There were no winners in the presidential debate held at

Ole Miss this past Friday, but there were plenty of losers. You guessed it: Black homeowners. Malcolm X said, “Land is the basis of all revolutions,” and it is now clear that Blacks will never secure land in this country through either reparations or capitalism. Neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Sen. John McCain ever mentioned Black homeowners during the debate even though the genesis of the perceived financial crisis in this country started on the backs of Black homeowners. Wall Street and Congress set up a scam to fleece Black homeowners. This was a conspiracy.

While they talked about Wall Street and Main Street, neither senator ever mentioned “Mean Street.” This is where former Black homeowners now reside. It is a “no man’s land” and neither the Republican nor Democratic parties intend to throw a lifeline to them. As usual, Blacks must fend for themselves. On the other hand, Wall Street is demanding a financial boondoggle from Uncle Sam after it has gambled away other people’s money. This is double jeopardy. Uncle Sam is attempting to extort money from some of the same people that Wall Street ripped off. Wall Street, under a McCain administration, will continue to enjoy Bush’s tax cuts, including income, capital gains and dividends. Of course, McCain would also reduce the corporate tax rate. The Bush tax cuts will not expire until 2011.McCain would extend them to the max. This country can ill afford to continue playing Santa Claus to Wall Street. No financial crisis exists on Wall Street. Instead, Wall Street is addicted to sucking the blood of Africans. This addiction started four hundred years ago with Africans on the auction block. Most major corporations like General Motors, General Electric and Sears reap huge profits from exorbitant interest rates that are offered to the poor. These loan-sharking interest rates provide an opportunity for these corporations to engage in legitimate enterprises.

The first step in Bush 43’s conspiracy to fleece Blacks was grounded in Bush v. Gore. Five justices of the Supreme Court disenfranchised Black voters in Florida and put President-select George Bush in the White House. Black exploitation went from politics to economics. History is repeating itself. This was the same result in 1876.Afterwards, Justice Joseph M. Bradley of the U.S. Supreme Court was given a tie-breaking vote on an evenly divided commission between Republicans and Democrats. Bradley became the political czar. In the presidential feud between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, Bradley chose Hayes. The electoral process was a sham. Blacks had been disenfranchised. It ushered in the Compromise of 1877 to withdraw federal protection for Blacks. To further pacify the South, Bradley would return to the Supreme Court and announce that the Confederate States of America had indeed won the Civil War and the Supreme Court would elevate states’ rights over federalism. He also announced that Blacks were no longer the special preference of the law. Affirmative action was dead.

The Supreme Court would make this pronouncement in several cases starting with the infamous civil rights cases denying public accommodations to newly freed Africans in 1883. Plessy v. Ferguson gave this country its social pattern. It would take a protracted struggle to usher in civil rights legislation. One hundred years after the U.S. Supreme Court decided the last of the Legal Tender Cases in 1871, Pres. Richard Nixon removed the United States from the gold standard to the delight of Wall Street. Nixon also proposed a price freeze. McCain echoed it at Ole Miss. The Legal Tender Cases involved three cases before the Supreme Court in 1870 and 1871. The question before the Court was whether the United States could compel creditors to accept paper money instead of gold coins. Americans were afraid of wildcat bankers who printed worthless paper money. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase had decided that paper money was legal tender and could be used to finance the Civil War. Afterwards, Pres. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Paper money was a disaster during the American Revolution. Eventually, the Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act of 1862. Since 1971, the United States has refused to redeem dollars with gold. Today, you only need a printing press to circulate a “Federal Reserve Note.” “Payable to the Bearer on Demand” preceded the issuance of a “Federal Reserve Note.” Subsequently, the phrase on the dollar would read: “In God We Trust.” Blacks are the victims once again. After the Civil War, we were told to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. It was meaningless that we were barefooted. There would be no “forty acres and a mule” to compensate our ancestors for their illegal enslavement. By 1920, Blacks had acquired over twenty million acres of land. By the 1980s, most of this land had been taken. White kleptocracy failed to deter us. We had to start over after losing our homeowners’ equity and the homes themselves in this current economic climate. Land ownership is necessary to participate in a timocracy. Obama refused to present this case at Ole Miss even though James Meredith, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin L. King had outlawed racial discrimination at Ole Miss to give Obama an opportunity to voice the concerns of a people who have struggled tirelessly to acquire real property. The lack of real property was Hamer’s grievance.It was also a Black grievance in 1865. Obama should review the activism of Melvin Tolson. It would also be helpful for him to review Dempsey v. Moore since he is a constitutional scholar. Sharecropping was imposed on a landless people without allowing them any access to the credit markets. Blacks have suffered from a credit crisis in this country for four centuries. No reason exists for Obama to be making a financial pitch for Wall Street except that Sens. Joseph Biden, Chris Dodd and Charles Schumer are hog-tied to the banking industry. Biden represents Delaware, a banking strong-hold. Dodd and Schumer are on the Senate Banking Committee, with them receiving the highest political contributions from the banking industry. Something is wrong with a picture that shows Bush 43 quarterbacking the Democratic Party while House Republicans are playing defense. The Democratic Party is two-timing persons of African ancestry. To make matters worse, the Democratic Party is engaged in prostitution. Wall Street is able to solve its own financial crisis. Congress is arguing that the accounts receivable section of balance sheets are rife with bad debts. This perceived crisis is a recent occurrence for Wall Street since it had been awash in capital. Financial institutions were enjoying record profits because of unconscionable contracts, fraudulent contractual language and usurious interest rates. Some of this excess capital was given to corporate executives in the form of obscene executive compensation. Most of it, however, was put in retained earnings, a capital haven on the balance sheet to shield corporate stash. No one has mentioned retained earnings. We must follow the money trail.

