Senator Barak Obama accepted the delegates call last night, and we had a perfect opportunity to contrast the tired old policies of the RIGHT WING AGENDA with a more thoughtful and comprehensive vision of America for Americans and for the world.
Senator McCain, spoke first last night, bringing out the tired old lines, oh yes, he differed with BUSH, once or twice, after being a cheerleader for the OCCUPATION and DESTRUCTION of IRAQ, And yes, he did quibble briefly about the illegal and immoral detention and torture policies of the Bush/Cheney regime. But after he opposed them, he then voted to legalize them. Let's see he was against them, before he supported them, signing the hideous and bloody Military Commissions Act. Here again
like so many other Bush policies he embraced, when he wanted the warm cache of the many Bush Brutalities.
Did he care about vets, before the Washington Post noticed the abuses at Walter Reed? Was he Shocked Shocked at the victims of FEMA in New Orleans? Wasn't he a Senator before he ran for election? Didn't his long history of public service allow him any opportunity to be shocked earlier? Couldn't he have helped vets at Walter Reed, before the Washington Post noticed?
Later Senator Clinton bowed out. of contention, tentatively and for now, asking, without answering "WHAT DOES SHE WANT?" She wants to serve. I hope she does have a chance to use the compassion she has occasionally shown to serve the most needy among us.
Here's hoping!
Senator McCain focuses his primary attack, on
Senator, now Democratic Candidate for President Obama on the topic of his offering to speak with nations which many regard as dangerous to American policy interests in the Near-East.
He suggests that only the naive ignore the lessons of history, yet he like many others has turned his back on diplomacy. Making the BUSH-MISTAKE of selecting belligerence as the only tool in our International Relations Toolkit.
The "
YOU ARE WITH US, OR YOUR AGAINST US" mentality is the kind of simplistic thinking that brought us,
the coalition of the "PAID-OFF" now currently on its last legs [
the British and the Australians are even leaving] and more lawless mercenaries than troops, on the ground in our disastrous occupation of IRAQ.
Some of us, who still remember a few short years ago, when even in IRAN, people around the world were in solidarity with us when America suffered the first attack on our country since Pearl Harbor.
Instead of taking this powerful gift of solidarity from across the planet - the current resident of the oval office chose bluster, bombast, posturing, threatening, Abu Gharib, secret prisons, shock & awe, and the rhetoric of "you are with us, or your against us".
Charming, but not exactly bridge building and reaching out!
Even today the educated Russian specialist, Dr. Rice who leads the State Department announces, she can see no reason to speak with the IRANIANS?
Goodness Ronald Reagan sent them Ollie North and a cake in the shape of a key!War, should not be the only tool, we use to dissuade those whose agenda contends with ours?
Diplomacy, works to reduce friction, and develop common ground. During the cold war, we met and had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Block.
We even had a direct phone line to Moscow during the worst part of the Cold War. Clearly Nixons' opening with China was an alternative to the far more dangerous choice of the terrible option of war.
Not talking? Refusing to use diplomacy and appreciate a world rich in a full palette of greys?
That is refusing to ignore the lessons of history.