Amsterdan

Letter to my cousins: Why Obama?

Dear cousins, I completely understand both of your perspectives. And at 61, I, too, have lost much or most of my naivety. And I agree that anyone who would vie for the job of President or any state or federal level political post, is likely self-absorbed, much-flattered, and likely to compromise in far too many ways, just to get there. Since the ancient Greeks, politicians have pretty much been given to such traits and behavior.

But when I look at our loss of historic and constitutional freedoms, including habeas corpus;
when I see that in our name torture is now an official practice which is (or at least for a time was) decided by top administration officials meeting in the basement of the White House;
when I look at the exploding national debt with accumulating interest (to which we will likely add $1 to $3 trillion for the Iraq experiment, if you include costs of maintaining the veterans who have been injured in body and mind) and the fact that that debt is almost wholly financed by foreign, substantially, Chinese, money which can be quickly withdrawn, if they choose;
and when I pay attention to the surging economies of China and India, whose growth rates will eventually doom us to second class world economic status, especially when factoring in our miserable public education system which fails to graduate roughly 40% to 50% of high schoolers;
when I look at the overwhelming burden of Social Security and Medicare for which no solutions are being proposed and for which too few in our generation are saving;
when I ponder the exploding price of oil, the loss of the dollar's value throughout the world, the exploding cost of food which this very day is leading to riots in many countries, and the shrinking glaciers and the climate change they portend (regardless of whether you think it is natural, manmade, inevitable or whatever) -
then I think we cannot, for the sake of our grandchildren - allow ourselves to be so bitter and disillusioned that we become disconnected from being part of some solution.

I choose not to tie my happiness to the outcome of these awful circumstances; I'm ok with my little day to day bubble. But I also choose to move past my own security to ponder what I can do, what we cousins can do, what our children and their friends can do to take control of this careening car of the future and get it somewhat steering in a more positive direction. And when I entertain those thoughts, and I look at the choices for President, I feel obligated either (a) to run myself (which ain't gonna happen), (b) to choose a third party candidate (which I've done several times to no effect) or (c) to choose among McCain, Clinton and Obama, which of those might be most likely the one to create an atmosphere in Washington which fosters effectiveness for my own efforts at solutions, that's when I choose Obama.

While I do personally hold out hope, "the audacity of hope" (if you will), in fact, one need not be hopeful nor need one "believe" in anything political. One only needs to reject the thought of being totally helpless. And if one can reject being helpless, then there is some action-imperative growing from that. That's all I'm saying.

Danny

Labels: America, Clinton, McCain, Obama

posted by DanZ @ 12:15 PM