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Courage, Wisdom in an Age of Fear
When friends have confided their fears for Barack Obama's physical safety, I have winced and wanted to shush them. It may be a neurosis peculiar to me, but I have felt that even to speak of the possibility of such a thing - you see, I cannot say it - invites the heinous act to happen. If the prospect of Obama's being attacked has been a shadow on his run for president, last week's debate between the candidates brought light into the shadow, offering yet another revelation of why Obama is special.
I came into my adulthood between 1963 and 1968. Already, readers of a certain age will know why those years are defining. The assassination of John F. Kennedy, as my generation was just getting started, confronted us too soon with the starkest truth of the human drama - every life a tragedy. But the shock of Dallas was not enough to undo us because we were young and still believed that heartbreak can motivate change for the better. We saw that then, as movements against war and for civil rights drew energy from the political idealism sparked by JFK. His assassination had made us wary, though, as if hope is not to be trusted.
When Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, our chosen tribunes of justice and peace, were gunned down weeks apart in 1968, a flame in our hearts was doused forever. Their deaths, in addition to crippling the movements for which they stood, made us see how the tragic can be laced with the absurd. We knew that, if ever gripped by passionate hope again, we would see it snatched away unrealized, although we could not bring ourselves to say by what. And why shouldn't we, right then, have stopped being young?
One of the joys of the current season is to see a fresh generation respond to the promise of Obama without reflexes of worry. Young people have a right to uncomplicated hope, and Obama is himself young enough to nurture it.
But for many Americans, ghosts haunt the house of politics, a hovering threat for which, until recently, there were no words. That is the background for the shudders felt when last week's presidential debate turned to the ugliness of what this campaign has surfaced. John McCain complained about "unfair" criticisms by Georgia Congressman John Lewis of slurs shouted at some McCain-Palin rallies. Obama replied that he had distanced himself from Lewis's comments. But he explained that Lewis was expressing concern at McCain supporters shouting, as Obama put it, referring to himself as the target, "things like 'Terrorist!' and 'Kill him!' "
There it was: Obama himself using the phrase "Kill him!" Obama naming the threat of his own assassination. He went on, "And that your running mate. . . didn't say, 'Hold on a second, that's kind of out of line.' I think Congressman Lewis's point was that we have to be careful how we deal with our supporters."
McCain swung into a manic defense of his supporters, displaying tone deafness to the unnerving chord that had been plucked by his own campaign. McCain is of the generation that was traumatized by the murders of 1968, but that year he was undergoing a separate trauma of his own in Hanoi. He is not seized, perhaps, by the visceral dread out of which Lewis was speaking, and which so many recognize. However irrelevant the youthful nihilism of William Ayers, its full horror cannot be grasped without reference to the social breakdown that preceded it.
Obama has shown that he understands the positive and negative legacies of the 1960s, but he is defined by neither. For me, his calm and reasonable demeanor was never more welcome than when he repeated that phrase "Kill him!" Unlike me, Obama is not afraid to put the threat into words, as long as doing so opens into deeper understanding. The threat thus spoken of is defused.
A Republican mantra has been, "Who is Barack Obama?" But he has been showing us. His courage runs as deep as his wisdom. For some Americans, he represents, in addition to everything else, the unexpected possibility that we can find release in middle age from what took us hostage when we were young.
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36 Comments so far
Show AllDavid Talbot's book "The Brothers" retrieves the history of the hatred borne towards John and Robert Kennedy by the right wing, especially among militarists who wanted a direct war with the USSR. Starting themselves as strident cold warriors themselves, who believed that surreptitious actions were OK, both answered, slowly, the call to their better natures.
As a country, we are slowly moving to answer the same call to our better natures; and it involves giving trust & hoping along with people that we don't agree with on everything, but who have no wish to continue the internecine war against their neighbors & want to rebuild.
Another beautiful piece from one of my favorite writers! I had the same reaction as Mr. Carroll did when I watched Barack Obama repeat the "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" threats at a rally, and then admonished McCain to rein in his extremist supporters. A huge knot in my stomach unwound and a gladness that he was not afraid filled my heart.
