Friday, April 18, 2008

Mea culpa


Here is the time for me to accept a mistake, and cede a little. I have said formerly that without a doubt, Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee. I am having some doubts about this now. Not because I am convinced that he is not leader material. It is not a result of the "bitter" remarks. It is the result of the pseudo-republican fake outrage machine, (known simply as Hillary Clinton.) Her reaction to this is as fake as the bullshit she says about her grandfather who worked blue-collar shifts in Scranton. It was class-A pandering to the working class whose votes she has a predisposition to anyway.
First of all, Barack Obama seems elitist because he made some sweeping remarks about people probably clinging to religion, guns and antipathy in economic woe. Instead of deigning to qualify his statements, Barack Obama should have used this to attack the credibility of the current administration. He should have said that "People will naturally cling to these, as these are the parts of the Bill of Rights that they haven't relinquished as part of the Patriot Act."
The amendments to the US constitution guarantee a person the right to free speech (1st amendment) the right not to have their person or their privacy violated without reasonable suspicion (4th amendment), the right not to incriminate themselves (5th amendment), the right to a jury trial if accused of a crime (7th), the right not to be subjected to cruel & unusual punishment(8th).
All of these rights are obliterated under the garb of national security and this free-market capitalist democracy is giving way to a socialized capitalism where taxpayer money is used to bail out big rapacious multi-billion dollar companies which are filing chapter eleven. What is converting this to a fascist system is that the only rights remaining are guns (2nd amendment), religion and, of course the right to antipathy is mainstreamed whenever there are times of danger.
So, when Hillary Clinton criticizes Obama, she is inadvertently helping Mc Cain so much. Barack keeps accusing her on issues, where she would not be hard done by when (& if) competing against Mc Cain. But Hillary is being extremely republican in accusing Obama, thus giving him a raw deal in the general election. In the Pennsylvania debate, Hillary announced that while Obama & she are fighting it out now, she will make sure that a Democrat will occupy the White House. Somehow she is fighting so dirty that she might ensure a victory for Mc Cain. She needs to mature some and realize that if she wants a Democrat to win, she has to take the high ground.

If however, by pandering to the working class and their misled republican ideologies, she is planning to secure a position in the highest office in the country, and then be the same radical hippie who wants socialized medicine and real benefit for the common people, then I salute her intelligence. Only, I don't think she is that smart or has it in her to take that big a risk.

Here comes my mea culpa. I take back my categorical statement that Obama will win the nomination. I do believe that the average American needs to understand that for the country to work well, he has to hand over the power to a much above-average person. If such a person makes a remark which seems sweeping, let it go or better still weigh it with all the good this man did on the streets of Chicago after graduating from Harvard Law, when he could have landed himself the cushiest of jobs, had he wanted.

Also, let's not forget that Hillary Clinton's popularity is largely because of her husband being president. Let both candidates make good on their statement that a Democrat should become president.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

i second that. think barack obama def deserves a chance over hillary clinton. he's a man with good ideas, strong opinions and is a powerful public speaker. he seems to have what it takes to be a great world politician.
yes we can.