Mr. McCain, I hope people listening to this debate are recording it. People at home, if you are not recording this debate, please push that record button now. (Pause)
OK…… Mr. McCain, your favorite words from the last debate seemed to be ‘Mr. Obama just does not understand.’ Now that simply is not true. I do understand. In fact, it is the point of these debates to show how differently we understand what is happening to Americans as well as all other people on Earth. Mr. McCain, it is precisely our differences in understanding that will inform the political activities that one of us will undertake as President.
Now, I understand that our country was ruthlessly attacked seven years ago on 9/11. We have since gone after Al-Qaida and our continuing pursuit of Bin Laden and terrorists should be our highest war priority. I understand that we feel less secure in our country now than we felt before the attacks of 9/11. I understand that right now it appears as though our list of enemies has steadily grown these last several years as our allies and our enemies are less confident of our strengths. I understand that much of our moral authority has slipped away because of what has happened at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Yet, even knowing that this is the world we are facing as Americans I understand that we must not retreat behind our borders. I understand that we must work to both rekindle our friendships and come to know our enemies.
As Americans we have a great deal to offer the people of the world but we must not force it down their throats. Believing that we could simply win a military victory in Iraq, install a democratic government, and lead an Iraqi people out of their dark ages and into our light was not realistic. I understand that we are in Iraq today and we will not cut and run and abandon the Iraqi people; but, a time table for troop withdrawal will continue to encourage the Iraqi government to keep moving in the direction of taking what matters to them into their own hands. I know the Iraqi people do not really want us as their big brother telling them what to do. As difficult as it will be I believe that the Iraqi people want to be a self governing and independent nation serving its just place on the world stage. We have removed a brutal man from power and the Iraqi people must be free to make their own way. Giving the Iraqi people the freedom that we talk about and fight for is real victory and it is a great and honorable thing for us to do even if the Iraqis choose development in ways differing from our ideas of how things could be.
We have a long tradition of democratic government in this country and part of that history included practicing slavery in a nation ‘dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ It is estimated that over six hundred thousand brothers killed each other in our Civil War keeping us together to work on practicing what we preach. I understand that our history is one of taking steps in time to make civil rights a reality. As our understanding of how the world works has changed women and minorities realized their rights to own property and to vote and working people realized their rights to organize and collectively bargain for higher wages, worker safety, health insurance and pensions. As our understanding of how the world works changed Social Security, Medicare, the GI bill and genuine attempts at equality of education released millions of people from poverty.
Our understanding of how things are in the world must begin with how things are today, right now, at this moment. And what I see is many of our people struggling with making their rent and mortgage payments, credit card debt at usury rates greater than 25 percent, medical bills from hospitals that charge the uninsured two or three times the price for care that an insurance company would pay, medical insurance premiums and their deductibles skyrocketing, people losing their freedom to move to a different or better job because they are locked into insurance at their present place of employment do to preexisting conditions, and even businesses collapsing and finding themselves unable to compete on the world market with companies that have no need to provide health care for their employees. I understand that there is something drastically wrong when over 40 million of our people have either no, or poor, health care coverage. No coverage, or poor coverage, ultimately leads to the sick people getting sicker. The sick getting sicker leads to lower productivity at work which ultimately leads to less wages earned for the society as a whole.
President Bush tells us that if we do not grant the FED 700 billion dollars immediately (that is $2333.00 per man, woman, and child in this country) bank lending will halt, housing prices will fall further, retirement savings and investments will evaporate, and more workers will become unemployed as the economy further slows. All of that seems really possible; however, I want to note that he left something out. He forgot to say that he was optimistic that the plan would work. I might have felt reassured if I knew his optimism would change reality; but, alas, optimism cannot see reality through its rose colored glasses. During President Bushes’ ten minute speech he looked pessimistic to me; but pessimism will not view the world as it really is either. I understand that what we need to do is act not from a basis of fear but from positions of reason.
I understand that these are difficult times. We could easily witness some kind of financial crisis coming for a long time had we not behaved as a frightened ostrich believing that the fundamentals of the economy were just fine. All we had to do was listen to what average people have been saying. As I pay attention to the fears and concerns that people are expressing I understand that it is not just the economy that is in trouble; it is really the average Jack and Jill that is troubled. They are falling down a monstrous hill that was not entirely of their own making.
I understand that the economy is not just some idea imagined and managed by economists. The economy is the people, the Jack’s and Jill’s who are working with each other and keeping things going. We are being told that this is the greatest crisis since the great depression. That is probably so, but we have economic tools and knowledge that was not available in the 1930s. I understand that we should not sugar coat our problems. Even when we put up the money that is being requested this recovery will not be painless. If it were painless we would learn nothing. If it were painless I am sure that what we would do would be the wrong thing to do.
I understand that we will do some form of this bailout and I understand that some of the things President Bush expressed fears about could still happen. So it is important to be ready with plans to reinvigorate the working life of American workers as needed. Our country faces great infrastructure needs that could provide very meaningful work. We face tremendous energy technology and conservation technology challenges that I see as long term opportunities and short term problems. Drilling for more oil while immediately necessary will produce no long term benefit for people. Wind, solar and conservation will provide the greatest long term known benefit. Natural gas, cleaner coal, some nuclear and perhaps growing something to turn into fuel may help us bridge the time needed to develop an energy technology we have yet to conceive of.
Mr. McCain, I further understand that these problems are not just facing the American people they are faced by all the people of the world as it develops. The costs for oil, food, health care, development and maintenance of infrastructure, environmental restoration and perseveration and the costs of education are rising across the world. In fact these problems, which we must meet head on, are products of people just being in the world. We should be leading the world in the discovery of and implementation of solutions to these common problems. In the city of Chicago you can still go into some large, old, apartment buildings or homes and find evidence of heating systems that first burned dirty coal, switched to burning dirty oil, and now produce heat using natural gas. Different times and different places under different economic conditions developed different sources of energy and that is the way the world will continue to work.
Mr. McCain, I must stress again, it is not just us facing these problems in the world. There is not an unlimited supply of oil or natural gas or any other commodity in the ground. Even the sun will burn out in some 5 billion years. As Americans we are in the best position to shape our own future by honestly acknowledging what is facing us both as a country and as people populating our planet Earth. We must not be led by fear mongers. We must be led by reasonable people who do not have their heads either in the clouds or buried in the sand. We must be willing to engage people and other countries respectfully recognizing that they have vastly different concerns, needs and desires from our own. At the same time we must not forget that there are very real threats from criminals and their organizations, terrorists, some states and from nations that lend support to such groups.
Mr. McCain, in the first debate you repeated like a propaganda machine that I ‘simply did not understand.’ Repeating it over and over again does not make it true. It is really false. I understand things differently than you do. That we understand things differently does not automatically mean that one of us must be wrong and the other right, as you seem to allude; it could just as well signal that we could both be wrong. What is important, here and now, is that our citizens carefully listen to what is being said by each of us. It is the differences in how Mr. McCain and I understand the world and our place in it that will inform every action we take as President of the people of the United States of America. Rewind this recording as many times as it takes. Talk amongst yourselves as friends with differences of opinion and then, in a few short weeks, go into the voting booth and make your informed and responsible choice.
Thank You!
Maurice Garvey
Villa Park, IL.
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