Politics and Culture - American Profiles In Radical Independence

“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

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The Birth Of A New Independence In A Radical World

October 5th 2008 16:18

"Some people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world."

"We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers."

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."

~President Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

There is a certain point every man or nation reaches where things become so bleak that it causes a loss of faith in everything worth fighting for. For me this point came when my nation saw her darkest day's days since the Great Depression with a 700 billion dollar "rescue" package lying on the table to save our nation from financial peril and my nationally elected leaders couldn't force themselves to put aside their partisan finger pointing in the hopes of working out a balanced proposal for the good of the nation and it ultimately failed.

Fortunately, this bi-partisan effort passed the second time around but not before we saw the greatest collapse in Wall Street history the day after their failures on the first try. At this point I could sit here and name names about who did what wrong and why I don't support certain members of the Congress but I have a reached a point where I'm drawing the line in the sand and am going to form my own destination of political consciousness….

I am no longer going to give into the misgivings of the media dictated political process and adhere to the belief that just because someone is an outsider to the Washington Establishment that they are "unqualified" to lead. This election season we have heard the exact same arguments from both the right and the left about Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. Decades of service in blocking legislation, partisan wrangling and not understanding that their will always be Republicans and Democrats in the halls of Congress is not a Presidential qualification. I can sit hear and count off the years of experience in our current Presidential administration along with the ones that fill the seats in both Congressional houses and the only benefit our nation is receiving from this "experience" is a 20% average approval rating from both the Executive and Legislative branches of our government.

Don't misunderstand my point; there are forces of bi-partisanship in the halls of our Congress with decades of experience and one member of this elite group will either be President or Vice President January 20, 2009.

Part of this new social consciousness is not deducing the most important political race of our lifetime as a tax and spend, black panther radical, terrorist supporter, most liberal member of Congress, closet Muslim who is looking to reform our government into a communistic state running with a seasoned 36 year liberal Senator against a Vietnam War Veteran who was an unfit soldier because he was captured by the enemy, George W Bush clone with a running mate who is seeking the oval office to revert our nation to strict Christian law, take away abortion rights on her first day as VP, only looking to push conservative doctrines, oil mongering baroness and will put guns in the hands of every 5 year old boy.

These arguments based on folklore do nothing to advance the conversation as we fall back on the old party line of someone being too liberal or conservative to reach across the aisle and inspire change or by digging up past associations that are vague to nil in judging a person's character. While a person should be fully vetted during any election process it is of utmost importance that we work our brains past the negative campaigning, rumors and innuendos and listen to the words and understand their past legislative actions. I also understand the argument of "Lipstick on a Pig" where someone can talk about change or reform and will not produce when they take office and in theory this could be true of any of the four candidates running for office, but my hope is that for the betterment of our business's, personal welfare and security this will not be the case.

As I try and define this new political consciousness I can't help but think of something extreme in order to define my cause. The only words I can think of in this definition are the term "Radical Independent". Independents on the news channel can't define the rage I'm feeling from a failed government and infrastructure that can't resolve the basic problems in this country because of their partisan doctrines. This rage can no longer support obstacles that divide this country through slash and burn politics or one's that are quick to compromise in a room on a bill and than are just as quick to turn to reporters and say the other side had nothing to do with the "compromise" that was just laid out. Compromise in its definition is giving up something from opposite sides to reach a common goal. No Republican wants government hands in business through bailing out CEO's who had a bad business plan of predatory lending, greed and lack of oversight just as much as no Democrat wants to continue the process of leaving financial institutions to their own devices because they are too important to our overall economy. It's a sad day when a celebutant like Paris Hilton can lay out an energy plan that makes more sense than the one's coming from either party simply because neither side is will to come to the middle in argument.

A few months ago I thought endorsing a candidate was something I could do a month before the Presidential Election but in this sad week of news as candidates rely more and more on the sways of tight polling in the closest election of our lifetime things are coming to nasty close. I say it every week, but history will be made in January and all of the characters in the White House which have caused us international head aches will be out of the Oval Office. Our question as Americans is if we can get past all the negativity in this campaign from both sides and heal as a nation when "our personal" candidate loses or if we'll become more divided and unable to call on our political leaders to take action on cleaning up the mess's and putting out the fires for the betterment of our nation.

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