By David Stanke
New York City is under attack again. For weeks, John McCain struggled to find his rhetorical take on the U.S. economy. First, the fundamentals were strong. Then the economy was suffering, but the fundamentals (middle class, Middle Americans) were strong. Finally, he found the ticket: Greedy New Yorkers are the problem; especially, I presume, the liberal elite ones. McCain will unite the right wing and gain the presidency with another assault on New York City.
I have witnessed McCain’s foot soldiers scouting the World Trade Center for years. They are undercover, dressed as tourists with their sneakers, backpacks, and cameras. But pause to listen to them someday. They chant their mantras: “Thank God George Bush is president” and “Why don’t New Yorkers wear flag pins?” They conspire to break down our pedestrian transportation: large groups consume whole sidewalks; they form circles at the narrowest passages; they linger around entrances to buildings; they block subway turnstiles with their large bags and clumsy MetroCard swiping.
McCain’s verbal attack is just the surface of a deeper, long running, secret plot against New York. The people that McCain describes as the strength of the American economy have leveled our New York financial institutions. This attack was timed to precede the presidential elections and to once again elevate the Republican candidate to the White House. When the 9/11 fear machine ran dry (sorry Rudy!), a new New York disaster was needed.
For years, Middle America has been lying on mortgage loan applications, creating an intelligent, self-guided, greed-seeking cluster bomb of toxic sub-primes targeted directly at New York financial institutions.
Middle American entrepreneurs became mortgage pushers, making loans that people could not pay back while pocketing the up front fees. These brokers in Florida, Ohio, California, Arizona, even in Alaska were dedicated to giving every household in America more debt than they could handle. These people are the fundamentals that keep America strong, the ones that Wall Street let down. They were not driven by greed. They needed the money to support faith-based initiatives (secular-based initiatives have failed them) and to fund new science education programs (scientists have failed them).
Consider the small town, value-based Americans who bought bigger houses than they could conceivably afford or those who pulled every ounce of equity out of their homes to purchase designer clothes, big screen TVs, and S.U.V.s. Simple, hard-working real Americans hunt for the food to put on tables they build from logs in the back yard. They are not greedy or materialistic. They don’t watch TV produced by liberal L.A. and N.Y.C.; they’re in church.
Now they live in large homes in newly built communities. They have become rich without getting promotions, without advancing their education or improving their productivity. They haven’t worked harder. They haven’t invented anything. They played with their financial numbers a little bit and moved into McMansions. But shallow pride or covetous materialism do not drive these people. They were dutifully making the toxic debt that they knew greedy New Yorker bankers would consume.
Are their feelings about New Yorkers justified? What has the financial industry — so vilified by McCain — actually done? The brightest, most innovative minds in the country have struggled diligently to provide capital to hard working Middle American laborers and small business owners. These loans have boosted small town property values and supported the massive consumption of foreign imports from Walmart. East Coast and international banks trusted the values of Middle America and took this debt on good faith. The financial industry brought the American dream to the American people, only to be criticized as greedy elitists.
New Yorkers have bent over backwards for small town America for too long. Our cultural elites produce museums, funded by our finance industry, for tourists to visit. We open our city to foreign cultures, providing culinary diversity for our guests. Our gangs take the unwanted guns off their hands. Our prostitutes give their all to entertain their men on conventions. We consume every bit of Wasilla crystal meth that we can. Our gays dance and sing to them on Broadway, bringing smiles to their clenched jaws. And how do they repay us? They call us gay-loving, culturally-devoid, un-American, baby-killing, gun-hating, drug-using, sex-crazed, baby killers.
After 9/11, we thought America came to New York because they loved us and the freedom we stand for. We thought we inspired them, awed them, and endeared ourselves to them. But all along, they were plotting the next attack. They walked in under our radar, and pretended to like us. While we were searched for heel bombs, liquid bombs, W.M.D.’s, ricin, and nuclear suitcases in the hands of terrorists, the small town values of Middle America brought us down.
David Stanke lives and writes Downtown. His email is destanke@gmail.com.
