I have to write tonight, but it’s hard for me to figure out where to start. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about our troops and what it must be like to be in the situation of going to Iraq over and over again. I remember Viet Nam, and it was unlikely anyone had to go more than once (of course there was a draft in those days so many of the troops going over were not doing so willingly) but in Iraq I’ve heard stories of soldiers going as many as 5 tours – that doesn’t leave much time for “downtime.” I believe that the troops develop such a bond with each other when they’re in that volatile situation that they feel guilty leaving their “brothers and sisters” over there when they come home which leads to “volunteering” to go back. I don’t have any statistics to back up my thoughts, but I’m just trying to make sense out of all the “stuff” that seems so crazy to me. I guess my thinking is influenced by an experience I had where I went to Mexico on a “mission” with my church to build a small building at a children’s home with a group of people that I will forever consider my brothers and sisters. The only thing that kept me from going back several more times was physical problems that made it virtually impossible. And I say this because most of the people who I shared that experience with have nearly opposite political views to mine, yet I fully understand what wonderful people they are.

I’m saying this to try to frame my thoughts this evening. I really don’t understand why these people continue to support a republican party whose actions totally, in my opinion, defy the words I’ve read in the Bible. I realize that abortion is an issue that drives much of what they think, but at some point I have to believe that they will look past that to the reality of what the republican party has done to our great nation in the past 30 years. The difference between Obama and mccain is stark in almost every instance – including the issues of family values that these people see as so important. The bottom line to me, though, is the real reason for their unwillingness to “trust” Obama and it is a black and white issue.

I am a school teacher and virtually everyone who works in my workplace has a college education. I say that because the presumption would be that they can think for themselves and would be looking past the rhetoric as responsible citizens in an election that few people should be able to deny the importance. I have felt compelled for about the last 3 years to stop passively just letting things happen without at least speaking out to the people around me about the direction of our country. Some people don’t even want to hear it, but I find that unacceptable for a teacher who is supposed to be preparing students to be responsible citizens. I work next to a teacher who I respect completely, who I did everything I could to help him get a teaching position as a second (or more) career. We disagree completely on politics, but that is the beauty of being American, we can discuss, argue, whatever you want to call it – but we can say what we think to each other and we should be doing that in appropriate settings. I’m OK with him trying to convince me to vote for mccain despite my difficulty in understanding how he cound be a mccain supporter – what is important is the dialogue. As teachers we should be making sure that students understand the importance of participating in the process and we should be working to help them learn to think for themselves, learn how to find and disseminate information, and how to learn from sharing ideas with those around them. What we shouldn’t be doing is ignoring what’s going on and looking the other way when we are confronted by issues of importance.

I have been talking to younger teachers for about two years now warning them of what was coming as far as the impending recession, that it was going to be severe. The jury is still out on how severe it will be, but the volitility in ALL the markets of late, not just the stock market, should get most people’s attention. This gets me to what is bugging me this evening (probably more than this evening). If people are paying attention at all, I don’t see how they can possibly be even considering voting for mccain. I suppose die hard republicans who are going to vote for the republican no matter what get a pass here. But even they should be wondering what is going on with their party. bush is in hiding, he came out of his hole today for about two minutes, took no questions after a short generic message, and went back into his hole while everything around him is melting down. HE IS A PATHETIC LEADER! and mccain – well he keeps getting more absurd as each day passes which makes me wonder what is in the water that he would even have a chance in this election.

Tonight I got into a heated argument with one of my best friends over my frustration that bush would not be in office without the almost total support of the so-called “Christian Right” and if mccain wins it will be due to the same group. mccain has set the bar almost out of reach for any future candidate on lying – even the king of liers, karl rove, says he’s gone too far – but the thing that worries me the most is mccain’s incompetence. He seems more incompetent than bush and bush has bungled everything he’s touched. I regret that I didn’t keep track of all the “flip-flops” mccain has made during this election – I remember the furor John Kerry got for a couple times changing his position (and of course, you wouldn’t want someone that was so rigid that they wouldn’t change course if someone convinced them there was a better way to do something) – but mccain is in the ridiculous stage. Just this week he was spouting about how he was “a deregulator” one day and wouldn’t be baling out these big companies on Wall Street (his first brush with trouble as a senator was when he tried to help charles keating avoid regulators with his bank which was instrumental in the S & L crisis in the 80’s) then the very next day pushing for tighter regulations on these big Wall Street firms. Additionally, today, as if it was his idea, he was pushing for a “resolution trust” – he called it something else presumably so he could take credit for the idea that was, I believe, initiated by Barney Frank a few days ago – as a way to take away the burden of this massive bad debt that is destroying the financial industry in our country and around the world (remember, much of the investment in the US of late comes from foriegn governments or entities that are flush with US dollars). Of course that debt will be put on the backs of the taxpayers, something republicans don’t mind doing – although in this instance it’s possibly the only way to avoid a world wide recession, or maybe even depression. The point is; what mccain says depends on which way the wind is blowing.

