Hopes and Fears

This is my last chance to dive into the US Presidential Election, so I'd better take it.

I'll leave out all the good reasons why you should vote for Obama and why you shouldn't vote for McCain. The New Yorker spells it out far more effectively that I ever could (Thanks to shunn for the link BTW).

To sum up, McCain sold his soul to win a prize. He stands about a 50/50 chance of not surviving his first term and his running mate is a Dominionist.

Obama, on the other hand, has a vision of his country and the future that seems right, is achievable (with a lot of hard work) and his running mate seems the sort who could take over if tragedy struck and keep the rudder of state steady.

Finally, Obama has what the Romans called gravitas.

I am preaching to the choir here though. Only 4.5 of my regular readers are American, and I'm pretty sure all of them have already voted, and cast their votes for Obama. According to the media, a victory for Obama is assured.

I have my fears though. I fear that people will be excluded from the voter rolls. I fear that a vote for Obama in a Diebold machine will magically flip to a vote for McCain. I fear that the Bradley Effect will be greater then Obama's lead. I fear that there are enough American's who think that ZOMG! Osama Obama is a secret baby-eating Muslim commie terrorist - !!!!11111ElEVENTY!!! that he might actually lose. And that last one is the most fearsome of all. Mere cheating can be detected and defended against, but how do you defend against stupidity so dense it's collapsed into neutronium.

So whenever I hear someone talk about how Obama's victory is in the bag, I follow up with "but you're still going to vote, right?"

There are really three Americas. The first is the ideal USA. The one described in old Frank Capra movies. The one that helped defeat the Nazis, rebuild Europe and Japan, went to the moon. The Home of the free, land of the brave, etc. The America that inspires.

The second America is big bully America. The one ruled by Theocrats, Corporate Kleptocrats and Jingoists. The one that's Gilead in all but name.

The third is the real America, somewhere in between those two extremes, populated by real people with the same hopes and fears and everyday concerns as the other 6 billion people on Planet Earth. We're really not so different.

I hope that tomorrow, the real America has taken a step away from Gilead and a step towards its ideals.

What I'd Like to See...

...From the next POTUS.

1. No more torture, and an assurance that anyone who does will be prosecuted, regardless of what level of government or the military they're in.
   
2. Give Guantanamo back to the Cubans. You're in violation of the treaty anyway.
   
3. While we're on the topic of Cuba, could you normalize relations with them - at least reopen the embassy and start talking again.
   
4. Leave Iraq. Do it in a controlled fashion with a short time frame (less then a year). Iraq will still collapse into a civil war, but staying there for another 1/5/10 years is not going to prevent that.
   
5. Ditto Afganistan.
   
6. It's tedious policy-wonk stuff, but clean up the banking industry. A good start would be stomping on anything that even smells like a Ponzi scheme.
   
7. The environment? It says a lot about how bad things are in general that this is so far down the list.
   
8. Healthcare. Lots you can do here, but making it a single-payer system would probably be biggest bang for your buck.

The next POTUS will probably also be appointing at least three Supreme Court Judges. Could you make then moderates with experience in human rights and constitutional law?

Of course, I'd like this from either of the two candidates. I suspect odds of getting any of it are much higher for one then the other.

Aside: Wikipedia's two featured articles today are on John McCain and Barrack Obama. Kudos to the Wiki Gnomes.

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I'm going to bed now. Happy that the world is a better place now then it was yesterday.