Today’s affirmation is:
“I simply will not settle for less than truthful, honorable leadership ready to make positive change in the world.”
When you look at most positive thinking blogs around the Internet, you find that they tend to focus only on the glowingly positive. We do a lot of that here on this blog as well. It is important to see the positive and focus on manifesting more of it.
However, there is nothing more positive or empowering than the truth. Ugly as it may be sometimes, no real growth can happen in our lives or in the world until we build it on that foundation.
As the 2008 election cycle approaches, America is facing some daunting challenges. While health care, the war, and the economy are all key issues, the biggest issue facing Americans is a corrupt establishment in serious need of reform. This establishment – long deaf to the needs and will of the American people – needs a serious wake up call.
This establishment crosses party lines. To deal with it, we must move beyond the belief that George W. Bush is the antidote to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton is the answer to George W. Bush. As long as that paradigm ensnares us, we are caught.
Far from finding a way to end a war the American people have clearly turned against, the establishment continues to seek excuses to expand that war. Those who thought electing establishment Democrats to replace establishment Republicans would address this issue have been sadly mistaken.
The establishment routinely skews inflation numbers (and other numbers). The government claims that inflation has been steady at 2-3% per year when every American who owns a home or a car, buys groceries, or pays a bill knows this is ridiculous.
That housing boom? Did we forget there were buyers on the opposite end of that “growth in housing prices”? That was inflation. Have your health care cost only risen 2-3% a year over the past 10 years? How about gas prices or food prices?
Why does this happen? Because Social Security benefits, veteran’s benefits, welfare benefits, and other obligations are tied to the “core inflation rate”. This ever-fungible number determines cost of living increases for these groups. However, the establishment plays fast and loose with these numbers to keep this rate down. The result is that some of the most vulnerable among us have seen their effective purchasing power plummet because of this fiction.
Not to mention the fact that wide admission of the real inflation rate and steady erosion of our dollar’s buying power actually might stir even the apathetic masses to action.
Then there are trade deals that send jobs overseas while establishment leaders tell us this is wonderful for us; as former Commerce Secretary Don Evans did in 2004. There are talks about unifying North America and, eventually, all of the Americas in an EU-style union. Is anyone asking you about that? Do you get to vote on it?
Most troubling, our establishment seems to view the Constitution as an obstacle to be navigated around rather than the chief law of the land and the abiding wisdom of our system.
Assuming you could even find an establishment journalist who would ask these questions, try asking Rudy, Hillary, Mitt, Barack, John E., John M., or Mike about these issues and you are likely to get hemming, hawing, and a rapid change of the subject. They will not look you in the eye and deny any of it. That would be foolish. They will just pretend it doesn’t exist and hope you will continue to do the same.
WE NEED POSITIVE, REAL CHANGE.
Iowa and New Hampshire offer the first opportunity to send the message loud and clear. I’m not talking about a protest vote. Protest votes are as meaningless as the pundits say. I’m talking about striking a blow for real change in this country.
Whatever you thought of Ross Perot he definitely shook the system. However, his revolution was built around a cult of personality and Mr. Perot’s wallet. The establishment absorbed that blow and moved on.
Fortunately, voters in both parties have candidates they can turn to in this election cycle. Men who understand that the way to deal with a corrupt establishment is not to bow to it, but to challenge it. Men who speak the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
Ron Paul on the Republican side and Dennis Kucinich on the Democratic ballot are these two candidates. The establishment media regularly ignores, chides, and belittles both men. That should tell you something right there. They have both endured ridiculous Ad Hominem attacks designed to undermine their viability in the eyes of you – the voter.
Keep in mind that the establishment media is working overtime to craft your view of these men as crackpots with no chance of winning. That is a bold-faced attempt to steer your vote away from your conscience.
While their political philosophies differ significantly on the role of government, both recognize the key issue I am discussing today. They understand that The USA Patriot Act and the Bill of Rights are not on the same page. They understand, as George Washington warned in his farewell address, that foreign political entanglements are a dangerous business for a republic. They recognize that government is deciding what is best for the people rather than the people deciding what they want from government.
All positive thinking, empowered individuals must think long and hard before they cast their ballots in 2008. Do we elect another establishment candidate because they have a D or an R after their name? Do we listen to the promises before they are elected or look at the actions after? George W. Bush claimed he was against nation-building in 2000, but look what he has done. Hillary Clinton claims to be against this war and the domestic abuses, but has voted for every one of them.
Do we elect people simply because they would be the first from some group or gender to become president even if they are sure to continue these policies? Is that sound reasoning in these tumultuous times?
Enough, I say. There is no positive way forward by continuing to elect people who put empire and their power ahead of the constitution and the will of the people.
Kucinich and Paul are not supermen. They are flawed human beings with flawed policies. They say stupid things sometimes, but they are saying and doing what we need leaders to say and do right now – they are telling the truth. As unpleasant as some of it may be, the truth is a necessary starting point for our road back to sanity.
Iowa and New Hampshire, you’re up. You get to set the tone for the rest of this primary season. Are you going to be the seed of hope and change or the enablers for establishment candidates committed to “steady as she goes”?
Live up to your reputations as the bedrock of American politics. Get out there and start the ballot box revolution. Vote for Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.
Be peaceful Be prosperous.
Ray
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What Ray’s reading right now:
Barack Obama. His name seems to be on everyone’s lips these days. He has definitely been successful in (ugly marketing phrase coming) “creating buzz”.
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About four weeks ago, I began taking an unscientific poll asking readers a political question not being posed in the myriad of professional political polls being conducted right now.
What Ray’s reading right now:
The Affirmation Spot Blog 