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3.18.2008 ||> Switching Allegiances
As I blogged about before, I have remained on the fence for most of the presidential primaries. Honestly, I never thought that the primary season would extend to Pennsylvania, that everything would already be decided.
I have gone from wishing and hoping that Al Gore would be our next president to John Edwards, to finally settling uneasily on Hillary Clinton.
I really like Hillary, and I always have. Even during the scandals in the 90's, through all the nonsense, and people hating her for no discernible reason, I liked her. When, in my junior summer of college my boss called her a murderer quite literally, I turned my back on her and walked out. And at this very moment, I could still vote for her and feel happy about it.
But I will not be voting for her. First, if my vote is going to count, I want it to count for ending this nomination process. In order to win the nomination, Clinton will have to pull some very dirty tricks, and I do not want a candidate who is tainted in the general election. But also... this Obama candidacy is stirring a very old belief of mine that my dad instilled in me and I want to be a part of it.
When I was a kid, one of the things my dad told me was that in times of heavy crisis in America, we have always been lucky to have the right person in the White House at the right time. Americans dodged a bullet in the 1800s by electing Lincoln over Buchanan, because had the latter been re-elected, there would now be a Confederacy. We elected the right person in the 30s when we chose Franklin Roosevelt and have ridden on the protections of the New Deal ever since.
I feel like we are headed into another catastrophe (of our own making). The Iraq war had been a disaster costing us 3 trillion dollars, the housing crisis will not be bottoming out any time soon, and foreclosures are flourishing.
But here's the insidious shit: in the 1950's the difference in pay between a worker and a CEO was 20 times. Now, it's 400. The wealthy are consolidating their fortunes, while the middle class is squeezed to death. Food prices are skyrocketing, and we are all getting poorer while people like the Waltons are getting richer. The bread and butter jobs are all being shipped overseas while the jobs that are left are low-paying, abusive, customer service schemes that never benefit the people working them.
We are being pitted against one another, and have been for at least 7 years. Liberals are "terrorist sympathizers" and conservatives are "fascists." People of color are pitted against women in some sort of oppression olympics. It has got to stop.
Out of two great candidates, two people who have had my respect for a long time, I will choose Obama. Not because I dislike Hillary, but because I think if we elect him, he could be our next Lincoln or Roosevelt. I have been thinking more and more that he will be the person to break us out of this shit pile we have gotten ourselves into. He's the one.
Labels: politics
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