I notice that Commondreams has lately been the place to visit if you want your daily dose of Obama-bashing -- some of which reaches ridiculous heights of absurdity. But never mind. While I don't agree with him on immigration and worry about his blurry position on new nuclear power plants, he is still one amazing guy, and after 8 years of Bush, I'm elated that he's going to win this election.
As Allied forces rolled through France, jubilation was frequently replaced by caution as the outcome was uncertain. And when they finally reached the concentration camps, they were greeted by unbelieving prisoners who could scarcely comprehend that their captors had been driven off.
After seven years of lawless impunity, war crimes, violations of the constitution, all without penalty, on the part of those John Dean calls "conservatives without conscience," many of those who have fought hardest are unready & unable to believe that an Obama administration would be anything other than, well, lipgloss on the porker.
How does one define "bashing" exactly? Isn't that just another way of saying please do not talk about certain facts BO supporters would prefer to ignore? Like how much money he's accepted from the Wall Street bank robbers and his subsequent vote to reward their thievery with trillions more? Or his call for the illegal bombing and even invasion of Pakistan? Or his call for more US soldiers to die in Afghanistan in spite of the fact that we shouldn't be there at all? Or his continued promise to "win" the fake "war on terror"? Or his silence on topics such as a reduction in military spending, or the closure of some or all of the 700+ military bases and golf resorts we have worldwide, or his promise to increase Bush's "faith-based" initiatives?
Are liberals and progressives supposed to lock-step just because he's a Dem?
Your wasting your time with logic.
The person that you are responding to is living in the thrall of Romantic, emotion-based delusions.
They describe a "knot" in their stomach "unwinding with gladness" when the TV showed them Obama "not afraid" of a few random pale-necks shouting threats who have never gotten within 100 miles of Obama's dozens of Secret Service and private body guards.
You're asking someone who confesses this level of bizarre emotional attachement to the Obama campaign to "define" something and then look at the facts?
You might as well ask a caterpillar to fly. they can do it, but only after a total transformation and a lot of hard work turns them into a butterfly.
Until the illusionary framework is broken by reality (or at least a stronger and more appealling illusion) the delusion will persist, and logic will be of no avail.
So yes, we are Obama "bashing" just by pointing to the real facts of his behaviour. That behavior represents Barack Obama the actual living person, a person of strong ambition for, and unprecedentedly fast rise to, a position of great power by almost any means necessary.
This is NOT who the Obamites, or those who rise to the level of Obamabots, are voting for. They are voting for "Barack Obama" -the idea that exists in their minds.
That the idea Obama was PLACED in their minds through technique and machines for the express purpose of getting them to support the living person Obama is something that most of them cannot see.
Those of us who CAN see that become like the ephemeral "they" that schizophrenics begin to be haunted by as their condition slips into paranoid forms.
We will always be "bashers", we will always be "absurd" and "talking nonsense" as long as the delusion persists.
Don't Panic,
-matti.
Joan Baez is programmed by the corporate media masters.
Gore Vidal is programed by the corporate media masters.
James Carroll is an emotion-controlled Obamabot, likewise programmed.
Few people have read Norman Mailer's book on the 1972 election, "St. George and the Godfather", which contains both an unforgettable portrait of Nixon and a moving account of the dissolution of the '60s movement into many small competing & mutually recriminatory camps.
WIth the name of William Ayers back in the news, we need to recall exactly how it was that the "new Republican majority" of 1972 took on such cancerous proportions after its brief setback during Watergate. The left shrank itself at the SDS convention in '69 and stopped speaking the argot of their co-citizens; instead, everyone was ideologically frisked for heterodoxy or insufficient loyalty to a particular set of positions.
The rightwingers are not entirely crazy: despite their wild caricatures of Obama, they sense that the country will tilt away from them. Recall also Frederick Douglass' description of Lincoln: that from the pure abolitionist position, he seemed hesitant, timid, calculating (words to that effect), but from the perspective of the society from which he emerged, he was bold, decisive, and radical.
And so the job of those to the left of Obama is to "agitate, agitate, agitate" -- but not to continually re-submit their list of grievances & arraign Obama in advance of the event.
We should greet gladly a candidate who does not believe or operate on the principle "Yer with us or yer with the tuhhurists", or "You're with me or we'll destroy your career; if you show up at our rallies, we'll arrest you."
