Reading Between The Lines: The Horror of Hurricane Sandy Should Clinch the Undecided Vote

What kind of leader would YOU trust?

By Anna Manzo

From Queens, NYC's Breezy Point neighborhood where over 100 homes burned to the ground at the height of the storm

Ponder the videos below before you answer these questions: What leader would you trust in a national disaster? Which presidential candidate wants to eliminate federal spending for disaster relief? What political party or parties want to shrink federal government?

This week's "Frankenstorm" Sandy left some 6 million customers without power within 24 hours, hitting the most densely populated region in America, according to Rachel Maddow's report below. She said that New Jersey, which took the greatest brunt of the storm, is the most densely populated place in the country: a population greater than Maine, New Hampshire, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming and North and South Dakota combined even though it's smaller in size than just New Hampshire alone. Just the evacuation order population in New York City is larger than half the population of five states in the U.S., larger than the whole of New Orleans itself.

Should New Jersey and New York City rely solely on state funds and private enterprise to help themselves?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#49617027

Remember these words from Mitt Romney when asked about federal disaster relief at last year's debates:

"Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking in the federal budget: 'What we should cut?' We should ask ourselves the opposite question, 'What should we keep? We should take all that we are doing at the federal level and say, 'What are the things we are doing that we don't have to do?' And those things we gotta stop doing. Because we're borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we're taking in. We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral in my view for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids knowing full well we will be dead and gone before it's paid off."

See for yourself in this Rachel Maddow video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#49617296

Maddow points out that it's obvious that states are already having shortfalls in their budgets and do need to rely on a whole nation to help them in times of disaster.

And for that matter, what kind of for-profit, private enterprises would YOU trust to handle disaster relief on this scale?

Romney speaks of a shortage of $1.6 trillion. What about the immorality of the super-rich using tax havens around the world to stash more than $21 trillion?

Moreover, what about spending tens of millions campaigning around the country trying to convince ordinary middle-class Americans they should be able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps – not just after a natural disaster, but over the long haul to compete with ever-increasing computerization and outsourcing of their jobs?

What's really happening to the types of jobs and wages communities relied upon to raise healthy families a generation or two ago? They're certainly disappearing while so-called "job creators" eliminate costly human labor from their bottom lines and deposit trillions of dollars of profits in offshore tax havens – funds they cannot spend in their own lifetime, let alone a thousand.

And they dare to speak of "personal responsibility."

What kind of leader do you want? One who rallies all to be more altruistic and help each other out with true love and compassion when so much automation and computerization should actually be making our world a better place, free of fear of economic scarcity and suffering? (Realistically, there is no leader today that can make that happen alone; it's a collective transformation, a social movement that needs to begin at the grassroots level and would take years. But we must begin somewhere.)

Or do you want a leader who encourages us to continue the downward spiral of competing against and fighting one another, perpetuating the war and conflict our ancestors have sought to end since our collective human history began on this planet?

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