I can’t help thinking (often as of late) when will we as Americans learn? I was sitting in a restaurant tonight, it’s really hot where I live and enough others were looking for a way out of the heat and into an air conditioned restaurant that there was a fairly significant wait to get a table, and I couldn’t help but listen to a couple converstations going on around me about “talk shows.” The sad (to me) reality in America is that the so-called right wing has managed to (even though I despise what they’re doing I have to give them credit for a very calculated success at controlling the radio air waves) high jack a large portion of the political dialogue in this country by controlling, according to reports I’ve heard, about 90% of the so-called talk radio. I believe they figured out in the 80’s, when reagan was on the scene, this was an important part of their imagined perpetual republican majority in our nation’s government. This was when rush limbaugh came on the scene and many others have followed, spewing the republican talking points, in an effort to control the “message” in what has become a nation manipulated by sound bites. Make no mistake that I see the “progressive” blowback, like Air American as an attempt to counter the constant blast of “information” being thrown out for a relatively uninformed public as biased, but at least it doesn’t seem to be calculated to brain wash people in concert with the democratic party, even though they are obviously supporters of that political persuasion. The conversations I was listening to were a bit scary because I know there are a lot of people who believe rush is actually telling the truth – that find it hard to believe that in the US the public is, and has been, basically being brainwashed by a small group of people who are bent on, it seems, controlling the world. I’m saying all this in preface to my thoughts about the situation in the Republic of Georgia, the comments of our “leaders,” and the significance of what this means to the future of this country going forward. It is my understanding, and I have to gain this from looking beyond what I read or hear from our “mainstream” media, because I have come to the realization that they are dominated by “reporters” who are motivated by something other than uncovering the truth about what they write rather than just getting something out there for people to read that won’t offend the people in “control.” (either that or maybe they are just lazy, I don’t know) However, I believe that the “crisis” in Georgia is the result of the Georgian’s intruding into South Ossetia (I know nothing about the geography of this region, including how to spell and pronounce the names of the places presently in the news) which is a territory that is dominated by Russians and which broke off from Georgia via a 70% vote at some point in time. I believe the Georgians invaded with the clear understanding that we would come to their aid, somehow thinking we would take on the Russians in their defense. Obviously Mikhail Shakasavilli (I can’t spell it, mccain can’t pronounce it) wasn’t paying attention to the fact that our military is spread so thin in Iraq and Afganistan, that we probably coundn’t defend our own border if Mexico tried to reclaim Texas (just a metaphor, sorry to my friends from Texas, I’d be right there with you – it’s just that our military is presently tied up occupying Iraq so that eventually Iraq and Iran can become the “power” of the middle east) let alone take on the Soviets in Georgia. At this moment in time we are seeing the results of a government that is like a ship without someone at the wheel. bush and his cronies have proved over and over again that the only thing they are good at is lying and funneling huge amounts of money out of the hands of ordinary people in countries all over the world, especially our own, but they haven’t a clue as to how to govern. Of course their philosophy is that the best government is no government at all, I guess because bush’s family has been so heavily in the arms business for close to the last 100 years that they would feel safe in some kind of anarchist society, emboldened by their private armies led by blackwater. I believe they are behind the decisions that led to this conflict, and just like Iraq they haven’t a clue as to how to respond to a crisis other than the usual saber rattling. What is becoming apparent as I watch the leaders of Europe trying to negotiate some kind of reasonable cease fire that the rest of the world is getting impatient with our incompetence because it is having such a drastic effect on them. We ARE the leaders of the so-called free world, and these other countries are not stupid, despite what our media and the republican water carriers want us to think. (by the way, in my opinion, people like limbaugh, hannity, etc. will at some point be looked at almost as traitors when all the truth finally comes out about what the republicans have been doing for the last 35 years or so) And, as was clear when Obama made his tour of the Middle East and Europe, they are looking for a change in this country possibly more than many Americans. I say this because as I listened to the conversations at the restaurant tonight, I believe there is some possibility that mccain