Saint-Just October 20th, 2008 6:15 pm
We should greet gladly a candidate who does not believe or operate on the principle "Yer with us or yer with the tuhhurists", or "You're with me or we'll destroy your career; if you show up at our rallies, we'll arrest you."
Just ask Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now” how willingly the Democrats embrace the concept of arrest at their rallies. She was arrested.
The main stream media and 99% of Americans have not admitted that mass arrests even occurred at St. Paul’s DNC convention. Videos of Amy Goodman’s arrest are on the Internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
Has Obama spoken out against this? Of course not. True, he did not personally deploy these gangs of thugs. But he is leader of the party that did. Go ahead, be proud of Obama's America.
Amy Goodman is even being given an honorable mention (Alternative Nobel) from the Swedish Parliament. She is the first American Journalist so honored. Evidently the Swedes see something in this that Americans do not.
Many of the arrests at St. Paul were preemptive. That’s like my wife divorcing me because she finds out I fantasize about Dolly Parton (as if I have a chance anyway - I’m over eighty).
Wow.
You've met and spent sufficient time with Barack Obama to know he is an "amazing guy".
Or are these just some other thoughts and emotions the TV induced in you, like your unwinding "knot"?
The only way to defeat a shadow is to face it without fear. I learned this as a pagan, not as a Christian. The "shadow" being the sum of all of our own private fears.
I would safely bet there is probably a fifty-fifty chance these guys who yelled "Kill him" were democrat operatives, placed there to garner attention, provoke fear and of course, get votes. After all, we have two evils at work here. In addition, Obama is not a threat to the MIC, in fact, he's every bit the supporter of the war making machine as McCain. He is the perfect man for them right now. He's safe.
Obama is clearly the better choice of the two evils. He offers "hope". And that's a good thing for the psyche of the masses.
However, I'll still have vote my resistance to the killing machine Obama represents, by voting for Nader.
We have to show resistance.
Although I concur that both the Democratic and Republican Parties are owned by the Wall Street pirates that caused the current financial "crisis" and have destroyed the fabric of America, the thought that the Democrats would need to send operatives to a Republican rally is ludicrous.
The Republican noise machine (primarily talk radio) has been brainwashing young fascists for nearly three decades and centuries of human history have proven that such brainwashing creates crusaders that will say and do whatever it takes to promote their cause.
I am still in disbelief that McCain referred to the JFK assassination as an "intervention." I am young, I wasn't alive when these leaders were murdered, but I can not believe that McCain's outrageous statement has not received any serious analysis! Is this due to the same indifference that Carroll writes about?
I know they are claiming what he actually said was "the intervention of the tragedy" - but that still doesn't make much sense. I just don't buy it!
I strongly feel that McCain's odd statement needs to be investigated. How can we just overlook evidence that implies McCain may have knowledge about an "intervention" that lead to the murder of a US president?
I agree that this is worth pursuing. However, there is ample evidence already for the US government to at least publicly deny the Oswald theory and tear down that foolish museum in Dallas. As to a determination of exactly who is responsible for JFK’s death, it would be highly resisted by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) who actually took part in the operation (or intervention if you will) and who stand to lose a great deal of power if the truth were actually released to the American people. So the lie will remain hidden, along with lies of 9/11. Indeed, the truth about JFK’s assassination would only open cries for legitimate explanations of 9/11.
I remember the day JFK was assassinated like it was yesterday. I remember it even better than I remember 9/11. I was in the Air Force at the time. It was the day I realized without a doubt that I lived in a fascist empire. In those days you couldn’t share such fears with many people. Airmen were discouraged from discussing politics. However I had a flight sergeant with whom I confided and who gave me the following profound observation. He said, “Before you die you will realize that everything that you believe in your heart to be true about God and your country is a blatant lie.” I never forgot it. My flight sergeant has never been proven wrong.
I never gave credit to suspicions about the mafia, or some international plot. To me it was always obvious that elements within my own government at the highest levels organized and executed a military operation to eliminate Kennedy in order to protect their own positions of power and wealth, which included expanding the war in Vietnam. I personally believe it was Vice President Johnson himself who gave the final order, after which he sat at JFK’s desk and proceeded with the war in Vietnam, just as the MIC ordered him to.
