Compared to my other Blog, The Unloading Zone, my posts here have been pretty sparse. If someone told me this would happen when I started Anyone But Hillary in 2008!, I would
Politics at the National level primarily and at the State level to a lesser degree have fascinated me since I was a teenager (a LONG time ago). I think I've mentioned in previous posts that at 13, I was at the 1972 Republican Convention handing out 'Re-Elect Nixon" buttons and materials.
I lived through the Carter administration where he finally went on TV and blamed the American Public for the "malaise" the Country was experiencing.
I rode the highs of the Reagan years, saw my dream come true in the 90's when the Republicans took both houses of Congress for the first time in decades....and had my dreams crushed with as the minority Democrat party systematically destroyed the Gingrich Revolution....because the Republicans had been in the minority so long they forgot how to Lead Congress.
And then we elected George W. Bush to eight years. I voted for him both times only because I thought the Democrat alternative was worse
The Republican scandals in Congress continued. Now were a half trillion dollars in debt and growing, the dollar is becoming worthless, we're involved in a war we had no justification to start in the first place.
Then came the 2008 Primaries which started too early in 2007. And with it, the biggest crop of losers I can remember seeing, from BOTH sides of the isle, running for President....with a tightly controlled mainstream media universally and simultaneously deciding who to cover, who to marginalize, we apparently have our two contenders right in the nick of time: Barack Obama and John McCain. Wow.
In this ENTIRE Country, the Democrats and Republicans couldn't do any better then that?
I did start getting excited by one candidate. At least Ron Paul had a few good ideas and the Congress could have stopped anything too extreme he proposed. But ending Pax America, closing all our overseas bases and bringing all the troops home: THAT was a good idea.
The Cold War is over and the proxy wars we and the Soviet Union fought through other countries prevented a direct and likely nuclear confrontation between the two of us. But that time is past. The Soviet Union is dead.
Let the rest of the world fight it's own battles: WE ARE BROKE and it's no longer in our interests to have a world-wide military presence. In fact, it's hurting us more than helping us.
That would save America 1 trillion dollars a year: enough to pay off the deficit AND eliminate the Federal Income Tax......forever. And as Commander in Chief and a strict Constitutionalist, I think Dr. Paul could have pulled that off and the Supreme Court would have backed him up.
But despite the greatest grass roots political movement in US History, the mainstream press, working in concert, were able to get him labeled a wacko and marginalize him.
They were helped by his own Presidential Campaign Team which never took advantage of the grass roots support and Ron Paul himself, who in the end, seemed more interested in getting re-elected to Congress and keeping those ear-marks going to his congressional district.
And when that happened, I lost pretty much all interest in the primaries; thus my lack of enthusiastic posting on this Blog.
For the FIRST time in my life, I actually got involved in LOCAL politics. We had Good vs Evil in the Mayors race. Good won (I worked for his campaign). Of the two Council Member seats up for grabs (each with four contenders each), one candidate stood head and shoulders above the rest and won easily.
The second went to a run-off where the candidate I voted and campaigned for in the first election turned out to me MUCH less appealing after some due diligence. His opponent I'm not terribly excited about, but I voted and supported him for the run-off more because I didn't want his opponent to win than by my enthusiasm for him.
Mrs. Unloadingzone and I early voted: the actual election isn't until June 10th. We'll see what happens. The important thing for my home city is that the BEST BY 1000 MILES candidate won the Mayoral contest.
And this local run-off election for a City Council seat: that's what the Presidential Election is going to come down to for me: everything considered, who is the lesser of two really mediocre if not outright bad choices.
John McCain I've never been a fan of. In the Senate and even during the primaries, he's been all over the board on a host of issues and has never, compared to his contemporaries over the years, shown the leadership and steadfastness to be President. And I still remember the Keating Five.
Barack Obama, I initially gave the benefit of the doubt to. He was against Iraq, voted against it, period. No double talking. And after Hillary's (and many others who followed her lead) constant refrain of "I was for the war then, but now I'm against it because.........", Obama came off as at least genuine.
