Now to the election. I am 99% confident that Obama will win.
He represents the future of our national leadership. He has a
first-class mind, sound common sense, and solicits top-flight
advisors. I also know he has the ability and the intelligence
to stop the march of "mindless cannibalism" (a Jim
Wright term) that now rules our national politics. With
sizeable majorities in the House and Senate and an Obama
presidency, I think the Democrats can reinstitute a form of
the Fairness Doctrine that will help defang the worst of the
talk radio jockstraps and drain some of the partisan poison
out of the American political bloodstream. We will work
together as Americans to do great things, rebuild our nation,
and be a positive force in the world.
If McCain pulls it out of you know where, I am afraid we are
in for very hard times. Economically, a McCain victory would
bring about events that would have transpired had FDR lost to
Hoover in 1932. Then as now, the Republicans were not able to
admit that their policies brought about the financial
collapse, and their ideas on how to end the slump were little
more than "get up early and whistle a happy tune".
Oh, and the Hoover administration blamed the whole Depression
on the American people's lack of "positive
thinking."
Fortunately, FDR won and the New Deal, while not ending the
Depression , at least took the right steps to keep another one
from coming along. That is, until Reagan, a
Republican-controlled Congress, and the Bushes rolled back
financial regulations to 1920's standards. Then the same
greed, arrogance, and lack of foresight brought the same wild
speculations and financial collapses, with a needless,
pointless, and unnecessary war thrown in.
It is heartening to see the scales fall from the eyes of so
many Conservatives as the truth comes out concerning Bush,
McCain, Cheney, Palin, and the whole bunch of lying, ignorant,
pig-headed, hypocritical, shortsighted fools who have shaped
our politics for the past eight years. McCain sold his
integrity to get the nomination, then made a hasty, reckless
decision to put Palin on the ticket, then lacked the courage
to jettison her when she showed an utter lack of understanding
about the job she would hold if he is elected. Now McCain is
teasing that he will bring an even greater blockhead, the
fraudulent "Joe the Plumber", to advise him in the
White House. Even at this point, Obama looms like a figure
carved on Mt. Rushmore compared to the sad, fifth-rate
personages buzzing like blowflies around the McCain campaign's
carcass.
At the conclusion of "The Candidate", Robert
Redford's character, having won the election, turns to his
campaign manager and says, "now what?" I envision
such an ending if McCain should somehow wriggle into the White
House. He is an aging man who is probably going to succumb to
cancer within a year or two. He has exhausted himself waging
a nasty campaign consisting mostly of excremental attacks on
his opponent. If he has any ideas on how to get America out
of its BushCheney-induced sickness, he has not yet articulated
them in any detail. His would-be Vice President is consumed
with ambition, self-assured in the way only those whose views
are completely at odds with the facts can be, and who will
quickly turn to the most sinister, corrupting forces on the
Christian Right for comfort and advice.
We are voting for the future of our country, our liberties,
our democracy. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and
awakened Republicans and Conservatives are that future, now
just as FDR and the New Dealers were in 1932. Let's not
betray ourselves on Tuesday. Vote!