Tom Nagowski of Cumberland Head, said the massive federal bailout of companies that caused the current financial mess is wrong. In particular, he’s angry General Motors got $13.5 billion yet still might go bankrupt.

“We’ll never see that money again,” Nagowski said.

AIG is another example. It has received $170 billion in federal funds, including an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve.

“They’re (AIG) still giving bonuses to the people that caused this problem,” he said.

World War II veteran Antonio Gagliardi from Plattsburgh took the stage to say he remembers the events that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany.

He said the leaders of the Wehrmacht Republic just kept printing money in response to economic hardship, until it took a wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread.

It was their downfall that led to the ascension of Hitler, Gagliardi said.

“If you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it,” he said. “I’m afraid the same thing could happen here.”

Peru resident Jim Gallagher said positive, open discussions with neighbors will help forge a solution better than continued negativity.

“These are the things our forefathers stood for. They gave their lives,” he said.

Rachel Maliniak of Plattsburgh then took the stage to read a poem she later titled “Fed Up.”

“Bailout nation, jobless claims, markets failing, Main Street pain. The state of the nation is corporate greed, corrupted government and Ponzi schemes,” it reads in part.

Maliniak wrote it after seeing her parents lose so much of their retirement and others lose everything they have. She doesn’t want her 7-year-old daughter to grow up to face all these problems.

“I don’t like it when I see people get hurt. People are generally good, and they don’t deserve that,” Maliniak said.

She said Congress was irresponsible when it voted on the bailout bill without even reading them.