elections

If you want to change things, elections aren't the way to do it. Nearly every freedom we enjoy today was earned by constant, persistent popular struggle. They weren't bestowed upon us by great leaders--this is a near universal, incidentally. McCain and Obama are spokesman from either side of a very narrow spectrum of opinion, namely the opinion of corporate elites and their government analogues. Just take a look at their corporate backers. McCain's top financial contributors include Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan/Chase, AT&T, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the US Army, Dept of Defense; all contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, Obama's top financial contributors include Goldman Sachs, Citigroup JPMorgan/Chase, AOL/TImeWarner, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, etc. There's every indication that McCain's policies will be virtually identical to the policies of the neocons over the last 20 or so years. Likewise, Obama will very likely shift policy toward the centrist position of the Clinton era which brought us a Devastating sanctions regime in Iraq--which crippled the country and deepened the population's dependence on Saddam's efficient food distribution programs, effectively forestalling an internal movement which might have overthrown him--the bombing of Sudan which had, "appalling consequences for the economy and society" of Sudan (Christopher Hitchens, Nation, June 10 2002). Also, the simultaneous passing of NAFTA and implementation of Operation Gatekeeper (NAFTA flooded the Mexican economy with cheap, government subsidized U.S. Agribusiness products, devastating the Mexican economy, driving indigenous farmers off their land, and driving down wages across the country. Operation Gatekeeper effectively militarized the U.S./Mexican border) can be attributed to the Clinton administration. So we're likely to see more of that with Obama. The only reason I mention this is because I'm a little tired of hearing my, mostly well-intentioned, liberal friends talk about how much better things will be if Obama wins. Furthermore, a casual look at Obama's healthcare plan should reveal that most of us young, uninsured, working adults won't see a bit of it. That isn't to say that it won't have some marginally positive effects.
If any of you are thinking that this is some sort of tacit endorsement of McCain, you're wrong. It should be immediately obvious to even the casual observer that McCain is every bit the international aggressor that Bush is, possibly worse given his voting record, and that he'll continue Bush's efforts to restructure our society according to a Third World framework in which there is massive injustice as regards the distribution of wealth, increasing rates of incarceration for nonviolent crimes--which serve to marginalize sectors of the population who don't significantly contribute to wealth production--and an overall decrease in public oversight and government regulation of the unaccountable tyrannies that we call "corporations."
The only way to effectively improve the quality of life in this country is to win democratic control over economic resources. And nobody's going to give it to us. If we don't take it, we won't have it.
There's been a lot of rhetoric comparing Obama to Kennedy. That being the case I think a brief review of Kennedy's record is in order. Kennedy was responsible for illegal international aggression against South Vietnam--always the primary target of our assault on southeast asia, illegal terrorist operations in Cuba, a millions cambodian deaths, the list of crimes goes on. As far as Obama's media persona, it's completely vacuous. He talks about hope and change but doesn't bother to elaborate on how that might happen. Here, I think the comparisons to Kennedy are more or less accurate.