A search warrant may be needed to pry this capital account open. Congress is urging the public to knock on the wrong door, talk to the wrong people and ask the wrong questions. While Congress is engaging the public in a misdirection, Wall Street is abandoning the crime scene like it had just stolen gold from Fort Knox. The tip-off to these shenanigans was Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley becoming fly-by-night bank holding companies. A bank holding company holds the loot. This is monopoly capitalism. The $1 trillion plus bailout, eventually, will be mostly deposited in the vault of Goldman Sachs. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was its former CEO. Warren Buffet knows a good rip-off when he sees it. He has already invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Paulson is demanding that Congress give him a blank check. This unbridled delegation of authority may conflict with the U.S. Constitution. Nonetheless, it is a parting gift for Bush 43. While 21 of the 39 members of the Congressional Black Caucus chose to give the bailout plan a thumbs down, the four members from New York unanimously got behind Bush 43. These same “political representatives” unanimously chose Sen. Hillary Clinton over Obama. They were beholden to Clinton. They have replaced a white mistress with a white master. If left unchecked, these four members of the CBC from New York will enjoy two more years to do further damage to Black people. An emergency political convention should be called in the next two weeks to not only designate four write-in congressional candidates for Election Day, but also a strategy to clean house. An intelligent people would ensure that history would not repeat itself. It is Blacks who need a bailout plan. A bailout plan for Black homeowners is less costly than the proposed plan for Wall Street. We have been waiting for one for four hundred years. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” Oct. 4–United African Movement honors Alton Maddox for twenty years of leader- ship and service to UAM and the Black community at 99 Bainbridge Street in Brooklyn from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Come greet and support Alton Maddox in his endeavors. Take the “A” train to Utica Avenue, (use the Stuyvesant Avenue exit and walk north two blocks to Bainbridge). The struggle must continue. Reservations are required. Call (718) 834-9034. Oct. 8–PWV Acquisition v. Maddox, Manhattan Housing Court, 111 Centre Street, Rm. 523,New York, NY at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 8–UAM’s weekly forum at the Elks Plaza, 1068 Harriet Tubman (Fulton Street) nr. Classon Ave. in Brooklyn at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free. Take the “C” train to Franklin Ave. “The Reason for the Assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy and the Threatened Impeachment of Nixon.” Oct. 11-12–An overnight bus trip to the Blacks in Wax Museum and the Baltimore Harbor in Baltimore and an “Egypt on the Nile” tour of Washington, DC conducted by the esteemed Egyptologist Anthony Browder. The tour is a must for Blacks and especially for our children. For further information on all events, call United African Movement at (718) 834-9034. See: www.reinstatealtonmaddox.net