I stand for the man who has the courage and the vision to take on the issue of race, who calls for the world to come together to solve our now global challenges, who recognizes that to solve the energy issue also addresses our environmental and economic problems, and who made it clear to our best military commanders that if elected President he would be their Commander in Chief.
As a proud Independent voter, as a citizen of the United States of America, I have over the years cast my ballot for Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, and various Independents. I am not a member of any political party and share George Washington’s disdain for political parties. The first American president distrusted factions competing for power leaving strife and division in their wake. Yet political parties have become a necessary part of the political landscape worldwide. Quite simply they have the resources to leverage candidates into office. Perhaps in some future time candidates with little resources with no party affiliation will have the technological power to market themselves to the world from whatever evolves from today’s Internet. Such a possibility would return political power to the individual, and yet that for now is a mere dream.
We humans are social animals. Thus it’s only natural for people to come together and work for common causes and mutual agendas. From this social networking today’s powerful political parties have evolved to foster their respective visions and agendas. And so I choose to work with them without being a member of any one of them. In the primaries, for example, I supported both Republican Representative Ron Paul of Texas and Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich from Ohio. Both were staunch supporters of the Constitution and of revolutionary new ways of dealing with the world. Ron Paul was a traditional conservative, and Dennis Kucinich a visionary progressive. I knew eventually I would have to choose between them. The mainstream mass media, however, alternately ridiculed and ignored both and banished them to the fringes. Senators McCain and Obama battled their way to their respective nominations. With so much at stake I knew I could not in good conscience vote for a Libertarian, Independent, or Green candidate.
As such I endorse Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama for President of the United States of America. I endorse Delaware Senator Joe Biden for Vice-President. Both candidates represent the Democratic Party. I feel and think Sen. Obama is by far the most dynamic and compelling candidate for President and Sen. Biden for Vice-President.
There are indeed specific issues I am not at all supportive of regarding these two, such as corporate control over much of the electoral process including the corporate grip on both mainstream parties with the same large corporations contributing to both parties. There are certain actions by Obama I am disappointed in, such as voting for FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and not publicly disavowing torture of prisoners. Although Obama is a Constitutional scholar, he has not publicly condemned the Bush-Cheney Regime for systematically undermining the US Constitution. He has not advocated the radical changes necessary to address the current global financial crisis such as to bring the Federal Reserve System and the Money Power under Federal and thus public control and establishing a set and determined fixed measure of value for the free-floating and falling US dollar. He continues to advocate the same Free Trade policies of the Corporatocracy instead of Fair Trade, although he stands for “fairness.” Nor has he heeded calls to further investigate real discrepancies regarding the terrorist attacks of 9/11. There are controversial allegations regarding the location of his birth including that he had his Hawaiian Birth Certificate and his college records sealed from public scrutiny. He continues to rely upon key Neo-Liberals such as Zbigniew Brzezinski for advice and stated he would also turn to arch Neo-Conservative Henry Kissinger for counsel, two dominant figures of empire, war, and intrigue.
Sen. Obama represents a mainstream political party as dominated by the Corporatocracy and special interest groups as its rival the Republicans. Key leaders of both the US Democratic and Republican Parties hold membership in the same so-called “secret societies” including the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Bilderberger Group. Even so, this time I refuse to make the mistake I made in the Election of 2000 by voting for Ralph Nader and the Green Party instead of Al Gore and the Democrats who actually won the popular vote and contested the electoral. The US Supreme Court stopped the vote count and threw the election to George W. Bush in the so-called Republican Coup and the Neo-Cons seized power. I will not make that same mistake twice. Yes, politics is politics, the game of taking power, and voting sometimes challenges one to make decisions based upon pragmatic reality as well as character and ideological stances.
