CANNIBALISM IS ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA AND APPARENTLY THE DIET DU JOUR FOR POLITICAL COMMENTATORS OVERWHELMED BY THE REAL PROBLEMS FACING OUR NATION. Neil Macdonald's piece on "The Americas" titled "
The giant Ponzi scheme that is Florida" smacks of the worst kind of
yellow journalism and stoops to low-brow sensationalist labelling, finger-pointing and
muck-raking. No I take it back. This is not an honest piece of muckraking as it's not supported by any social conscience or motive. I ask you: with all the troubles besetting our country, is the best choice of topic about America singling out one state and its people to trash, and blaming them for everything wrong?
Apparently We The Florida Homeowners, are solely responsible for the sorry condition we are in, to wit: our home values have shrunk by over 50%, we cannot pay our mortgages and basically have reaped what we, the idiotic Floridians, have sown with our self destructive tax haven policies.
He gleefully quotes a professor at South Florida University, one
Gary Mormino, with labelling his own home state "The Ponzi State". This guy who has never been truly famous, now has his name in the papers and on the net and a silly grin on his face in the unflattering photograph after unexpectedly finding himself in the spotlight for trashing his own home state. Thanks, Gary. You are a gentleman and a scholar.
I especially like your comic book version of the
Apocalypse of Florida.
The article goes on to list an odd jumble of woes imputed suffered by said Floridans: Bottom-feeding foreclosure sharks driving around in buses to view the homes up for grabs. Colorful descriptions of sad, abandoned homes in the Ft. Myers area. Blaming the cheap retirees loath to vote for State income taxes that might have sustained said communities for now reaping their just rewards of a "stunted government". More colorful phrases sprinkled throughout the piece to add flavor are: "a palm tree fantasy with a tax structure that was insane"; "we are paralyzed"; "massive fraud and lack of oversight"; "minorities who were talked into believing you can own a house on minimum wage"; - those fools, right? What made them think they could have a slice of the American Dream. It labels the high foreclosure load of the Lee County Courthouse in Ft. Myers the "rocket docket", where judge Jack Schoonover zips through a full 190 cases of people losing their homes in one single morning. He quotes the judge as telling a hapless mortgagor losing her home that he can't help her find a job and that "the president has to do that for you".(!) Yes, that advice will surely help her sort things out.
The tainted flavor of the Poor getting what they deserve permeates the piece like rotten fish. Some lowly waitress at an oyster bar had to take a second job cleaning people's homes to stay afloat. Deserves her right, apparently, for being stupid enough to live in a state that has "nightmarish unemployment", "tax hating Floridians" and a government that is "a stunted, business driven entity with nothing to offer". And that's not an America hating Jihad member talking but one of our own.
Apart from the fact that it is a poorly researched, shallow piece of cheap sensationalist yellow journalism with no redeeming social value, I find the tone malicious, evaluative, elitist and judgmental. I further doubt the facts as to Florida being the ultimate national hell-hole of the real estate implosion, bad government and resident's short-sightedness. Visiting the town of Ft. Myers does not an expert on Florida make. Should I mention Las Vegas, Nevada or Phoenix, AZ. I am disappointed that someone with so much experience in journalism finds it fitting to trash a random corner of our country and demonize its citizens for the sake of a cheap piece.
It is common knowledge that we have a much larger problem economically and that the Florida homeowners approved for loans when the real estate market was booming are not the reason of the current wide ranging economic crash. To imply they are getting what's coming to them is simplistic pap. At a time when we all need to remember we are in the same boat and looking for ways to survive, polarizing our people and instigating verbal witch hunts just brings back the days of the Salem Witch Trials. The worst is that these "spokesmen" given press are just like us - they are not part of the moneyed elite benefiting from billions in government handouts, and what we have to experience they will have to live through too. They are small timers and they will live within our paradigm right alongside us. That's why I call it cannibalism. They are ripping and eating their own. A case of intellectual rabies.
Sunbelt states have always been a magnet for people who want to get away from the cold and less favorable micro economies. In the end, I suspect those warm-blooded states will have the life energy to spring back the fastest, if any of them do. Despite all this trouble, the Broward and Palm Beach County, Florida Census still shows an increase in population of several thousand souls over the last one, so there must be worse places these new wannabe Floridians are coming from. This is a national economic depression and we need to step closer to one another, not further away. The economic hurricane will be survived by those that stand together, not apart. Hurricane Wilma made one tight family out of the residents of the block I live on. We still are bonded like soldiers of war. We fed each other and dug each other out from under fallen trees and splintered roofs. We survived together. Our grass roots are growing tightly in the same soil.
And Mr. Macdonald, the economic Ponzi scheme you seek is at a much higher level but you can't write about it for you are not privvy to that information. Think of this conversation next time you find yourself in Florida for work or vacation.
Charlo in Florida,
Hanging on in the Sunshine State
