It Astonishes Me...

I find it astonishing and disheartening to find the McCain-Palin ticket now running neck-and-neck with Obama-Biden as a result of the lies, fear-mongering and distortions that the Republican gamesters have perpetrated on the public for the past two weeks and more. Will we ever again have a visionary representative government as long as the Roves and Schmidts hold the reins in the election process? Will vision, decency and above-board conversation and action be trumped by vicious innuendo and fact-bashing?

I despair of a process that's dedicated to turning visionary, inspirational patriots of the first stripe like Obama into a whipping post for demigods whose hidden agendas continue to bring our economy and financial industries to its knees.

Just a cursory reading of a new book, Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformational Presidency by Robert Kuttner should open the eyes of even the most hard-core Republican, Democratic, Independent, or Green Party supporter. It's a history book at its base, but the author truly believes that Obama possesses the precise combination of talents, skills and temperament to become one of our greatest Presidents ever, along with Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Johnson, all of whom served during the most-challenging times our nation has ever faced up until now (Civil War/slavery; The Great Depression; Civil Rights). America is equally-challenged right now, mostly due to the prevailing policies and politics of the past thirty years as revealed in this book (and in several others I've read). Our current crises are traceable to mostly-Republican regimes. The "trickle-down" theory of Ronald Reagan has most of us getting pissed on rather than lifted up. And McCain-Palin have no real answers, other than to parrot the same lame theories -- and to vote with Bush and the "prevailing wis-dumb" of failing Reaganomics and a mis-directed war (Iraq rather than Afghanistan, where the 9/11 terrorists were trained, and where terrorists are being trained to this day).

The McCain team touts Sept 11th as a reminder of an ever-present threat, but it does so at its own peril (I would like to think), because we all know that Bush dishonored all those who perished on that horrendous day by going after Saddam Hussein rather than the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 -- even though he KNEW that Hussein was innocent of the attacks and of being tied to al Qaeda, and that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (This has been proven. Watch BUYING THE WAR on PBS if you don't believe me.) In this, Bush failed utterly to locate bin Laden and bring him and his compatriots to justice. And McCain supported it, and wants to continue this war to show the world that America never loses a military contest. Oh, really? We're losing the war for our allies' hearts, and the trust of the American people, and the trust of many of our own soldiers, and that's far more dangerous, security-wise, than many other things I can think of right now... We can't win an occupation in the Middle East. We can only lose while occupying a nation that wants to create its own destiny and see its land returned to its sole control. We have been invited to leave by Iraq. What part of this doesn't McCain understand? (Even George Bush is beginning to get the hint.)

The only candidate in the race for the Presidency with the potential to transform our nation is Obama. McCain and Palin are touting themselves as change agents because they can't get anywhere as the clones of Bush policies and ideologies that they are. Palin may even out-Bush Bush in her rabid support for fundamentalist theology and ideology, and she's even more vicious with her mouth than he is, as well as being a card-carrying fraud as a"reform" agent.

I don't know. If the American people elect McCain-Palin I will be appalled... and in almost-total despair realizing that fear sells, lies sell, rabid-dog attacks sell... and that decent, honorable visionaries can't get elected unless they get just as down-and-dirty as the opposition does.

I don't think Obama wants to win that way -- but I do hope and pray that he wants to win ENOUGH that, if he HAS TO get in the mud with hogs to win, he will take off his gloves and do it. I know it will be against everything he believes in, but... millions of people are counting on him to save America from more of the same, and if he stays above the fray and loses, we'll all lose.

So do what you gotta do, Barack. We'll forgive you.

A gentleman's gotta do what a gentleman's gotta do. McCain has done it! Go for the gold the way Phelps did -- all out, whatever it takes.

Countless people are counting on you for a new day!