probably produce pages and pages. Look around you,
though. Do you feel proud to be an American, today, under George W.
Bush? Are you proud to be from Miami? Do you want four more years of
Bush, but with a McCain whose reaction time may be slower than
George’s.

Then
there’s Lincoln, Mario and Ileana pushing a hate agenda against
their own people.

Look
around you folks: Talk to your neighbors, your friends, anybody and
everybody. Before November rolls around, register to vote — if you
haven’t already registered.

It’s
time for a change!