Famous Quotes
There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.
The Importance of This Election and Current Crisis
I was listening to Dan Carlin’s Common Sense Show from 10/16/08 today. Like always he got me thinking. The majority of the politicians in Washington, the majority of the people in the media, and the majority of the electorate do not realize the true importance of this election or the current financial crisis.
And the reason? Because they truly don’t understand what the current crisis is. The current crisis isn’t about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is, as Dan pointed out, about the government borrowing over the past 30 to 40 years to maintain a budget we really had no business trying to maintain. Now that bubble has burst there are no politicians who want to deal with it. They want to try and throw a Band-Aid on a hemorrhaging wound, by throwing money at it. Money hasn’t helped in the past it won’t help now.
In order to clean up this mess, the politicians and we as the electorate will be forced to deal with those third rail politics that we all so much love to ignore: military spending, medicare, and social security. And until we curb these expenditures to where we can afford them, until we stop being the world’s police force, this crisis is only going to get worse.
And this election is all about this crisis. Because there will be no change unless we as a people force these politicians to deal with these third rail political issues. So as much as Obama and McCain are purporting to be about change, until they start tackling these very real issues, there will be no end to this crisis no matter how much we spend.
It’s been said that this election belongs to those of us that label ourselves “Independents”. Well maybe it’s time to start looking at other choices. There is still time. I don’t like Ralph Nader, but at least, even I believe he will try to do what he says he will do. Dan and I agree on that.
Something To Think About
With the election looming in the near future, I am growing more concerned about the direction this country will take. I keep hearing from people that they are going to vote for the “lesser of two evils”, with the hope that the candidate, whether it be Obama or McCain will be able to lead the country out of the problems that we are currently in and the ones yet to come from the proposed bailout of AIG and the market as a whole. I don’t hear a lot from the “true believers” of the Republican or Democratic parties, my guess, is because both parties are divided about their candidate, and if truth be told neither Obama nor McCain will have a united party once one of them wins. This will make for a tough time for either candidate to pass their vision for America’s future into law.
Then I saw this quote from Albert Einstein:
No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.
John McCain and Barrack Obama are both part of the Washington D.C. crowd. They are both active members in their respective parties. As part of the collective political consciousness that created the current problems we are dealing with as the American public, how can either of these two candidates be the solution? Ignoring the political campaign rhetoric and hyperbole, and viewing their past voting records through the prism of the Einstein quote, one is forced to conclude that they cannot be part of the solution.
So before you vote, think about that Einstein quote, and then ask yourself: “Is voting for an Independent candidate really throwing away my vote, or actually voting for a workable solution to the problems we are currently facing as a nation?”