Why I'm Voting for Barak Obama

1. Barak Obama is a Black man in a White country.

Obama came from humble but diverse origins.  One advantage he had, that most African Americans don't, is that he grew up in Hawaii -- a multi-racial, pan-Asian/White culture where racial discrimination is not as prevalent as in the continental U.S.

But obviously, in order to become the Editor of the Harvard Law Review and a Senator from Illinois, Obama has had to both understand and to cope with American racism.  And while as a white American I cannot understand it, I see no bitterness but only optimism and clear and decisive pragmatism in Barak Obama.

2. John McCain is a Hater.

I know a hater when I see one.  I am a hater.  My father is a hater.  My grandparents were haters.  George W. Bush is a hater.  And Senator John McCain and the America he represents clearly exhibits a pathology of hate: race hatred, class hatred, religious hatred and political hatred -- hatred that has crippled political and economic progress in this country for decades if not centuries.

Haters cannot tolerate diversity.  Haters exhibit superiority complexes.  Haters seek revenge over justice.  Haters extol unbridled Capitalism, which in turn spawns class hatred on the part of its victims.  Worst of all, haters tend to start wars for no good reason. 

Mr. McCain was a POW in America's no good war against North Vietnam.  The Vietnam War, like the Iraq War, failed catastrophically and led the nation into recession.  During Vietnam, John McCain was a Navy pilot as American warplanes bombed Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians for more than a decade, killing two million Vietnamese -- one in ten Vietnamese people -- a literal Cold War Holocaust. 

Under Vietnamese captivity, Captain McCain was starved and tortured to the point of attempting suicide at least twice.  It's arguable these experiences have irreparably seared hatred and vengeance into John McCain's psyche. 

Thus, it is logical that John McCain will plunge America ever deeper into war -- into wars larger and more catastrophic than Vietnam and Iraq combined.  Only this is not 1944, and America doesn't have six hundred thousand boys to sacrifice on John McCain and George Bush's  "freedom"  altar.  In 2008, America is old, fat and stupid, but still gullible to John McCain's delusions regarding its military power. 

But hasn't the Iraq War already proved to this planet that America can no longer sustain, let alone win, an extended ground war against poor and desperate people -- the kind of war it would have to win to steal the oil from poor countries like Iraq, Sudan and Nigeria. 

When will America learn to stop attacking, stop sacrificing innocents for economic gain, resort only to defending its citizens by the rule of law, and most importantly, to negotiate with its rivals and its enemies?  This will never occur under Bush-McCain; never under delusions of greatness and empire; never under hatred.

Still, in the world view of people like John McCain, America holds one trump card:  Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Yes.  America can destroy the planet if it comes to that.

Thus, Mutually Assured Destruction is all that remains of America's military prowess.  And it's time to be realistic about the fact that MAD will never entitle the U.S. to a single drop of foreign oil -- no matter how much simple reality angers delusional haters like Bush, Cheney and McCain.

In short, when I look at John McCain, I see all of America's ridiculous delusions -- it's obvious inability to cope with basic economic and political reality for nearly forty years -- in one unhappy, pot-bellied, wrinkled, angry little man. 

And I simply don't see that when I look at Barak Obama.

3. Barak Obama is both well educated and intelligent.

At a time when such a view was both unpopular and misunderstood, Barak Obama openly criticized George Bush's catastrophic decision to wage war against Iraq.  Since then, as America has lost blood, treasure, prestige and security under a Bush-Cheney-McCain foreign policy putting aggression first, Obama's then prescient views have clearly been vindicated .

There can be no question that today, after eight years and more of retarded Republican energy policy and utterly failed international aggression, that America's wrong-headed Republican-led War On Terror has failed and today America is weaker and at greater economic and military risk than at virtually any time in its history.

4. Barak Obama is young enough to understand the needs of the future.

In November, Barak Obama will be 47 and John McCain will be 72.  Simply do the math. 

America doesn't need another President nodding off or drooling on himself through cabinet briefings with titles like "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S." 

Isn't eight years of drool, drivel and stuttering enough already? 

I certainly think so.

5. It's simply time for CHANGE in American politics.

I think there can be no question that that the politics of America today is that of failure and of status quo.  And while I could prattle on about the need for lobbying reform, campaign finance reform, against corporate soft fascist hegemony, et al, suffice it to say that from my vantage John McCain is a mirror on America's failures over forty years, while Barak Obama is a looking glass to America's possibilities;  To the possibility that America can somehow find a way to stop hating, stop killing and stop resisting essential social, economic and environmental change for the better. 

In short, it is time to go through the Obama looking glass.  Maybe things will improve.  Maybe they won't.  But I think we can mostly agree that at least four decades of Republican and Republican Lite politics has painted this country and this planet into a corner;  that our collective future must somehow be different than our past; or that we are simply doomed -- because America cannot kill or print its way out of this mess.