I suspect that many people, like McCain do have knowledge of an “intervention” that led to the murder of a US President.
I always said, “They did it in broad daylight. There has to be a reasonable number of people who know about this.”
Next year Obama will sit in the same office and proceed with orders from the same Military Industrial Complex for control of the Middle East oil supply, while at the same time convincing the American people that he is implementing "change", and he's probably smart enough to do it. The fascist empire has not really changed since JFK’s time.
"When friends have confided their fears for Barack Obama's physical safety, I have winced and wanted to shush them."
If the Republicans say they want to kill Obama, imagine what they would do to Nader, Kucinich or McKinney.
Obama is under no threat of assassination.
John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, these were people who constituted a real threat against the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and to the corporate balance of power and wealth in America. For that they were eliminated by elements within their very own government and country. Obama, on the other hand has embraced the MIC. He is under no such danger. Indeed, he is the current prize of the MIC, their best chance for continuing this oligarchic, fascist empire for corporate wealth as is.
Obama is being perceived by most of the population as an advocate for change while behind the scenes he promises to bow to those who really run this country, and who are currently running it into the ground for their own profit. Why should those powerful groups even think of eliminating him? He’s their man.
It’s all part of MIC’s plan to give the population the impression of change, and thus pacify the growing dissatisfaction with Bush and the Republican party, while at the same time keeping their stranglehold on the country. All they needed to do was place an unelectable dying man as the Republican candidate, while at the same time set up a Democratic one who will be perceived as change. After all, not only does the name of the party in the White House change, the skin color of the president also changes. What could better give the false perception of change? And the foolish citizens won’t even suspect it. Oh, and just in case the Republican candidate does accidentally get elected, make sure you have a loyal vice president to take his place when he croaks.
I suspect that the MIC is doing its best to make sure Obama remains safe. Meanwhile the population licks up Obama’s empty promise for “Hope” and “Change”.
Enjoy your pablum folks. Be good citizens. Vote for Obama, and mommy will give you some more.
More "JFK was a peacemaker" bs.
Well, I never said JFK was a peacemaker. Just like many people will vote for Obama because his policies are to the left of McCain's. But Obama still stands on the conservative side of all issues. Obama is no liberal.
Let me put it to you this way. JFK was not sufficiently compliant with the interests of the Military Industrial Complex, and for that he paid the ultimate price.
But don't be fooled. Obama is no JFK. Not even close.
JFK HAD converted to peacemaking. Saint-Just refers to David Talbot's, "The Brothers". I also recommend a companion read, James W. Douglass', "JFK and the Unspeakable(Why He Died and Why It Matters)". JFK was very aware of a likelihood of assassination, yet was perservering with his attempts at peaceful relations with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Viet Nam. This took a great deal of courage, and in that sense, he died as an American hero.
Thanks for the recommendation; I hadn't come across the Douglass book.
Disobeying, as they always do, the dictum 'speak no ill of the dead,' the rightwing has spread all sorts of nonsense about JFK. Just this week, as the gaga-nazis began to write on NR Online that Bill Ayers wrote Obama's "Dreams From My Father", I saw a post repeating the lie that Ted Sorensen had written "Profiles In Courage", even though ABC, which first reported the lie, was obliged to retract the claim under threat of a lawsuit.
You'll also still find them saying that the story of the PT-109 was exaggerated & that he wasn't so self-sacrificing.
And what about all those folks who, on November 22 1963, laughed & were glad that the "N-lover" was finally dead?
This is not about Obama or Ayers(I support teh old Ayers over Obaam any day!) JFk did NOT "try to make peace" with Cuba! You just want to believe it. He is considered so "great" because he was good looking and died young. I do not think that we should try to delude ourselves about someone , because they are dead. It is certainly not just the Right that had problems with JFK
He was actually pretty conservative. As far as the USSR goes, he said that "Cuba is the place to show our muscle to the USSR. We have to make a stand and let them know thqt we are willing to attack. Cuba is a better place to do it than Europe." Under JFK, we placed 60,000 troops in Southeast Asia.. He did massive tax cuts for the wealthy and big business. You can find all kind of "hero" books about him. Most people know differently by now.
