Whose Reality Is It , Anyway?

There are multiple realities, a common experience, especially after eight years of Bush where the rich lived one kind of life, ordinary working people another, and the media projected something entirely different.

I heard one "ordinary" person interviewed on NPR express relief that we finally had a State of the Union-type address without any mention of 911.

That creeps out Fox News, but somehow allows the rest of us to wonder which is more devastating to us personally and as a people: losing our jobs, home, health care, and our children's futures or living in a constant state of "orange" over inflated threats of terrorism?

After eight years we have grown accustomed to fearing those darkish men with Middle Eastern accents. On the first flight I took after 911, two South Asian men, both exceptionally well dressed, who along with me were flying from JFK to San Francisco on an early Saturday morning (not exactly prior time for a media event) were taken out of the waiting room, not once, but twice before boarding. Shame and embarrassment were what I read on their faces.

It's easier for white people to choose dark skinned people as the enemy, so long as you aren't one of them.

But the real enemies are white guys in suits: bankers, lawyers, mortgage executives, guys with MBAs from Harvard, Wharton, and Yale, the clever folks who created new ways to make money, created new property to own. The insecurity and devastation that the alleged "best and brightest" have brought us is far more undermining than most of what Jack Bauer might be imagining.

That's why we need regulation, and the only entity large enough to regulate is the federal government. So, shut up, Republicans. When money is at stake, greed and avarice appear. Then there is no such thing as self-regulation.