A Case for Barack Obama

I write this not only as an Independent, but as an anti-partisan who feels that the two party political system we have today has oppressed the way our democracy is supposed to work, as our founders warned us.
    After much thought and consideration, I have decided to endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States. I will list my reasons:

1. Having heard his speeches many times, I feel confident about his vision, his leadership qualities and his ability to inspire what is best in those who have the decency to listen to him with an open-mind.
   
2. A case has been made against him for his lack of experience. He has the same political experience that Abraham Lincoln had-arguably our greatest president.
   
3. He is intelligent, serious, well-meaning, and reflects ideals of courtesy, honesty and fairness that America's corrupt political system needs to reinstate.
   
4. I see in him the kind of strength, passion, and values that we need in a national leader.
   
5. His liberal idealism will repair much of the damage that President Bush created among our allies and the world. Now, some people say they don't care what other nations think of us. I say, that when other nations look at us and see hypocrisy, disrespect for international law and the environment, military adventurism, and the kind of unilateralism that promotes tension throughout the world, then we need to open our eyes and look into the mirror. We need to care about the ideals we are supposed to represent. We need to reclaim our stature of being the good guys, the real champions of freedom and virtue that the present administration pretends to be.
   
6. He does not look at war as a first choice scenario when things are not he way we like.
   
7. Although some of his campaign ads are somewhat misleading or exaggerated, they are not outright lies, as some of John McCain's ads are. I do not want a president who lies.
   
8. That he is a worthy candidate who is part African American provides us with an opportunity to repair, at least somewhat, the blemish of racism that has shamed our otherwise proud, heroic nation for centuries. Most of us are ready to expiate our sins and put the past behind us. When I think of what having a black president will mean to black children everywhere, and the healing it will accomplish between both races, I find this a worthy goal. We will be able to recite the equality statement in the Declaration of Independence with more sincerity of accomplishment.
   
9. Although I am not a Democrat, I am well aware of the gross failures of the Republican Party on the national scene since Newt Gingrich first transformed Congress to a partisan tool. They have harmed the balance of power by elevating the executive branch, crippling the legislative branch, and bad-mouthing the judicial. If they have their way, our carefully formulated republic will lose its safeguards. They have challenged our sacred guarantee of separation of church and state. They have placed the welfare of corporations ahead of the welfare of the people. They have instigated an unjust war against Iraq, and convinced the American people it was justified by the tragedy of
   9-11, which was entirely unrelated. They are therefore guilty of all the deaths and mutilations that occurred in that war on both sides of the conflict, and for not properly attending to the just conflict in Afghanistan, the seat of Al Qaeda. They have pushed deregulation of the stock market, despite everything we learned from the Great Depression, which contributed to recent economic failures. In the past, during my own lifetime, they have fought against civil rights, equal rights for women, Social Security, protection of the environment, and energy independence. Reflecting the heresy of social Darwinism, they apply strict moral consequences on the poor while disregarding the violations of the wealthy, whom they consider superior and therefore privileged. While their positions have changed on most of these issues, as well they should, their propensity for ham-stringing responsible action, not through honest debate but through devious strategies, can only harm us in the future. We cannot place such people in high offices. While they claim to want smaller government and fiscal responsibility, they have produced just the opposite. It is only fair to say that the Republican Party in the northeast does not cater to extremism as does their national sponsor.
   
10. John McCain has demonstrated in this election that he is not the same man he was eight years ago, when I supported him. His deceptive ads, which he states his approval of, do not reflect the actions of a man of honor. His choice of Sarah Palin was meant to invigorate his base support, rather than bring a person who was ready to replace him as president. She is a small fish in a large pond. Lipstick, sarcasm and repetitious lies do not compensate for that. That she supports creationism being taught in school as if it were science would be intellectually regressive on a grand scale.
    
11. I have also detected a lack of effort in John McCain that concerns me. A confusion of facts. Running on personality, past heroism and opposition to his own party, he seems a little out of touch with complicated issues, such as the economy. We cannot afford another president, honorable or not, who depends on partisan experts to dictate the direction of our nation.
    
12. The kind of change that John McCain endorses is not the sea change that we need. He wants to reform failed, inappropriate policies so that they will be less corrupt and more successful-no matter how inappropriate they remain.
    
13. John McCain is more concerned about victory against a people who do not threaten us than the justice of going to war there. Bringing eventual stability to Iraq will never justify the hundreds of thousands of people killed. This is not the kind of leadership we need. It is the kind of leadership that leads to disaster and moral degradation.

As an anti-partisan, I do not support the Democratic Party for what it is. Parties think only of their own survival and accumulation of power. That being said, Democrats show a more favorable approach to issues on the national level than Republicans. Please don't let the hype given by conservative talk show hosts fool you. There is no way to compare the two as being equally guilty. After eight years of so-called conservative misrule, we should give liberals a chance to fix things, which won't be easy. This will send a message to the Republican Party that they had better get their act straight, or their un-American values will be thrown out entirely.

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