Luis A. Baralt
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USA Presidential Campaign: Unassailable Evidences - 2008/10/08 12:20
USA Presidential Campaign: Unassailable Evidences
by Luis A. Baralt
1. The number of anti-Bush voters is far greater than those who sympathize with him or otherwise defend him in spite of his errors.
2. Barack Obama is an engaging speaker/politician and has woven an attractive myth surrounding him to enhance his doubtless merits and hide his errors/faults/deficiencies from the past.
3. A good portion of the American public, and indeed the world, are viscerally fascinated by this young politician/activist.
4. A good portion of the mainstream media have adopted Barack Obama because he's news, he's popular and he sells newspapers, magazines and tv time slots.
5. This mainstream press has foregone standards of ethics and objectivity never too high in America, but certainly once a bit less obvious about its commercial cinicism.
6. On a scale, there's no doubt that senator McCaine represents old-soldierly honour and sacrifice, long experience in the military and legislative areas, and a seniority, far beyond compare with senator Obama's own merits: high grades at Harvard and Columbia, brief and not-to-active experience in state and national legislative bodies, manipulative skills in the political wards of Chicago, a couple of books dedicated to self analysis and auto biography.
7. McCain's associations must be taken into account, that is true: he's voted along Bush's proposals (83% of the times according to Obama-partisan network CNN and not 95% as OB himself eroneously claims), but he's stood up against Bush as an opposing candidate twice, and as a maverick inside his own party has promoted bi-party stance against corruption and manipulation of the financial shenanigans initiated by Bill Clinton's administration (Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac's coddling and increasing mis-ventures) during his two terms, continued through Bush's first term (mostly because of the government's all-consuming concentration on anti-terrorism), and intensified by a Democratic majority congress during the second term, leading to the worst financial crisis in years.
8. Obama's associations must per force be equally taken into account. His mentors for decades have included racist white hater Rev, Wright of the Trinitarian Church of Chicago; Louis Farrakan, head of the Islam Nation of America and also an anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-United States violence monger; William Ayers, a self admitted, un-repentant terrorist and bomber of the Capitol building in his younger days.
9. Guilt by association is not admitted by law in any democracy. But we're not talking about a jury of of twelve good men or women in a courtroom, or any sort of punitive action against a candidate. We're talking about judgement as to a man's character and beliefs in the light of very strong circumstantial evidence in his disfavor. And then, just look at his stellar group of international fans: dictators Fidel and Raul Castro, maniacal Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, rabid Ahmadinejad of Iran who wants to 'erase Israel off the face of the Earth', poison expert and ex-KGB chief Vladimir Putin (yes, after stepping down -- or up? -- from the presidency, he's hinted that US's policies regarding 'trouble-making' in Georgia would be much more reasonable under a leader such as OB), Hamas spokesperson Ahmed Yousef, etc. are all admittedly 'voting' for Mr. O.
10. But one last point. Consider the risks. On the one side, a 72-year-old elder statesman dropping dead of a heart attack, and the presidency going to a young 'inexpert' female 'hill-billie' from Alaska: "terrible! ", some say. But look at an alternative scenario. A first-time black leader in the US is elected president, and even before he sets foot into the Oval Room, this charismatic and engaging politician is struck down by a bullet from a redneck's rifle (there are still, unfortunately, a lot of klu-klux-klanners lying low around). We'll never find out if he would have been a good president, as so many hope. What we might find out is that a Rwanda-type debacle may not be so foreign to this side of the ocean. All peoples are liable to turn barbaric given the circumstances. And to those who have memories I'd recall the name of a book titled It Can't Happen Here, penned by Sinclair Lewis in the late 1930's. It served as a warning that political movements akin to Nazism can come to power in countries such as the United States when people blindly support their leaders. Demoralization, political violence, civil chaos may be foreign to the US, but they're not an imposibility in a civilized society, as fascism wasn't either in civilized Germany, and genocide on the grand scale wasn't either in deepest Africa.
So, people, just put on your thinking caps before going to the polls.
Madrid, Oct. 5, 2008
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