The two defining musical influences of my life are Prince and Public Enemy; that perhaps gives you a framework - a lens - through which to view my thoughts. The more hopeful side - the side that sees the issues we face today but believes we can surpass them on the way to a brighter future, just sent the below series of thoughts - on themes I have posted about before - to the Obama/Biden campaign as part of that survey they distributed earlier this week. Herewith, my attempt to define the future:
I believe Energy & Transportation must be the core focus area for this upcoming Obama/Biden Administration. A focus here would yield benefits in to many other areas, that it announcing plans on a scale even greater than Eisenhower with his interstate highway program, should form the tent pole of your first 100 Days.
And as we look about as the sun peeks above the horizon, we see that although the day is clear and bright, it has revealed the detritus of our long national nightmare. While a portion of that is the remnants of the past eight years, some of it stretches back to our Cold War days and even more reaches back unto the founding of this republic.
Now is the time to address these old wounds, to bandage them and allow them to heal. They will scab over - initially - and it will be painful, but ignoring a wound will never cause it to heal.
I never know what words I will type; I do not do much planning. I start with a few ideas and a general concept of the path to trod and then witness what comes next as my fingers attempt to consolidate a swirl of thoughts into sentences, paragraphs and theme.
If you are willing to walk this journey with me, I have consolidated a few of those (my?) thoughts on foreign policy below. Warning: content more focused on larger memes as opposed to specific policy recommendations.
And express disagreement with the following statement: Frank Rich is the greatest living columnist of our day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31rich.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
Go ahead; make my day.
I had formatting in that last post so that it would be easier to read. As that formatting was removed from this blog editor, I have posted it on my own blog here:
http://allpanthersareblack.blogspot.com/2008/08/will-no-one-rid-me-of-this-meddlesome.html
Actually, I should have said author. The author of the attack book - The Faith of Barack Obama - was on XM Radio yesterday, the POTUS channel. I do not know whom the host was, but he was awfully chummy with this author, so at a minimum he has conservative leanings.
Anyway, you will not be surprised to hear that I disagreed with the author; I just sent this lengthy rant off to the XM Radio programmer's; lets see what becomes of it.
What's that you say? There is no such thing as an Oil Speculator?
Ah . . . to be so young - and so naive.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082003898_pf.html
First rule for observers of the American political scene is to ignore any media analysis that posits a "horse race" meme. Here are three reasons why:
It may just be me, but when I hear people say, "Americans are not happy with the progress in Iraq, but we still want to win", I want to shout: "You are confusing the question!"
Of course, Americans want to win; winning has been imprinted onto our DNA. It is part of what we see as a more perfect union. What Americans want to know is how we can win in Iraq? Can we win with the same strategy George W. Bush has put in place - only under the guidance of John McCain or do we need a new strategy, one that takes an alternate vector to reaching the goal we all want in our hearts?
This debate is not about how one side wants to win and the other side wants to lose; no - this debate is how one side thinks we can win by doing what we have been doing and our side which says that to win we need to "think outside the box".
