Reuters photo
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama speaks at a rally in New Hampshire today. "The real gamble in this election is to do the same things, with the same folks, playing the same games over and over and over again and somehow expect a different result," Obama said today in an apparent reference to Team Billary. "That is a gamble we cannot afford, that is a risk we cannot take. Not this time. Not now. It is time to turn the page."
A new hope
So here's how the discussion is going to go for a while:
Barack Obama has too-little experience. He's too vague. He's too feel-good and doesn't have enough substance. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
You know, though, the United States of America's biggest problem right now isn't a lack of policy papers or Washington insiders. We have plenty of policy papers and Washington insiders. (And after George W. Fucking Bush, who lowered the presidential bar so far that it's now somewhere in China, how can we say that just about anyone couldn't do a much better job in the Oval Office?)
The United States' biggest problem right now is that its democracy is a shambles.
It began when the treasonous members of the Bush regime stole the White House in late 2000, aided and abetted by Repugnican Florida Secretary of State Katherine "Conflict of Interest" Harris and five Repugnican-appointed "justices" of the U.S. Supreme Court -- and when the majority of Americans, made fat and lazy and complacent by the Clinton years, did little to nothing to prevent this travesty of democracy.
Ever since late 2000, the members of the Bush regime have shit and pissed all over the American democracy. If they were willing to steal a presidential election -- not only did Democrat Al Gore actually win the pivotal state of Florida, but he won more than a half-million more popular votes than did George W. Bush in November 2000 -- what else wouldn't they do? Oh, gee, the same group of traitors who stole a presidential election wouldn't embroil the nation in a bogus war meant only to siphon billions and billions of our tax dollars to the war profiteers, such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton, would they?
What the United States of America needs right now isn't more policy papers or Washington insiders, but HOPE. I, for one American, pretty much gave up after I spent hundreds of hours of my time and hundreds of my dollars on the Kerry campaign in 2004 only to watch John Kerry so quickly concede the blatantly stolen state of Ohio (Repugnican Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth "Conflict of Interest" Blackwell, like his protege Katherine Harris, also sat on his state's committee to elect George W. Bush while he was his state's top elections official).
The Democratic Party of today sucks ass. That's just a fact. Even when the Democrats control both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, they are too timid to fight for the people who put them in those seats of power. And way too many "Democrats" are in bed with corporate interests, having stopped fighting for the people years ago.
So sue me if while the bitter taste of the Kerry campaign still lingers in my mouth I feel at least little excited about Barack Obama.
It is true that just as I supported John Kerry at least as much because I hate George W. Bush and his treasonous henchpeople as much as I liked Kerry, I support Barack Obama in no small part because I want to see Billary Clinton, the face of the tired old Democratic establishment, blown out of the water, and he seems to be the one who is able to do it.
Why do I want to see Billary go down in flames?
Because as president, Billary Clinton would take us right back to where we were in 2000: A nation too fat and lazy and complacent to even prevent the stealing of the White House right from under our noses.
And because Billary Clinton is a baby boomer, and most baby boomers, if they truly loved their nation, would commit suicide right now. Baby boomers, who hold the majority of the highest positions of power in this nation, have gotten us into this mess; George W. Bush is the poster child for his generation: a man with no talents or qualifications who nonetheless holds the top elected office in the nation -- even though he didn't even win the most number of votes.
Baby boomers, in their incredible greed and incompetence, threaten the survival of the planet itself. Most baby boomers could give a shit about future generations of Americans, but are concerned only that things don't go entirely to shit while they're still alive. They are the worst generation, the first generation of Americans that not only hasn't given a shit whether the next generation did even better than they did, but the first generation of Americans that actually declared war upon the next generation, the first generation of Americans who ate their own young.
I think that Barack Obama, at a youthful 46 years old, if still technically a baby boomer (actually, he's on the cusp between the boomers and my generation, Generation X), is significantly more future-oriented than is the 60-year-old Billary Clinton, whose only apparent interest is to bring back the Clinton years. If she misses living in the White House that much, Billary should get therapy, not run for president.
We Americans need a fresh start. No more Bush cronies, no more Clinton cronies. No more baby boomers in the Oval Office. We need fresh blood, and Billary Clinton is not that.
We Americans need hope. We need hope for something new, for something different; we don't need More of the Same.
It's fine with me if Barack Obama doesn't have every little detail of his presidency figured out already. Because guess what? In a democracy, we, the people, speaking through our elected representatives, are supposed to figure all of the little details out, not rely on our highest elected officials like a suckling infant depends upon its mother.
We Americans are so used to telling ourselves that someone else is figuring it all out and doing it all for us that we don't even know how a democracy is supposed to work anymore. In a nutshell, here is how a democracy is supposed to work: We, the people, tell our elected officials how it's going to be. It's not the other way around.
The treasonous members of the Bush regime have done everything in their power to make the American people believe that power flows only from the Bush regime to the people and not vice-versa. The Bush regime's use of fear! terror! fear! terror! ever since Sept. 11, 2001 -- on the heels of the presidential election that it stole in late 2000 -- has demonstrated the Repugnicans' contempt for the American people and for democracy.
So to see that Billary Clinton's post-Iowa-defeat campaign strategy is fear -- she can fight the Repugnican smear machine and can function as president from day one, but Barack Obama cannot, she claims -- is to see how much Billary Clinton and her cronies are just like the members of the Bush regime. Both camps have nothing but contempt for the American people, whom they see as nothing but stupid sheep to be cowed by fear and thus more easily herded, and aren't interested in the good of all Americans, but are interested only in keeping their little cliques in power.
I am throwing in with Barack Obama. I am not disturbed by the fact that unlike Billary, he hasn't already lived in the White House. I am not disturbed by any imperfections, real or perceived, in his policy positions; policy details will be hammered out by the legislators, who are supposed to be guided by us, the people (and not by the fucking lobbyists).
A leader's main job is to lead -- to set the tone, to direct, to inspire. And a true leader does not promise to do everything for the people for them, allowing them to become fat and lazy and complacent and dependent, but inspires the people to do for themselves, to become self-empowered and self-reliant.
Billary Clinton does not inspire. She is an alternatingly shrill and wooden fear-monger who is interested only in returning herself, her hubby and her little band of cronies back to power, just like it was 1992 again.
Barack Obama inspires me. He gives me a sense of hope. And I haven't had that in a long time.
Barack Obama has rekindled my interest in doing what I can do to help fix our broken democracy. He is leading the nation already.
9:09:05 PM 
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