I’ve already voted via absentee ballot for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I feel McCain-Palin would be a disaster not only for our country but for the world. Obama is cool under pressure and doesn’t hesitate to ask questions from people who may know more than he. He has matured in his ability to think on his feet and trust his gut instincts, as his recent and respectful debate with Army General David Petraeus over military strategy in Iraq demonstrated. As President Harry Truman had to do with General Douglas McArthur during the Korean War, Obama made it clear that if elected President he was the Commander in Chief. (1)
While he often appears cerebral and up in his head and has been criticized for not connecting from his heart, Obama nevertheless is a master orator and has time and again demonstrated his depth and power in connecting with large crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. For the first time in history, thanks in part to technology, an American candidate becomes in a sense the world’s candidate. If a planetary election for a democratic world republic were to be held today, Obama would win hands down. The global Obamamania is a reflection of American’s iconic position upon the planet today and the hope America is restored once more to it’s statue as a beacon of hope and freedom for the world, not a corporate-dominated giant that tortures prisoners and chips and slashes away at the freedoms of its own people. Hope for America becomes hope for Earth.
On March 18, 2008 Obama delivered his famous “race speech” from Philadelphia. He calls it “A More Perfect Union.” This was a landmark speech addressing the proverbial elephant in the American living room, and it convinced me more than any other. Race isn’t just the American elephant, it’s the world’s monster. And it isn’t just race, it is also religion, gender, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, whatever divides people and divides people violently. These metaphorical elephants are used to justify put-downs, oppression, and tyranny. They are used to deny human beings liberty, opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness. Obama himself is of mixed race. Born in Hawaii, his mother was a White woman of European descent from the American state of Kansas. His father was a Black man from the Luo tribe from the East African nation of Kenya. Scientists claim that from a biological perspective there is no such thing as “race.” Genetic research demonstrates race is a cultural construct. And Obama courageously addressed the painful reality of this construct, a divide that exists more in our negative imaginations than in physical reality.
Obama’s speech in Berlin was another turning point. On July 24, 2008 he addressed the crowd as a “citizen” and called for people all around the world to come together as one to solve planet wide problems. In fact, his Berlin speech was titled “A World that Stands as One.” We have a global convergence of challenges unique in human history, and Obama recognizes that on some level we all need to grow up as a species to the next level of planetary cooperation to resolve these issues.
While Obama realized the Global War on Terror has turned into a disaster with the war in Iraq a colossal blunder, he also realizes it would be irresponsible to simply pull out and leave without cleaning up the mess. A number of other international crises loom and not just those in the Middle East and South Asia but also the expanding hornet’s nest of interconnected wars in Central Africa including Congo. Struggles to avoid a Second Great Depression and to launch his Manhattan Project and Apollo Mission style energy and health care initiatives will also consume his attention.
This particular presidential election is fraught with danger. We slide toward possible economic collapse, environmental catastrophe, and messy wars. Rumors abound of President George W. Bush and his Neo-Con cabal declaring martial law and suspending not only the Constitution but the election itself. While I can not imagine why George Bush would want to stay in office a day longer than he is supposed to after all the debacles on his watch, I also can not imagine that the Neo-Conservative cabal will simply just pack up its bags and walk away from its massive accumulation of executive and military power. Nor can I imagine far right wing White supremacist and Christian Dominionist groups staying silent and peaceful. And should John McCain and Sarah Palin win, legitimately or by fraud, I can not imagine the American street staying silent and peaceful. We have become increasingly polarized and divided as a nation. In a worst case scenario, riots, coup attempts, military intervention in domestic civil unrest, domestic terrorism, racial strife, and even civil war is possible. All which would further sully America’s standing in the world.
I urge all of us to stay calm in the face of the unknown. Fear often is False Evidence Appearing Real and dwells within our own imaginations. Let us all reign in fear and face forward with courage. Let all of us, Liberals, Conservatives, and Independents alike stand together for our collective and individual liberty and for our American Constitution. And get out there and vote anyway.
William Dudley Bass
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Footnotes:
1) Klein, Joe. “Why Barack Obama is Winning.” Time.com. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1853025,00.html. October 22, 2008.
© by William Dudley Bass