could win in November. Not because he is a great candidate, because he is the most incompetent presidential candidate I have witnessed in my lifetime (60 years) BY FAR!! But because of the stranglehold the right wing has on the airwaves and the willingness of so many people to believe what they hear from these people along with the unwillingness of the democrats in congess to hold bush and company accountable for their misdeeds – allowing for the continuation of the misdeeds. Getting back to the conflict in Georgia and my point that this might be “the year,” mccain has said and done things since this conflict flared up that, to me, should cause him to be disqualified to be president right there – of course I know this won’t happen – and I believe the right wing media will actually take these ridiculous comments that mccain has made and try to twist them into something that will actually work in his favor. Should they succeed, I believe we will be on our way to becoming an irrelevent nation in the view of the rest of the world and the consequences will be devastating for the next maybe 20 or more years. Let me elaborate – mccain, who is being “advised” on foriegn policy by a man who has collected almost one million dollars from Georgia to lobby congress on their behalf – for predominantly military aid I presume – has been almost leading the “saber rattling” presumptuously as if he was already the president of the US. And when he said, “We are all Georgians” in a speech, I guess he was talking about me, because he seemed to be inferring that all Americans were on the side of Georgia in the dispute, and he seemed to be inferring that somehow we, America, would come kick out the Russians if they didn’t go home. I realize that bush is an incompetent president, but isn’t it his job just the same to do the saber rattling if it is to be done, especially with the implications of using American force? Tonight, I saw – rather unbelievably – that mccain is sending “advisors” to Georgia (lieberman was one and I believe the other was ridge) presumably to negotiate or something of the sort. ARE YOU KIDDING ME???!!! Can you imagine the uproar if Obama sent “advisors” to Georgia to negotiate?? How ridiculous does this baffoon have to get before people in this country come to their senses? Even if you’re a republican, aren’t you embarrassed and angered by this prepostorous behavior. I mean mccain couldn’t even pronounce Shaskavilli’s name correctly as he tried to imply that they were long lost friends at the beginning of this conflict – and curiously he’s making this incompetent and presumptuous response in an attempt to prove to the American public that he would be a competent “commander in chief.” It has now evolved that he is apparently going to solve the problem while he pretends that he is already the president. I have to say that I have never seen anything so presumptuous in my lifetime, yet I believe that it will go almost completely unchallenged because the water carriers would accept this moron as opposed to a black man as president. And if you think that limbaugh, bush, and the rest of them aren’t racist, you are kidding yourself. My whole point here is that this is a real crisis that points to the actual incompetence of the right wing machine (which actually created it – again apparently to prove their competence???) that has been sucking the life out of this country and others around the globe since they adopted the friedman privatization theories during the nixon years. We are desperate for a leader who has the ability to be a statesman, who will be willing to pull our forces out of Iraq ASAP, who understands that the US can’t just do whatever it wants to do while the rest of the world quakes in their boots and who has the ability to talk to them and work reasonably with them without the underlying objective of stealing their resources or whatever else of value they have, and who can return credibility to this country before it’s too late. Eight years of bush has been too much for them as well as us, and it has allowed them to see that the US has been “robber barrens” for at least 35 years – since the nixonites and reaganites began the pillage of countries in South America along with other so-called third world countries around the world who happen to have resources that benefit our economy. How can bush/mccain stand in front of a camera and claim that “In the 21st century civilized countries don’t intrude on the sovereignty of other countries” with a straight face (I heard them both do this – evidently implying that Iraq wasn’t soveriegn when we invaded it) When I say that this might be “the year” I truly mean it from the standpoint of either outcome of the election. If Obama wins in November I believe there will be an excitement that will allow for a change of direction that could be historical – of course Obama will have to actually be the statesman that he potentially seems to be – if mccain wins in November, I believe we will call this the year that the US gave up it’s role as the leader of the free world. The rest of the world will be shaking their collective heads more than they did when bush won his second term – wondering what has happened to the American people? Either way, this might be “the year.”