Missing In Action

Rev. Jesse Jackson marched on Wall Street yesterday at noon. How many of the candidates for the presidency, who happen to be posing as Democrats, showed up? Can it be that they were all busy courting the rich and famous, in California, instead of demanding that the Street help those who, in record numbers, are losing their homes across the country?

Where were the three leading contenders--Clinton, Obama, and Edwards? Clearly, they were too busy raising cash to raise consciousness about the startling assertion by Rev. Jesse Jackson that "Two million homes nationwide will be at risk of foreclosure by 2008." Or, maybe, they'd prefer to leave worrying about how to solve the home mortgage crisis to the powers that be. After all, we see what a terrific job the current administration is doing about distributing wealth equally. And, from their absence in Manhattan today, one wonders if the 1% will feel a thing when there is regime change in Washington.

Yes, Clinton and Obama were too busy holding populist lunches and concerts, not unlike their Republican counterparts, to notice that the ranks of the impoverished, homeless, and hungry are swelling daily as the resources of food banks diminish, and welfare moms are forced to turn over more and more to the state. Oprah showed up for Obama the same way Sinatra showed up for Ronald Reagan; it was then, as it is now, about the almighty dollar.

Some fix we're in when one who walked with Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement, forty odd years ago, isn't accompanied by each and every person who aspires for "change," equal opportunity, and economic equity. Caveat emptor: politics as usual in Washington, D.C.

As always, the band plays for the deep pockets, and those with holes in their socks get music on hold. Oh, "it's the war, stupid," yes, but it's the war on poverty that will be uppermost on people's minds come election day, 2008, and we look to the same leaders now that we did forty years ago, none of whom are running for president of the United States.