“It is not whether you win or lose, it’s how you played the game” is an old adage that few today believe is the case in politics. After suffering through years of win at all costs and negative propaganda emanating out of the American political arena, citizenry feel like General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox when he surrendered to the Union army. Enough already! Please name your terms! Basta!
Being constantly bombarded by distorted, out-of-context ads from the Obama and Clinton camps have left one dismayed and disillusioned. The two Democratic candidates, along with “a kinder and gentler Sen. John McCain,” have through their trivial attacks and counterattacks on each other created an atmosphere of confusion and exasperation with the American political system. The Neanderthals and talking vacuum heads in the media have also done this great nation a great disservice by focusing on these irrelevant issues.
On April 28 on CNN I listened to the National Press Club attempt to discredit the Rev. Jeremy Wright for his comments that have impacted negatively on the Barack Hussein Obama campaign. While I have never fully embraced the Obama message, it was indeed interesting to listen to an intelligent yet vain individual such as the Rev. Wright make the National Press Club look less than professional. While the Rev. Wright may be his own worst enemy, the questions from the NPC moderator were shallow and cliché ridden. If this is the best that the National Press Club can generate as far as probing queries, heaven help us!
I have expressed my opinion in the past as to who should be the next president of the United States, but alas my champion was found lacking. However, as an outside observer with “no dog in this hunt,” I can only say that this nation will elect the president that they deserve. The nation has been dumbed down to the point that voters can become readily manipulated. Just remember Sen. Kerry and the Swift Boat caper. If the media and politicians can convince through patriotic jargon and jingoism that we must stay in Iraq for 100 years then that will be what happens. If an African American or woman candidate for president can persuade the American people to follow their “progressive” policies then so be it. Sadly, from my vantage point it is becoming a moot point since the military industrial complex along with lobbyists and political consultants will be the deciding influence in the upcoming election. It is ironic that it was a Republican president, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who stated “beware of the military industrial complex.” However, “Ike” always put his national interests ahead of himself. In trying to end on a somewhat positive note, I can only cite Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide: “Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”
Scott Comar
May 1, 2008
Stick to the real issues: jobs, healthcare, inflation, and education. How have these areas been depleted over the last 14 years? And, how can we turn our current negative feedback loops into positive ones?
Situations around the country have reached a point in which a more pragmatic government must be facilitated on order to counter balance the inept social nature of free market forces, which have slowly drained the country so that its disposition is currently interacting in a fashion that is detrimental to the stability of many households, especially lower and middle class.
Security is not the same as stability, and real stability can only be negotiated through peace and truly balanced international relations. Somewhere along the line the wealthier special interests have brought the country out of balance and, through the lack of long term foresight, have created a negative economic feedback loop, for which they, themselves, have been able to sidestep. However, for the rest of the American people, they have become participants in what may be considered one of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression.
It is in this that this years election is crucial to the American people, and we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted by the trivial distractions that are being bought and paid for by right wing interest groups. The bottom line is that we, as a nation, cannot continue along the same path and expect to remain healthy. We must recognize what is wrong, and change it.
DJ
May 1, 2008
The Rev. Jeremy Wright does not need the National Press Club or anyone else to discredit him and it amazes me that you would find it possible to defend him. Wright's own words, right there on my video console in living color and beyond denial, have painted him as the worst kind of parasitic race-baiter; one that perpetuates underacheivment and victimization in the Black community.
The man makes the ever-opportunistic attention seeker Rev. Jesse Jackson look like a rank amateur by comparison.
I don't know if NPT allows quotes in the reader's responses, but I offer this thought as recently expressed by Dr. Thomas Sowell in his essay 'The Audacity of Rhetoric':
"While many whites may be annoyed by Jeremiah Wright's words, a year from now most of them will probably have forgotten about him. But many blacks who absorb his toxic message can still be paying for it, big-time, for decades to come.
Why should young blacks be expected to work to meet educational standards, or even behavioral standards, if they believe the message that all their problems are caused by whites, that the deck is stacked against them? That is ultimately a message of hopelessness, however much audacity it may have."