Wide Awake In America: Things I'd like to hear a candidate for President say

January 19, 2008

Things I'd like to hear a candidate for President say

The War we went to fight in Iraq is over and has been over for sometime. What we have in Iraq is a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites with assorted parties attempting to take advantage of the chaos caused by these warring factions. The reason the US could never support a real democracy in Iraq is because the majority of Iraqis are Shiites and any Shiite dominated government would naturally become a client state of Iran. This would alter the balance of power in the region and be contrary to U.S. interests. Rightly or wrongly we accomplished what we set out to do in Iraq: topple Saddam Hussein’s regime and eliminate Iraq’s ability to threaten anyone. Democracy is not an option in Iraq, unless we are interested in buying Iran a client state with American blood and treasure- most American’s are not.

The surge did work, so what? Anytime you put 20,000 of the best trained, best equipped soldiers in the world in a limited combat theatre you are going to get results. No one doubted they would have an impact. This resolves nothing. The real question is do we want to continue shedding American blood and spending American treasure to contain an Iraqi civil war? We cannot end the war by force unless we choose to prop up one side or the other. If we prop up the Shiites we will enhance Iran’s influence in the region. If we prop up the Sunni’s we support the tyranny of a stubborn minority over the majority.

We will need to maintain a substantial force in Iraq for years to come. They should not however be in downtown Baghdad. The U.S. forces in Iraq should be part of a multinational force designed to keep foreign fighters from meddling in Iraqi affairs and focused on eliminating the influence of Al Qaeda Mesopotamia in the region. That’s it, period. Left alone the Iraqis will likely fight themselves into state of avenged exhaustion and settle on some kind of functioning federation.

Illegal immigration is not even close to being the most pressing problem facing this country. Emigration of jobs, capital, productivity, technology is likely to have a far more profound effect on our future than non-documented workers having kids in our public schools and using our public services.

The Bush Tax Cuts of 2001, 2002 and 2003 have lead to the largest deficits in the nation’s history. They have contributed disproportionately to the largest imbalance of wealth ever in American history. We have borrowed heavily from our children’s future to make the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans wealthier. That is not only bad fiscal policy it is reckless and immoral.

Allowing Gay people to form legally binding marriages has no impact whatsoever on the sanctity of marriage or the stability of family life in this country. Sending young people to fight meaningless wars, following economic policies with regard to education, childcare and healthcare that force the necessity dual earning households has done more to break apart families than the gay couple down the street ever could.

Torture is evil. Period.

We will not be safer exchanging our constitutional rights to privacy and due process under the law in exchange for the illusion of greater security. Allowing the police to engage in random search and seizure in high crime areas might also reduce crime. Allowing warrantless phone tapping and defacto suspension of Habeas Corpus will do far more damage to the American principles enshrined in the Constitution of the United States than any radical Islamist grou

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Quotes:

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
Albert Einstein

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak: courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
Sir Winston Churchill

"I Believe in all that has never yet been spoken. I want to free what waits within me so that what no one has dared to wish for, may for once spring clear without my contriving. If this is arrogance, God, forgive me, but this is what I need to say. May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way is is with children.

Then in these welling and ebbing currents, these deepening tides moving out, returning, I will sing you as no one ever has, streaming through widening channels into the open sea."
Rainer Maria Rilke

"It ought to be easy ought to be simple enough. Man meets woman and they fall in love, But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough, And you've got to learn to live with what you cant rise above, if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love..."
Bruce Springsteen

"After the sleepless nights and restless days, after wounds have been opened and tears have been shed, after the soul is laid bare and the heart bleeds for wanting, after words falter and meaning is denied, after the promise of bliss is forsaken and the seeds of doubt bear fruit, after darkness fills the emptiness and emptiness is all that remains....
After all this, in the echo of all that came before….their can still be hope."
L. Rivera

Creative Write

Life In Rain

It’s raining outside. Pouring. Inside the fireplace is lit, silhouettes move across the walls responding to unseen forces, dancing to a music of their own. It smells of hickory and cinnamon. Echoes of laughter, music and children’s voices warm the room. The wind blows patterns of raindrops onto the window, bending the light so that the trees and buildings outside move in and out of focus. By the door is a size two sneaker. Only one, its companion resting in some other location, its owner also resting in some other location, lost in dreams of her own. Throughout the house shadows meet light forming images on an invisible canvas that celebrate the ordinary miracles that bless its inhabitants. It is quiet in this place now and the rain shows no sign of letting up. A knock on the door, faint at first, then once more, this time more insistent. The door opens. Wind, rain cross the threshold, no one enters… Yet somehow a presence lingers…A shadow, a thought, a feeling that fills the empty spaces. Perhaps it’s merely an illusion, a trick of the light caused by the wind and falling rain. No. It’s proximity is undeniable now. A presence that touches the soul. Inside a man stands alone; he is startled, moved by a power he cannot yet define. Inside him something stirs. He rises from the stillness of his own thoughts, blood rushing through him, driven by the rhythm of a heart that has been awakened from a slumber long in the making and slow in the undoing. Excitement, fear, anticipation, build to a crescendo, manifested in an inner symphony that no one hears. Again, a knock, louder, urgent, unrelenting…. Again the door is forced open. In the darkness a figure moves in and out of shadows. Rain obscuring the view, the observer appears uncertain, unsure of what he sees…. He stands at the portal trying to envision what might await there. He looks out upon the tempest that is passing and sees only fading images that depart before he can grasp what lies before him. His heart fills with desire, yet he remains silent, for the image recedes before its semblance can be made whole. The presence withdraws before its form can be fully defined, her essence vanishing before it can be fully embraced. The rain is relentless.

Inside the man retreats to the comfort of shadows and light, of fire and warmth, of memories of laughter and a music that only he can hear. He retreats to the world of small wonders embodied in the image of a singular size two sneaker. Still, he remains haunted by the lingering presence that awakened him from a deep and dreamless sleep…Was it a ghost? A memory of some distant past? A vision of some future yet lived?

He retreats to the comfort of shadows and light, of fire and warmth, of memories of laughter and a music that only he can hear. He retreats to the world of small wonders embodied in the image of a singular size two sneaker. It’s raining outside. Perhaps; perhaps it was just the rain.

Wide Awake In America

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January 19, 2008

Things I'd like to hear a candidate for President say

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Amalfi Sunset

Creative Write