He could not lay a candle to RFK or MLKJ. It is an unsult to lump them.
And, JFK was also speaking out about the "Powers that Be" - there's a recording of his famous speech on youtube, warning us about nefarious people in the background who were/are doing evil things (similar to DDE's famous farewell speech about the
dangers of the M-I complex).
In addition, JFK had issued an Executive Order directing that the Congress of the US take back its' Constitutional duty to control the currency - to print and distribute the money. That would have been the end of the Federal Reserve guys.
So, basically, JFK was taking on the bad actors on all fronts - and that's why they killed him.
Is Mr. Obama so important that his death would change anything substantial within the government power structure?
I doubt that it would.
No one will kill him; he is too unimportant to his ruling elite corporate masters.
The author fails to mention the fact that FDR faced an attempted rightwing military coup in 1934 and later 4 potential comebacks although they fizzled. And this was because he was rescuing America from the Great Depression even with strong public unity unlike today. I think Obama will get through safely. Until the people unite, they cannot expect any good representation much less the much needed type for REAL REFORM.
Obama is safe from the threat of assassination if he stays the Masters' course. If he veers away from that course, as many say that he will "when elected", it is guaranteed that he will be struck down.
From the looks of how he is and has been conducting THEIR business, I believe that he will remain alive AND useful to their agenda.
Obama's courage may run deep, but his plan for the Earth community of beings is more of the same.
Plenty of posters in this thread have stated that Obama does not represent enough of a threat to the system to worry about being assassinated. Well, if one listens to what the right wingers are saying, that's just not the case. There are a lot of wingnuts out their who accuse him of being a "socialist" or that his election will bring about the downfall of all things great and American, including Capitalism. So I think it's very naive to think he's not under a real threat. A fine piece from James Caroll!!
I do think Obama is capable of shepherding along some significant positive change and healing in the world.
I was 25 in 1965. We had been feeling that a good world was possible. That a new and good world was possible. The assassinations gave our spirits a number of jolts. I am sad when I start to read some of the foolish comments in response to the article. I don't finish the silly ones. I feel sorry for people who feel little is possible and who mock the possibility of assassination. The US has a long history of political assassination.
Republicans mock my generation as "smoking dope and dropping out". That's because we scared them. The work we did in the 1960s scared them. We still scare them. Many of us continued to do work as can to make a better country. The young who are working for change and for Obama scare the Republicans. I am delighted. I am to the left of Obama, and I voted for him (absentee). I am a Kucinich supporter. We did our best. I wish the young all the best. They will not be deterred by foolish comments on CD.
NYCartist October 21st, 2008 2:14 pm wrote:
I feel sorry for people who feel little is possible and who mock the possibility of assassination. The US has a long history of political assassination.
I think the goal should be to identify why those previous assassinations occurred, and to use that knowledge to predict whether or not the same possibility is likely for Obama. I see many valid reasons in this thread for the opinion that Obama does not face the same that JFK did. I am your age. I was in the Air Force when JFK was killed. I see little possibility of the same thing happening to Obama today. I do not mock when I say that. It’s just my opinion.
Of course all candidates do face some possibility of assassination. This is, after all, America. Guns are everywhere. People are shot every day, and yes, some rogue fanatic might try it. But that is not what this thread is about. It is about whether Obama is likely to be assassinated by the same powerful elements within our country (Military Industrial Complex) as JFK. Personally I think not. The way I see it, Obama is loyal to those elements. Why should they assassinate one of their own? It makes little sense.
OREZ_ENO:I think you make some excellent points. We still don't know why JFK was killed. A friend of mine said, when Sen. Wellstone's plane went down, "You'd have to prove to me that it wasn't murder.". (Or something similar). My friend said, "There's too much money at stake.". Your final question is intriguing:"Why would they kill one of their own?". I guess we'd need a panel of experts, wouldn't we:include historians, CIA folks, etc. Meanwhile, we must work to keep incitement to violence down in political rallies and other events.
NYCartist October 21st, 2008 2:59 pm wrote:
A friend of mine said, when Sen. Wellstone's plane went down, "You'd have to prove to me that it wasn't murder."