He was a huge unknown beyond that, but he kind of had that JFK appeal and if elected, he would either rise to occasion or not. But it looked like he had POTENTIAL. Until his dirty laundry started coming out. One day a Flag pin, the next no Flag pin.....then the Flag pin again. And what smoker/former smoker actually believes he quit cold turkey in one day and has NEVER had a cigarette again?
The whole thing with his Pastor's/Friend racist remarks: first he kind of defended the Pastor, not the remarks but in the end (and much too late) denounced the remarks and dumped his former lifetime friend, the Pastor.
And then the other inconsistencies I'm not going to bother repeating: after all, he's the nominee now. Why bother?
So we won the Iraqi war (like we didn't learn in the First Gulf War that the Iraqi military just turns and runs UNLESS it's a religion-based war (7 years of Iran-Iraq), and then completely blew the aftermath by firing the Iraqi bureaucracy and disbanding the Army.
And Iraq fell apart because we didn't LEARN that Islam and sect mean everything to the Iraqi's and the created State of Iraq meant nothing. That "American Democracy" was a foreign concept that we forced on them, they didn't understand, and weren't ready for.
IF we were going in to topple Saddam Hussain, (a big mistake) we could have least have learned from our own history: we needed a Douglas MacArthur to be dictator of Iraq for 7 years as we educated the Iraqi's on "American Democracy" And even that probably wouldn't have ultimately worked because in post-WWII Japan, we only had ONE deity to deal with: the Emperor.
In Iraq, we have two very distinct branches of one religion....and they HATE each other.
McCain first said we'll stay in Iraq for 100 years if necessary. Now he's back-tracking to a shorter time frame. And Obama, who said he would pull out the troops post-haste, is now being said to admit that we're going to be there for a while.
So what are either one of them actually going to do if elected President? No clue. But whatever they do; stay or leave quick, it will be the wrong decision. Because there IS no decision which allows the US to get out cleanly. Bush screwed the pooch on this one and now we're all screwed.
We have a half trillion dollar deficit but BOTH candidates are talking new programs, new spending........and America is broke going on bankrupt.
And lets not forget Hillary. She's not out of the picture by any means. She's the mainstream media's Vice Presidential pick for the "Dream Ticket".
But Obama doesn't seem to be too enthusiastic about that. But he does need her active support to beat McCain (isn't that pathetic?) So if not VP, then what? Not the cabinet. Not an ambassadorship....that's not enough for Hillary.
A promise in blood to be nominated to the first Supreme Court opening? That's something Hillary would LOVE: to have a life-time appointment as an Activist Supreme Court Justice. And it's more dangerous than ANY scenario other than her being President with a Democrat Congress. Maybe even more so.
We have our two choices: McCain and Obama. Between now and election day in November, both have some choices to make; like a running mate.
Between now and election day, they will finally be able to go at each other head to head without the Hillary distraction. I'll be listening to what both say, who both pick for VP, and see what more dirt comes out on both of them.
I'll watch the debates and see how and what they have to say. Then I will weigh all that, hold my nose, and vote for the man I hope will do the least amount of damage over the next 4 years. I have no illusion that EITHER of them will do America any good.
I don't like voting that way. I like voting for someone I support and believe in, not the lesser of two evils. But at the Presidential level, I've done it over the last four Presidential Elections. I guess I can force myself to do it one more time.
But I will vote for one of them. I will not take the cop-out approach of simply not voting. I was wrong with Bush, but who knows how the Democrat choices would have been? They could have even have been worse. Or not.
So you vote too. Forget political party: vote for who YOU think will be the lesser of two evils.
If America is going to continue it's decline into a bi-lingual, Second-rate, Superpower only by virtue of our rusting nuclear weapons, we have have the obligation to say we contributed to it.
After all, most of America has been too self-involved and too self-centered to really give a damn. And so the politicos ran amok with our blessing. Now the chickens have come home to roost...if they can get a mortgage.
John McCain and Barack Obama. Who would have thought America would sink so low?
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