Thoughts About the 2008 Election

To me, the year 2000 was the 3rd most important year since our country became a nation.
Really the second most important if we do not count 1776 and our Declaration of Independence.

In 1776 our country was like a newborn infant and although not all newborn infants are in intensive care, those first few weeks of their life are critical. The same is true of our post revolutionary era when our country was a fledgling democracy.

The second most critical time was the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln said it " A house divided against itself cannot stand." Divided, it was unlikely our great experiment in democracy could endure.

Since that time, our country has faces many crisis - you could pick any of them. World War II, the Great Depression the Vietnam War. Each of those which were crises in themselves were not of the far reaching consequences that could or would weaken our nation.

In 2000, there were circumstances of history that did have the potential to threaten our nation and it is of great concern we have not handled it property. In this case, the fate of mankind is in the balance and the U.S. should be in the position to create a positive outcome. I'm not sure that it can.

The importance of what is going on in our country and the world is not made disproportoinal or exaggerated, as more current events usually do. The issues today are pretty big ones. If there were a time in history that our country needed great leadership, it was starting in the year 2000.

Most of us are quite well aware of what has happened in the past eight years. It took not only 6 years or so of the people to realize this, but also the president of our country and our leaders. This specifically is the control of nuclear weapons after the break up of the USSR, the related effects of global warming and depletion of the worlds fossil fuels and the new method of warfare in terrorism with fanatic, religious ideologues.

Our country has, by and large failed in addressing any of this issues to a point where they will avert worldwide disaster. So the next president and our leaders may have to do even stronger than our forefathers in getting these resolves. Were 8 years late, at least.

Our entire infrastructure, commerce, way of life has become dependent on oil. We never really thought a lot about this when the worlds oil reserves were less known and with the internal combustion engine, we just ignored it ( any look at geological history should have told us it took tens of millions of years for this oil to develop and we were using it up at a miniscule time frame, in comparison. Secondly, we ignored for way to long, the scientists who warned of global warming ( this they have been doing for over 30 years).

So we needed leadership as people are people. They choose to follow and for reasons I cannot explain, always opt for the most immediate gratification if it does not directly affect them in some concrete way. The visionary leader says "Whoa ! There are consequences to all of this that are far down the road. But people being people in a free and laizze faire country would not listen. So it took a very dynamic leader and there was none there to convince and lead the people to sacrifice and start making changes. Maybe such a human being does not exist. That we well, despite any effort that could have been made - can only take the road of the junkie right up to our deaths.

But we have to hope. We have spent much of the principal and quite possibly far too late into this, all we have left is hope. Hope that one of these presidential candidates and the leaders we chose in November can turn it around in time. So what must be done and who can best do it? It will take someone who is a visionary, charismatic to the point that people will believe and sacrifice and then, introduce pass and make into law - some draconian measures.

The problems are so serious, so important in terms of survival of the planet, it is difficult to even chose those that should come first. It appears there will need to be three or four that must be worked on immediately. Issues like healthcare, economy, and all those social issues are dwarfed by comparison.

Its seems we must, at one time deal with controlling nuclear weapons as one mistake here can make all the others somewhat irrelevant. At the same time, not just the U.S. but the entire world will need to go through withdrawl of dependence of non-renewable sources of energy. The only bright spot and there is one - if we could tackle the worlds oil addiction, there is a good possibility we can concurrently slow down global warming.

Those three seem like the big ones - at the same time we will need to provide some cushion to the shock affect this will have to the world population, but this will have to be of second importance. There is no other way. If one would want to view it in a more positive light - we did survive before the internal combustion engine and we do have some new technologies ( electricity and electronic communications) to make life a little bit better than say - it was in the 1800's.

The next, which is likely a maneagable problem is the new asymetrical method of warfare that does not recognize the Geneva Conventions, faceless enemies without a nation who have pre-dark age mentalities with 21st century technology. This one should be able to handle with extensive emphasis on intelligence, counter-intellignce, monitoring and taking the terrorist out. With enough decades or even a century of failure - these terrorist's will finally quit. Fanaticism will give way to a more comfortable, secular way of life with all the attendent happiness that freedom and libety brings. It just takes time.

To me, that is the important agenda of the next administration. They must get it started. I think there is one who does understand this and understands what it takes, but I don't think he is has delusions of grandeur. He knows regardless of how visionary, how convincing, how educating, how charismatic, it will only be a long shot at best - to get the addict off of the drug.