2008 Presidential Election approaches

As the 2008 Presidential Election is now so fast-approaching, I suppose that I should now take the opportunity to clearly state my sentiments on it. I think that Obama and McCain are essentially good people. But they have been corrupted by the political system which they inhabit and are not, I believe, capable of bringing about the fundamental reforms which our country truly needs.

For example, on foreign policy, McCain and Obama, both corrupted by the military-industrial complex and other pressures such as the militaristic and pro-Israel AIPAC, are American imperialists who will continue to police the world; who will not cut the bloated military budget; who will continue to espouse American exceptionalism; who totally ignore the humanitarian crisis among the Palestinian people on the Gaza Strip; who will, by their espoused policies, keep us in Iraq for an undetermined period of time (Obama with his "residual forces") and likely turn Iraq into a new Germany, or Vietnam, with American forces remaining there long after the fighting has ended. Both McCain and Obama will both mistakenly treat the "War on Terror" as an actual, physical war---when it should be instead a police and intelligence action. Obama wants to expand the size of the military by 100,000 people. Obama and McCain, it seems to me, will both be incapable of bringing needed reforms to American foreign policy, because they are interventionists who shall police the world because they are owned lock, stock, and barrel by the military-industrial complex, the defense industries who donate to their political campaigns.

I believe that both Obama and McCain will be similarly unable to bring reforms on the domestic front, particularly in the realm of addressing our economic problems. Both candidates have been corrupted by the influence of corporations on Wall Street, and they both voted for the $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street accordingly. Some of that bail-out is now being used by corporations to pay the salaries and bonuses of company executives. Obama/McCain, it seems to me, are too busy representing the interests of rich corporations to represent the interests of the working people, and I think that Obama/McCain will continue to maintain these qualities when they are elected, for the most part. They do not support and make no indication that they will fight for a living wage, fair trade policies (to protect the worker), cutting the military budget so that that money can be re-directed to education and infrastructure, blocking another bail-out of Wall Street, a prescription drug benefit which would pay for all of the prescription drugs of seniors, and many other such things which would benefit working people and those living in poverty. The only thing that may be accomplished, by Obama, due to great public demand, is a universal healthcare system, and even of that I am doubtful due to Obama's campaign contributions from insurance companies.

The issue of civil liberties is of specific importance. Obama and McCain both voted for the re-authorization of the Patriot Act, which harms the American right to privacy (by allowing law enforcement officials to search an individual's telephone, medical, e-mail, financial, and other records) and generally tramples upon constitutional rights. A number of the Patriot Act's provisions have been ruled unconstitutional by Federal courts. In addition, neither Obama nor McCain support the LGBT right to marry; Obama supports "civil unions" but not outright marriage, while McCain takes a "states'-rights" stance on the issue and is unsupportive of gay marriage and civil unions. But I contend that it is unconstitutional to discriminate and not allow this group to have the same rights as heterosexual people.

However, both Obama and McCain supported corporate liberties with the 2008 FISA (Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act) bill. This bill provided immunity for telecommunications companies which helped the National Security Agency and the government spy on telephone conversations. Liberties for the ordinary citizens: bad; but liberties for corporations: good. Obama and McCain have, in these stated instances, ignored the civil liberties of working people while improving the civil liberties of corporations. One of these corporations granted immunity by the FISA bill passed in Congress was AT&T; a couple weeks later, should it have been any surprise when the AT&T logo was emblazoned on the official bag of the Democratic National Convention? AT&T was one of the convention's corporate sponsors. The two major candidates and parties have compromised individual liberty in favor of corporate liberty, and that is unacceptable.

The fact of the matter, it seems to me, is that the candidates will be unable to make needed reforms when they are immeshed in a system corrupted and controlled by entities who are opposed to these reforms. It is a broken system of government, one of concentrated power and wealth; one controlled by the few and not the many; one which is not truly a democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people. The appeal of Independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader is that he seeks to reverse this. He wishes to give the power to the people and shift the power from the few to the many. He bucks corrupting corporations and special interests---he has fought corporations during his entire career as a consumer advocate. Nader opposed the Wall Street bail-out, the telecom immunity in the FISA bill, and the Patriot Act; he advocates cutting the bloated military budget and repealing America's militaristic foreign policies in the Middle East and elsewhere; he supports a living wage, fair trade policies (to protect manufacturing jobs), the repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, and other things to give greater power to the workers; and etcetera.

A vote for Ralph Nader is a protest vote well worth making. It is a protest vote against corporate control of government in our country. It is a protest vote against all that has subverted our democracy, broken our system, corrupted our government, and silenced the voices of the people. It is a protest vote against compromising the general welfare in favor of the corporate welfare. It is a protest vote against the two corrupt parties who have not made much progress on any of the major issues for the past few decades, who have not succeeded in making needed reforms during these past few decades, and who are so immeshed in the corruption surrounding our government that for them to attempt to destroy it would be like someone attempting to cut off their own leg. And that protest vote is, in my view, the only vote worth making in this 2008 Presidential Election.