You won’t be surprised to hear that I said exactly the same as your friend when I heard about Wellstone's death, not because I knew something to prove that is was a crime, but because I have been conditioned to suspect it first. Obviously I was greatly affected by JFK’s death, even to this day. Sad, but true.
NYCartist October 21st, 2008 2:59 pm wrote:
Meanwhile, we must work to keep incitement to violence down in political rallies and other events.
I wholeheartedly agree and I extend that to include all aspects of the electoral system. That is why you see me encouraging people to vote away from the two party system. I have this nagging fear, and I hope I am wrong, that the two party system is so corrupted by the Military Industrial Complex that it is driving our country uncontrollably towards a world war with nuclear consequences.
I have read the history of other countries, like Canada, and I have discovered that fundamental change can occur through the electoral system when people get off the bandwagon of voting only for those main party candidates who they see as having a chance to win. Canada, and other western democratic countries as well, have many more parties, and they are all dutifully recognized. For example, in a recently televised Canadian election debate all parties were represented. In America only two parties took part in the televised debates. Is it a coincidence that both those parties, Republican and Democrat, happen to be bought and paid for by the Military Industrial Complex? I view this as a terrible flaw in our democracy. It is obvious that the people who hold power in this country are strangling our democracy, and the stranglehold gets tighter and tighter with every election. It is things like this that make people like your friend and me immediately suspect criminal action on the part of our government when a man like Wellstone gets killed in a plane crash.
A good way to correct that flaw is to increase the popularity of third party and independent candidates. So far I have not witnessed any violence at my local polling station. So voting for Nader or McKinney does not risk violent consequences. Slowly, over time, over the span of many elections, these lesser known candidates would become more and more visible, and as a consequence influential. Hopefully they would finally get recognized by the mainstream media. Even if such candidates don’t win, their opinions on major issues would become part of the public political dialogue in this country. All of this is good and it could all happen in a non-violent way.
And yes, I do realize that America is a violent country, and as public sentiment changes away from the two party system many strong advocates of that system will use fear tactics, and yes guns, to try to steer it back. I agree with you that we should do our best to suppress all such violence.
O_E:Your arguments "slip" a bit in your last reply. I can agree that it would be good to have third parties. Voting for McKinney or Nader does not in any way relate to whether or not there will be violence, as I see the problem and that's where your argument loses me. And they are not going to be President, either one, in 2009. I think a third party starts from the bottom to up. (I like Rosa Clemente a lot as a result of her excellent work on WBAI 99.5FM radio show "Where We Live", as cohost for awhile with Sally O'Brien, a show about political prisoners and more. But I voted for Obama.)
Canada just voted for a bunch of Conservatives and there's a pro-Bush guy at the head of the Canadian gov't. So I don't see how your citing Canada is a great model, unless you mean legislators.
NYCartist October 21st, 2008 4:16 pm wrote:
Voting for McKinney or Nader does not in any way relate to whether or not there will be violence, as I see the problem and that's where your argument loses me.
My point is simple, although perhaps unconvincing. As you point out, voting for McKinney or Nader does not relate to violence. That is my exact point. Indeed, it is a non-violent way to affect change. So, that is why I advocate it. You see? You said it yourself without realizing the profound value of it. It’s called democracy and it is a non-violent mechanism for affecting change.
NYCartist October 21st, 2008 4:16 pm wrote:
Canada just voted for a bunch of Conservatives and there's a pro-Bush guy at the head of the Canadian gov't. So I don't see how your citing Canada is a great model, unless you mean legislators
I think you are confusing the outcome of the Canadian election with the democratic system itself. Again, I believe that this is the biggest obstacle that American voters face. How do you separate you own conscience from an expected outcome? That is, how do I convince you that you don’t really have to vote for a winner. I really don’t know how to help you with that one because despite me being an American, I do not hold that biased sentiment. I vote for the candidate that most closely represents my position on most issues.
There are many things I could say about the Canadian election outcome. One is that the Canadian Conservative Party stands very much to the left of the American Democratic Party. Very much to the left. It strongly, and I mean strongly, supports universal health care, which the American Democratic Party does not. So we can’t compare names here. Also, I recognize that there is a worldwide trend towards conservatism.
