Published: July 23, 2008 04:16 pm            

Obama, McCain: What a choice!

By EMILIE A. HOLROYD



I despair for my country. How on earth did we come to this? Neither of our presidential candidates shows any sign of understanding the plight of the working class.

This should be said upfront. Neither of these men are bad. To the contrary, they seem sincere and honest. They just don’t get it.

Hillary was not much better although towards the end her campaign was willing to admit NAFTA, WTO and other “free trade” treaties helped wreck the country economically. Maybe her reluctance to attack these agreements was because Bill Clinton and the Republican congress in the 90s pushed many “free trade “ treaties through Congress.

Now we have John McCain and Barack Obama.

Both of them, like Hillary, support amnesty for up to 20 million illegal aliens. There seems to be no thought by either man just how many American workers have already lost jobs to illegals, who won’t even learn English. Guess what happens if they are admitted as citizens?

All of us who pay taxes pay illegal worker benefits instead of the employers willing to break U.S. laws in order to hire cheap labor. We, the taxpayers, give illegals their medical coverage, education and in many cases, a place to live and food to eat as we struggle to care for our own families.

Average American citizens are hurt directly by this unbelievable situation supported by our government beginning with Ronald Reagan (he amnestied the first illegals by the millions) and continuing through H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and until, under George W. Bush, we have been almost overrun.

Do our corporate world leaders and their store-bought politicians aim to make a Third World country of the USA?

I should point out right here that West Virginia senators, Byrd and Rockefeller, and congressional delegation, Rahall, Mollohan and Capito did not and do not support McCain, Kennedy and the Bushs’ immigration reform. They voted against all the Bush efforts to pass the bill.

John McCain brags about being a “free trader.” Ex-Senator Gram (R-Texas) expressed exactly what George Bush and his administration thinks when Gram said we have a mental recession and are whining about it. (By the way, we have Gram to thank for deregulation, which certainly added tremendously to the present economic mess).

These people have no clue how the rest of us live. They believe we are whining. They have no compassion or understanding of lost jobs, no money to buy gas (from them) or food for our kids, to say nothing of health insurance and college. They cannot imagine living hand to mouth.

Watch John McCain talk about “free trade”. He absolutely doesn’t grasp the reality of devastation to a community whose main industry moved to China. He promises job “retraining”. We have to assume he means training to be a Wal-Mart greeter. Certainly no displaced steel worker at 45-50 is going to compete successfully with some young Asian immigrant for a high-paying computer or tech job.

McCain is the grandson and son of admirals. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. He became a hero during Vietnam and married a beer distributor multimillion heiress after divorcing his disabled wife.

Wealthy now, Obama was not the son of wealthy people or career military folk. Growing up he lived a middle class life in Hawaii mostly with his white grandparents. By the way, he is not a Muslim. He is a Christian.

Obama went to Ivy League colleges on his own and has a distinguished scholastic record.

Obama is as wrong on illegal immigration as McCain. Both men support almost identical immigration reform, which, using different words, includes amnesty.

Obama disagrees with giving tax breaks to industries and businesses (Amen!) for moving overseas, but he has not offered a specific remedy.

That just isn’t good enough. We need to know what these people plan to do to correct our economic and foreign policy mess.

Consider killing American military by the thousands. Consider killing innocent Iraqis by the thousands. Consider spending billions this country needs for healthcare and infrastructure in a needless war. How on earth did our government, news media and us let this happen?

McCain is pro-war and says he would invade Iraq again. Obama is anti-war and wants out but not fast enough. At least Obama realizes the enemy is in Afghanistan.

Let’s face it folks. When this country elected George Bush, not once but twice, and nominated these candidates for president, voters were asleep at the wheel or just not paying attention. What a choice.

Emilie A. Holroyd is a resident of Princeton, WV

        

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