It should be obvious to anyone who takes just a few moments to fairly look at these two candidates that Obama is extremely bright and mccain is, well to be nice, not so bright. mccain has much in common with bush, probably the most significant being that he wouldn’t be anywhere had he not had a father that “pulled the necessary strings” for him as a young man to get him into Annapolis where he graduated almost at the bottom of a class of around 860 midshipmen. He is called a war hero by the same people who bludgeoned John Kerry in 2004 despite the fact he lost 5 planes including the one that was shot down over Viet Nam, in which he supposedly had committed a blunder. I believe the thing that bothers me the most about mccain is his willingness to say whatever he thinks the people in front of him want to hear – no matter what he said previously. He has no firm positions. He voted against his own immigration bill in congress, and despite being tortured in Viet Nam and speaking out against torture in Iraq he voted to give the president and his underlings the right to torture “enemy combatants” whatever that means.

He opposed expanding offshore drilling, knowing it solves nothing as far as our dependence on foriegn oil, yet to get votes in this election his energy policy (at least at the saddleback forum) has become “drill, drill, drill!” He tries to take credit for the so-called surge in Iraq as if that has been successful. To me, this just shows how ill informed and short-sighted he is. The idea that the “sunni awakening” participants are going to lay down their arms, supplied by the US as we paid them to stop killing our troops and, instead, kill the Al Qaeda insurgents, and then submit to being ruled by the Shia party of as Maliki is a bit optimistic in my view. The Sunni and Shia in Iraq have a history that predates our country by at least a thousand years, and they solve their differences by killing each other. While I truly hope that Iraq is going to become a peaceful, democratic ally of the US, I’m not going to hold my breath. (by the way, the Sunni Awakening began almost a year before the so-called surge took effect and was initiated by a General in Iraq, not mccain)

This week mccain is also trying to lable himself the “change agent” for Washington DC. Now if he wasn’t close in the polls, that would be about as laughable as it gets. The top seven “advisors” in his campaign – which always includes promises to stop earmarks in congress and to fight special interests – are the most powerful lobbyists in Washington. I’m sure once he is elected they are going to just stop what they’re doing. What’s the old saying, “if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” I’ve heard the tally by those keeping track that mccain has reversed himself 54 times during this campaign. That is one for the guiness book of records. When I got in the “heated debate” with my friend tonight, he says “Obama is no different.” It is true that Obama is starting to fight back more agressively, but there is nothing he’s said yet that I’ve heard about mccain that isn’t true. It might not be complimentary, I can see how it could be termed “negative,” because it is an attack. And the campaign is heading for the gutter, which is what Obama was trying to avoid. But there becomes a point where if you’re up for the job of president you have to show that you’re a fighter. Anyone who is paying attention knows that the next president is going to inherit a huge mess. In my opinion it will be the biggest mess since what FDR inherited in 1932. The ironic thing about that is the neo-cons have been talking about how they were dismantling the policies of Roosevelt for the last 30 years. And the results of what they’re doing to the “New Deal,” which led to the strongest middle class any country in history has achieved, is apparent in the melting down of our markets – along with the world markets. The solution: more regulation, more government intervention- exactly what they’ve been trying to do away with.

So far ten of my discussions with people who I consider educated have ended with them saying about Obama, “I just don’t trust him.” Depite mccain setting the record for the amount of lies in one campaign, they do trust mccain. Now that just doesn’t make sense. Until you look at some of the emails that are going around the right wing circles about Obama; he’s a muslim, he wasn’t born in the US, he’s going to raise taxes on everyone, it goes on and on. What none of them is willing to say is that he’s black. I’ve had this discussion with several people who disagree with me, including my own daughter, but I believe there is a large number of people out there who feel they are not racist, and probably aren’t, that don’t even understand the reason they don’t “trust” Obama is because he’s black. I realize that encompasses only a percentage – but I’ve seen a bunch of the anti-Obama emails and the racist undertones are disgusting to me – it’s never overt – but it’s there. As I said to my friend tonight when he essentially put me down for my “blog” I know it doesn’t change anything, but it sure makes me feel better to get out the frustration. When it’s gotten to the point that we stand to lose everything we have, our homes, our jobs, our savings because of an incompetent president that is a puppet for a bunch of gready corporatists – I’m no longer willing to accept that all politicians are alike. These republicans have figured out how to steal the American taxpayers blind, and get away with it. We can not stand a repeat performance of the bush crowd. mccain the agent of change? Look up Einstein’s definition of insanity.