But my efforts are not affected by these outcomes. I am focusing on ensuring that all arguments are properly heard so that the most popular outcomes can be decided. The Canadians were able to use an honest televised debate to help them make their choice. In America we are denied that privilege.
The Canadians are offered real choice between many parties with opposing views. We Americans are denied any choice. No, the two party system in America is not choice. Those who think that there is a choice in America have been swayed by superficial advertising that does not discuss the issues to any depth. Obama says in advertisement that he supports universal health care, but he absolutely does not. Ask any person in a country that has universal health care about Obama’s policy and they will flatly deny that it is universal. It’s simple, universal means single payer. Pure and simple. That’s what it means everywhere in the world. Obama’s system is just another private insurance based solution. Down deep it’s no different than McCain’s. On another issue, Obama wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan. So does McCain. You see, there’s no choice. Should America do that? Of course not. It will be a disaster. Nader and McKinney do not support escallating the war, but most Americans don't even know they are running, let alone their policies. They have been squeezed out.
The same policies come out of both parties because both parties are supported by the very same Military Industrial Complex that is more interested in waging wars for profit than in the wellbeing of the American population. This is the same Military Industrial Complex that murdered Kennedy because he would not comply. Pure and simple, America is effectively not a democracy. I say effectively because ironically everyone does have the right to vote third party or independent if they want to. But the propaganda machine of the two main parties has convinced everyone that to vote third party or independent would be bad for the country, and a wasted vote as well. The success of this propaganda campaign effectively chokes America’s democracy.
Your comment also suggests that your expectations are too short term. In Canada it takes many elections for a particular party that has a particular agenda to gain popularity and rise to power. The bottom line is the Canadian system better guarantees that the political dialog includes the policies of minor parties. Again, don’t confuse the election results with the fairness of the election. In America the system suppresses minor parties before the election even begins to the point that they are invisible. In addition, in the Canadian system Ministers of Parliament from minor parties do get elected, and there are a few of these. Despite their low numbers, through their voices the policies of these parties are heard in the House of Commons. I call that democracy. In America the policies of third parties and independent candidates is not represented at all. I don’t call that democracy. I call it a dictatorship in disguise. Add to that America’s war policies and the way they arrest their own citizens (for example at the DNC in St. Paul) and you have a fascist dictatorship. That is how I see America, and I believe a good non-violent way to reduce the Military Industrial Complex’s stranglehold on the country is to vote third party or independent.
thank you mr. carroll, for another great piece. unfortunately, it sure made a lot of bullshit come running out of the woods.
keep posting, adeletheczech. try not to let these morons intimidate you. some of these comments, if they weren't so pathetic, would be truly amazing. people, in one line, accusing the mic of assasination, while in the next line proudly telling us they were a part of the mic. it's probably not too far-fetched to suggest that many of these people with that sort of thought process are thankful for and anxiously await their mic retirement checks, are proud of their mic-backed free education, don't say no to their mic medical/dental coverages, enjoy their very own mic costco grocery store, and blah, blah, blah. for all you obama forecasters (sounds better than bashers, still, bashers are what you really are), i hope you're putting your money where your big mouths are. it would certainly be more entertaining for you to come back and say i told you so than it is entertaining for us in having to listen to you say this is what's going to happen. seemingly, you people miss the point of the article.
Aloha Saint-Just --
At last, a voice worth coming to the Common Dreams comments section to search for. Your mind and words are inspiring, invigorating, invaluable. Too many cynics in this forum ask why they should believe in the potential of Barak Obama. Along with millions of a younger generation who are still able to feel the power of hope, I ask, "Why not?"
Since many Americans are expecting Obama, the presidential candidate, to be assasinated during the campaign, it won't happen.
In fact, putting aside the wish to win this election for McCain, most Republicans themselves believe that Obama would carry the torch of the Republican after taking office regardless of what he is professing during this campaign. The chances of an assasination is therefore stronger while he is in office. How so?
If the financial crisis goes from bad to worse and if there is no light at the end of the tunnel in the Middle East, there may be the need to prepare the Americans for riskier strategies in finance, economy, in foreign affairs, etc. An assasination of President Obama would be so much preferable to faking an Al Qaeda attack on American soil. You think the Neo Cons and the extremists in the Right won't do this?