My reaction is one of shock and dismay to the complacency demonstrated by a large number of otherwise well meaning people who fail to come to grips with the fact that this nation is in the hands of a criminal conspiracy. The fate of the nation hangs in the balance this year, and unless the public somehow miraculously and heroically organizes itself as it did in the Progressive Era and in the early 1930's, we risk doing irreparable damage to this nation.
And I mean irreparable.
Once all the good paying jobs are shifted off-shore, the corporations are allowed to flee to tax-havens and all that remains is an emasculated service economy with massive over-hanging debts, we can kiss America and the American Dream goodbye.
We better get riled up about this, because the destruction of America has been well crafted and is currently being ruthlessly executed by the Bush Administration on behalf of heartless, soulless, and unpatriotic corporate interests.
It is well past time for us to be angry about the theft of our nation's birthright by the Bushies, by the media, and by the complacency of a confused and befuddled population of political dunces.
Is John Kerry capable of staunching the flow of investment, jobs and money beyond our shores? I sure hope so. Will Kerry make more sensible choices for our judiciary? Of course he will. Is Kerry the man to carry the banner of all small "d" democrats this year? Perhaps so.
But remember that until Howard Dean turned up the heat on the President and the corporate sector that Kerry's rhetoric was slightly more potent than milquetoast. Only by usurping Dean's best and fiery rhetoric against the abuses of the Bushistas has Kerry's campaign come alive.
More power to him if he's being honest today whereas he was being two-faced and innocuous a couple months ago. My skepticism is that the record shows that the Kerry we knew two months ago is unfortunately the real Kerry and that the firebrand and populist rhetoric we hear today is well-scripted and passed on to Kerry in real time via that earpiece that he wears when he's out making his slick and well-crafted stump speeches. Did anyone happen to see the damning photo that a Newsweek photographer showed of Kerry in profile from his left side during a recent stump speech exposing the earpiece for the world to see? This may be just as phony a gimmick as the see through teleprompters that TV audiences become oblivious to when judging the sincerity of political hacks reading prepared speeches while staring intently into the eyes of the viewer. Great stuff on TV. But sincere? Hardly.
Dean's stump speeches have a genuine quality that is lacking the polish and professionalism of Kerry's slick presentation. His speeches also lack the phony, scripted character which I've also witnessed in Kerry's speeches.
The question is this: Who has a record of achievement as a manager and executive? Dean or Kerry. I'd submit that Dean appears to have been mesmerized and deluded by his own fund-raising abilities and blew a bundle. But should we hold that exuberance against him? Compare that to Kerry, who, portraying himself as a "man of the people" had to mortgage one of his posh homes in order to further his own ego-gratification. A man of the people? Sure, if you count the Forbes family, the Heinz family and their country-club pals as "the people".
My vote is still for the guy, however flawed, who to this day is exciting a core of intelligent and informed voters who want a real change in Washington, not an empty slogan about "The Real Deal™", whatever that means. |
