Dare I hope?

Dare I hope that the people of the USA are ready to hope that things can be better? They WANT things to be better? They want to stop being afraid and pinched and depressed and angry? Are they ready to stand up and say ENOUGH? Can we elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden?

Are they ready to say they work hard every day, come home and do a little more around the house, just to get by but never see the light at the end of the tunnel, so are now ready for the light? Are they tired of the darkness and suffocating feelings and anxiety about their lives? Can they accept just a smidge more responsibility so their children and grandchildren can have at least as much as they do or even a little more?

Or, are they afraid of light and air and smiling and believing they can leave something better for their children? Can they leave behind the devil they know and venture out to something different? Can they remember what it was like?

Or, are they willing to throw the dice on the future, the future for themselves and their children? Are they will to hand the reigns over to an old man that just wants what he thinks he is owed, someone who has quite willingly sold his soul in order to get what he wants. And, standing right behind him is a woman that wants nothing more than to be queen.

People don’t seem to get that it really isn’t all about them. Some of it is, but mostly it’s about the country, and world, being left for their children and grandchildren. I know many people have children because they want children. I often wonder, though, if they stop to think about what that means. Long term. Generational.

Having kids is not just have the kids, grow old then die. There is a huge responsibility for what they leave those kids. Will it be a life that is a little bit better than our own? Will we leave clean water and air, enough oil and natural gas to see them through discovering new sources of energy and technology? Will there be enough food?

Will it be worse? Will the ravenous use of all natural resources, including all the oil we can drill-baby-drill for and a planet moldering under polluted air and water and landfills of our throw-away living be the legacy? Will they have all the bills of our mismanagement and over-use and greed? Will the sins of the fathers be visited on the children?

Are we ready? Can we deal with a little more pain so that our old age and the ages to come aren’t crushed?

We have to be ready for change, for a man and a government that wants to make it better, to make a life and country that does not live with fear, that reaches out to our neighbors on this tiny world and stands straight in amongst them again. We have to be ready, if not for us, then for our children.

What price victory?

I’ve come to a conclusion. Well, I actually came to it some time back. I was just hoping I would be proved to be wrong. John McCain is not a man of honor. I wonder if he actually ever was. Oh, it seems that he has shown honorable behavior in the past. I question, though, whether it was because it suited him at the time, it furthered his career or put him in a good light for the public? He certainly isn’t showing any honor at the moment, and hasn’t for some time.

Anyone who would hire the same muckrakers that sank his previous presidential campaign demonstrates he is more than willing to jump into bed with those muckrakers. The very tactics that he decried he now uses with a viciousness that has no place in a candidate for the highest office in this land.

The Senator from Arizona has also shown that he is willing and able to use what he knows to be lies and half truths to further his cause. I am not even going to try to pick a handful from the very large pile to list here. Oh, wait, I’ll mention a couple.

- McCain hints, winks and suggests that Obama has close ties to at least one terrorist. Oh, he says he doesn’t care about a washed up terrorist, who, by the way, is a respected educator and works with Republicans on community works. In almost the very next breath, though, McCain says he wants to know what Obama’s relationship to said washed up terrorist. Mean time, McCain is…oh, it’s too stupid to continue.

- McCain says he is a maverick. How does a maverick vote with his president 90% of the time and brag about it. Since this is McCain’s own statement and it’s on film, I think it must be true.
McCain has always been a highly vocal supporter of deregulation. He says he wants to deregulate health care. He also says he can fix the economy. Fix it for who? Oh, that’s right. He wants to fix it for the people who earn more than $250,000 a year. The rest of us don’t count.

- McCain says he knows how to find Osama bin Laden. He says he’ll do it as soon as he’s in the White House. He also says he is a patriot. Wouldn’t a patriot have provided every bit of information and done his best to capture bin Laden as soon as he could? Would anyone holding such information hostage for so long be called a loyal American?

- McCain is an angry old man. He is so bitter that this has not been a cake walk for him that he is willing to do anything to become president. He is willing to allow his own campaign to attack anyone supporting Barack Obama in any way possible. He silently stands by while his surrogates attack decent, hard working and loyal Americans, generating fear and hate and dividing this country.

Senator McCain said over and over again that Senator Obama was willing to lose a war to win an election. Well, McCain is willing to destroy a country, his own, to win an election. Just tell me, how American is that?

Politics, what else?

October 7, 2008

Okay, I’m lazy. Get over it. Please.

The second presidential debate is on right now. I should be giving it my undivided attention, but I find political speeches, debates and other such things very painful to watch and listen. I will try to leave it on, but may record it to pick though later.

It is incredibly dismaying to see what is going on in this country right now. The dirty politics, which were supposed to be absent this time around, are here again. I can see why McCain wanted Palin as a running mate. She is supremely ambitious and happy to do anything and everything necessary to win. And, that has crept into McCain’s modus operandi. It’s scary.

There are no filters (no pun intended) built in that would prevent the willingness to incite violence. I’m not kidding. One only needs to watch the stump speeches to know they are using the same tactics used by white supremacists when targeting African-Americans or any other non-white group. Catch words and phrases spoken over and over again to incite hatred and fear, and maybe violence. Haven’t there been criminal proceedings brought against people that use those tactics?

Another thing that scares me is the desire by so many to have someone that will be next in line to the White House that says “also, too” and compares herself with Joe Sixpack on a regular basis. First, she is insulting Joe Sixpack, consistently implying that Joe is uneducated and can understand only the simplest ideas and is interested in nothing but beer. I come from a blue collar background, and I am offended by it.

I want someone who is smart. We’ve had almost eight years of the king of underachievement. This country has already lost status, respect and is losing her heart. We need someone who is cool under pressure, understands the concepts, and who will surround himself with intelligent people that are putting the country, and not their hip pockets, first. It is vitally important that the next president can talk with world leaders without anger or threats. We must heal the relationships with friends and bring our enemies around without threatening war. A hot head dealing with hot heads does not bode well for a good outcome.

In a previous post, I said that Hillary Clinton would be a better candidate than Barack Obama. Senator Obama has proven to me that he is a solid, intelligent and capable man. He has been composed and articulate under extremely difficult situations. He has chosen a worthy running mate in Senator Biden, someone who knows foreign policy and has a wealth of other knowledge and experience.

There are accusations that the Obama campaign has launched smear attacks on McCain and Palin. Since it seems that every point made by the Democrats can be backed up by video and other public records, I think the accusations are without merit.

The same cannot be said for the McCain campaign. The man who very recently stated, on camera, that he would not stoop to such tactics has apparently forgotten his promise. What other promises would he forget?