With the exception of Dennis Kucinich (the only candidate who voted against going to war with Iraq and the Patriot Act), who has repeatedly, clearly listed the changes he would implement as President, if elected, the other candidates safely hide behind the buzzword, demonstrating that that in itself is sufficient to carry public support.
From the onset, Kucinich has been very clear about his mission (check out YOUTUBE, South Carolina 6/3/07 debate and Chicago 8/7/07 debate). He stood his ground during the televised CNN 11/15/07 debate, despite the mediator, Wolf Blitzer, trying to rein him in. All during Dennis' address, the audience, again and again, approvingly cheered (check out YOUTUBE). Subsequently, ABC, who is owned by Disney, didn't allow him to appear on the next debate. Embarrassed by public response, they acquiesced and let Dennis Kucinich have ten minutes to speak by himself. Bill Moyers, on Public Television, also put him on to discuss his views. Forced to subsequently drop out of the race for financial reasons, special interests have already intervened to remove Dennis from Congress.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, had already entered into the Congressional Record (H resolution 333), 11/6/07, Vice President Cheney's egregious behavior in office, repeatedly documenting all the lying and thus abuse of power to enter us into a war with Iraq that was not necessary (check YOUTUBE KUCINICH: Takes House Floor, Moves for Cheney Impeachment). He called for his impeachment on the ground of "high crimes and misdemeanors," sighting, not only all the lies, but the one million Iraqis who have died because of the United States intervention.
He rightfully wants the Patriot Act repealed because of its blatant abuse of civil liberties. He wants to put in place a single payer health care system, that by making the health insurance industries nonprofit, could incorporate all forty-six or so million uninsured, without raising any taxes.
He wants to restore the Constitution to its former healthy self.
In contrast, Hillary Clinton, who happens to be, "one of the good guys," speaks in sweeping generalities, being most specific, within a coded phrase that she is best equipped to be President because of her experience.
Barack Obama, equally astute and very smooth, just repeatedly says he represents the change that our country so desperately needs.
But how? ...Not a word.
Is he or Hillary going to address the fact that there is eleven and one half trillion dollars in I.O.U's in the supposed "locked box" of Social Security? How about the nine and one half trillion dollars the United States is in debt, or why, out of our fifteen and one half trillion dollar gross national product, twelve and a half trillion washes through the insurance industry? How do we get out of Iraq, before we completely bankrupt ourselves, cause a global recession, the rest of the world converts their currency off the U.S. dollar to the Euro and we completely destabilize the Middle-East? When does our government finally take energy out of the controlling interest of oil, who have dictated our foreign policies for the past one hundred years, and change to alternative fuels, thus insuring our planet's survival?
The amount of "change" needed would cause such a loss of income from all the special interests, that any candidate proposing such sweeping "change" as implied, would clearly lead to their assassination.
At this point and time, is there really anyone who doesn't believe that John Fitzgerald Kennedy wasn't killed by special interests, so to guarantee their perpetuated abuse of our nation. I happen to be of the opinion that the C.I.A. orchestrated the "hit" on the President, employing many nefarious elements of dubious character, in order not to prevent the "cash cow" that was about to unfold. An incident was needed to create a "theatre" of operation, if you will. It was the Cold War and the military industrial complex was hungry to expand its profits. Kennedy was against the "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba, and stopped it. With the Cuban missile crisis, not only did he not listen to his military advisors, who spoke of us winning a nuclear war with Cuba, but with collateral damage, (ten to twenty million Americans dying on the East Coast), but with his brother Bobby, brokered a deal with the Soviet Union which saved the world from nuclear incineration. Cold War? You don't get any hotter than this! With the avoidance of the nuclear catastrophic confrontation, it is quite possible that the theatre of Vietnam would no longer be necessary for the purposes of "saber rattling," against the Soviet Union.
Those of us who were there during that period, remember how fond the French were of the Kennedy's and the U.S. They adored Jackie, referring to her as "Madame Le President." We had already steal fully given the French one billion dollars a year, supporting their military involvement in South Vietnam from 1952-62. DeGaulle pulled his troops out after that futile ten years. Wouldn't one assume that he might have expressed his opinion to his American friend not to bring the United States officially into what was, obvious to him, an unwinnable war.
Kennedy already had two thousand advisors in South Vietnam; not the eight hundred and thirty allowed by the Geneva Convention. Jack was killed November 22, 1963. Johnson is now the President and after a phony sea battle in the Gulf of Tonkin, drafts two hundred and fifty thousand of our youth and the wanton killing began for the next ten years. The war ensued through two different administrations. We would ultimately, according to former Secretary-of-State, Robert McNamara, kill three point nine million Vietnamese, one point eight million Cambodians, waste fifty-six thousand of our own children fighting this conflict, wounding another three hundred plus thousand and throwing away one and one half trillion dollars.
When President Johnson succeeded Jack as President, he had a dream of doing something important like Lincoln and FDR, but allowed the escalation of the war, which ultimately took seventy-five cents out of every dollar and left one point two cents for his war on poverty. Exhausted by the conflict, campus unrest, our country's growing opposition to the war and our cities fire from all the rioting as the result of racial protest, he chose not to run for a second term of office. Nixon would ultimately become President on the promise of ending the war honorably. At that point, according to McNamara, twenty-six thousand of our troops had died and maybe over a million Vietnamese. Nixon and his Secretary-of-State, Henry Kissinger, would not only continue the war, but unleashed the killing fields in Cambodia, before the war finally came to its tragic end. No matter how the spin of the day tried to make us not be the "bad guys,", or at least have a stalemate, our shame was felt deeply within our nation. As McNamara says in the documentary, "The Fog of War," "...if we had lost the war [which we obviously did, but he as well as too many others refused to acknowledge,] we would have been tried as war criminals."
We have now have nearly bankrupted ourselves and killed over one million Iraqis.
For what? Oil and all the subsidiary and ancillary profits to be made from war.
During Vietnam, the white corporate war also insidiously drafted those who couldn't afford to buy their way out with lawyers; primarily the poor and people of color from the various ghettos within the United States. Yes, there were those who truly believed that they were fighting Communism and defended our country with honor. There will always be those honorable few who will trust, in spite of the lying interests who will repeatedly bring us into war, when diplomacy could make the difference.
But now there is a volunteer army. The special interests learned from the rioting that swept across the United States opposed to the Vietnam War and racism. They learned that with a volunteer army, there wouldn't be any college campus demonstrations. They also implemented the rapid devolution of accessible education so to destroy our nation's ability to critically think. And so, we quietly accept our present plight.
Change? You bet your ass we need change. We first have to impeach this present government, thus send a signal to the rest of the world, that we don't approve of this war, how Habeas Corpus, the Right to trial, has been thrown away; that we don't accept torture of any kind; that health care and education are an inalienable Right of our People and should be freely given as such.
Change? Are we really ready to change? Are we ready to accept the responsibility of what change means and the subsequent sacrifices that must take place in order for change? We are a hungry and growing more voracious consumer society. You tell me. Are we ready for change?
2/8/08