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Obviously Barack Obama is the only hope for changing the course that the Reaganites and neo-Reaganites have set for this country since 1981. Barack’s primary campaign was grounded on the vast majority of US citizens’ hope for change, our need for change.
Now we are engaged in politics. The stadium crowd demagoguery of inspiring speeches and shared intentions must give way to critical thinking. The candidates must state their intentions regarding specific issues, and for many of us those intentions will fall far short of the ideal.
I was disappointed that Barack did not draw a line in the sand with the telecommunications immunity provision of the new FISA law. (Try to fit that feeling on a bumper sticker!) I was disappointed to hear that Barack doesn’t intend to step up to the issues of church and state, that he intends to continue funneling public money through private religious organizations to address social concerns. I was troubled when Barack moved away from my impression that he had a hardline withdrawal-with-a-timetable position on Iraq and temporized that he would “consult with his military commanders on the ground.”
Yet for all the disappointment I experienced from Barack’s pragmatic pursuit of a mandate, when I vote for him this fall it will be no compromise of my own idealism. I believe he is a fine Democratic candidate to take the reins at a moment in American history as critical as that in 1932 when FDR won his first term. We need a Democrat to restore needed economic regulatory policies. We need a Democrat to organize the project for a transition away from fossil fuel energy. We need a Democrat because Democrats believe there is a place in our society for the government, while modern Republicans seem intent on tearing it down.
When I hear that the two candidates aren’t all that far apart on issues that matter to me, I take it with a grain of salt. Stem cell research and nuclear non-proliferation are Democratic commitments. For McCain, the Republican intellectual heir to the Bush dynasty, they are talking points.
Americans are offering a mandate for change. In the fall we will elect a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President. These government leaders will be tasked with revitalizing the economy, addressing the energy crisis without taking food out of the mouths of the world’s children, restoring our reputation in the world, ending the Iraq War and stabilizing Afghanistan, shifting the judiciary back to an arm of government that we can respect, and perhaps bringing many of today’s white collar Washington miscreants to justice.
Barack Obama can lead these changes. John McCain would be just another buffoon, a toothless tool of the corporate elite, unable to effectuate change.
So let’s stuff away all those depressed feelings we’ve had about Barack’s compromises, and let’s run the last man standing of the Keating Five out of town….
[tags]no city for old men, toothless tool[/tags]
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