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Saturday, January 05, 2008

Obama and what 08 really means for us

I just want to say that I am so happy Obama won in the first serious primary of the year. I am also pleased that Hillary came in third behind John Edwards. I hope this trend continues. I hope the country continues to endorse a candidate who seems to represent change and turns away from the expected front runner that Hillary is. She is Republican lite. She has had private lunches with Rupert Murdoch, owner of FOX. She voted in favor of the new Bankruptcy laws that make it more difficult for anyone to climb out from under crushing debt. Remember, the reason why most Americans go into bankruptcy is over unexpected medical bills that insurance would not cover. As someone who attempted to create national health care when her husband was president, she knows all this and still voted for the tougher laws. Why? She is just as much a part of the corporate structure as any other politician. Lets not forget that she also voted in favor of giving Bush unlimited authority to do with Iraq has he wanted to. And before you say, hey it was just after 9/11 and everyone voted for that, just remember that Obama voted against that little piece of history.
What is troubling though, is that the republican winner in Iowa is former Baptist Minister and Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. Come on America, it's time to get smart again and stop voting for people who wear their religious beliefs on their sleeve's. The dude said in a national debate that he thinks the Bible is a literal description of how the earth was made. In a world where competition for resources and the education of future scientist's will decide the fate of nations both economically and intellectually, can we really afford to have another leader that wants to turn back education to what was commonly thought to be true during the dark ages?
I don't think we can. I think Bush & Company did a lot of damage to the soul of this nation. I fail to understand how you can call yourself pro-life when you started a war. A war of choice for Bullshit reasons and told the country that a "higher father" gave you permission to do it too. Did that Higher father also give the go ahead for torture? Did that higher father also tell you it was OK to shred the Constitution? Did that higher father explain to you that Muslims and Christians have the same God?
Surprised?
Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe in the same God kids. It is only the interpretation that we disagree on. Since God doesn't seem interested in talking to us all together at the same time to clear up any misunderstandings, it is left to us to fight it out in his name to see who is right.
Yeah, that sounds like a God that really cares. "You kid's figure it out. I'm busy."
When you lose your job in 20 years because China graduates 3 times as many scientists as we do, and one of them figures out the next great technological leap forward that leaves us in the dust because we were arguing among ourselves if intelligent design should be taught in science class, will you pray to your silent God for another job?
Someday, all of humanity will regard religion the way most of us think about Astrology now.
I hope.
Obama says he has a religious faith too. But he doesn't make it the sole reason to vote for him. Thats all Huckabee has. His record as Governor is not so good. Raised taxes and all that. But if America wants to elect a leader based on religious belief, then you can't be surprised when you watch your children work harder than you did for less. Thats the direction we are headed in. I fail to see how a man believing in myths is going to change that. We need compassion and understanding, true. But you don't need to have religion to have those qualities. We also need intelligence back at the highest levels of Government. Not ancient superstitions and a belief in a God who is supposedly powerful enough to create everything we see but cannot make everyone believe in him. Sorry, but thats a pretty piss pour God in my book. You made the entire universe in 6 days but a massive majority of the people on this planet don't think your real?
Why is that?
Free will.
Great answer. I have always laughed when people use that as a reason. Saying there is evil in the world because of free will is making the people who don't agree with you evil. How convenient then that the people we will fight are evil.
It's what referred to as, circular logic. You don't agree in my version of what I think is the absolute truth, so not only are you evil, you can now be punished for your lack of proper belief. Thats what "their" side does and thats what "our" side does.
My question then is, who created free will?
Blame God then. But you cannot be angry at someone for exercising their God Granted free will when they say there is no God.
Alright, I got a little off track. Seriously America, it is time to grow up and grow out of the need to be right and the need for a God. Has it helped us? Since having Bush, a self proclaimed born again Christian in the White Office, he has done the exact opposite of what he claims his beliefs are.
Social assistance programs have been cut across the board.
Help with heating bills for the elderly; cut.
Veterans administration rehabilitation programs in a time of war; cut.
Health care for underprivileged and financially struggling families; vetoed twice.
If Jesus is your personal lord and saviour, then I gotta tell you I don't think he would be too happy with you for cutting back on helping people while you throw his name around as a campaign slogan for continuing a failed war of choice that seems to have no other purpose than to drive the price of oil up.
Get smart America!
Most Europeans profess to either be atheists or agnostics.
They don't go into debt over health care bills either.
They don't feel the need to maintain military basses all over the world at a massive expense.
They also lack the rate of crime we have. They have much higher rates of literacy, lower rates of infant mortality and test twice as high as Americans do in history, math, science and number of languages spoken.
Under Bush, more Americans fell bellow the poverty line at a rate far above any other President this century. Home forecloses are at a rate last seen during the Great depression. Meanwhile, this self proclaimed believer in Jesus sticks to the mantra of the powerful by saying Government should not be responsible for helping people. They want to privatize all such assistance. All you have to do is look at New Orleans to see how well that works.
The dollar, once the international standard in all monetary transactions, has never been weaker. India just announced that because of the falling power of the dollar, it will no longer accept it at tourist attractions.
Saudi Arabia freak out economist when they said they might want to inventory their oil in euros rather than dollars. The euro is valued at almost twice what the dollar is. You understand how changing to a different currency makes them money? If it takes two dollars to make one euro, than just writing their inventory in euros will double the amount made when they sell that barrel of oil. In fact, even Canada has a higher rate of exchange right now. So even if you want to look at Bush as a strict economic conservative, he is a utter failure. I didn't even mention the fact that the entire Iraq invasion has been put on the national credit card. You understand that right? We borrowed money from China to fund this mess and because of that China now has more of a say over our economy than we do. Shit, all you have to do is look at the items on any Walmarts shelves to see who is making products. Fact is, this cannot continue. We cannot keep living in a country that makes nothing but shitty movies and jeans and expect the middle class to be happy with college degrees as they wait on tables.
Anyway you want to look at the last 8 years is up to you. But I am fairly confident that history will look very clearly at these last 8 years and see it for what it was; a take over by men with agendas for more powerful men with agendas to attain power and profit at the expense of the people. I have no illusions that Obama will turn everything around, but it sure beats the hell out of more insanity.
You want to believe in Heaven, Hell and Jesus as your personal Lord and saviour, go for it. But shut up and let the adults get busy fixing everything that kind of thinking has broken. If your right, then I am going to hell. If I'm right, we all go somewhere when this life is over. I don't know about you, but compassion for everyone sounds like something Jesus might of said. Besides, the only time he got mad was in church.
Who do you think he will be more pissed at if he ever comes back?
Me, saying I don't believe in him but I believe in the humanity of doing good, or you, condemning all non believers to eternity in a lake of fire because we didn't show up each week to put money in the basket.
Well, I guess we will never know.
Obama 08!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post, Joe!

Anonymous said...

Great post, but Obama didn't vote for the Iraq war because he wasn't a Senator yet. We only have his word that he wouldn't have voted in favor of it. (But at that time he was a Liberman supporter. Lieberman, Joe.)

joe klocek said...

He did opposed the war while he was a state senator in 2002, but has voted for some $300 billion in war funding since entering the Senate in 2005.
There are no "perfect" people. Especially in political life. What he brings as a leader is the outsiders faith that doing good only requires that we each act in accordance with the angles of our better nature. The exact opposite of what we have now. The last 7 years has been about giving the 1% of the richest companies and people a way to get what they want with the power of fear. You cannot end a war with the kind of courage needed for a battle. You can only end a war like Iraq with the conviction that doing so is the right thing to do.