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James Clingman
Published: 26 March 2008

To take a quote from the brother on the Miller High Life commercials, "Y'all must be crazy!" Now that we have lost more soldiers than the number of persons we lost on September 11, 2001, and now that we are "celebrating" five years of war in Iraq, and now that we have tens of thousands of American wounded and hundreds of thousands Iraqis dead, we have a presidential candidate who ants to continue what the current leader calls a "noble, necessary, and just" war. Again, to quote that brother in the commercial, "Are you for real?" 
How could anyone, other than the sycophants and the wealthy war barons vote for McCain? The opposite of the High Life is the low life, and this country has been mired in the low life for nearly eight years now; and some people say, "Give us more." It's amazing, simply amazing.
Let's see now: we have $4 gasoline and diesel fuel ($5 in some places); a recession, whether they want to admit it or not; a housing/mortgage crisis; a healthcare catastrophe; an unfathomable national debt; a huge deficit; a dollar that's worth about a quarter; a rising euro; oil at $110 per barrel; Venezuela now doing what Sadaam Hussein did back in 2000, selling its oil for euros instead of petrodollars; cash payoffs going to our enemies in Iraq to keep them from fighting us; plans to invade Iran; Osama sending another message to us from the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan or wherever they say he is right now; the bailout of Bear Stearns with tax dollars; and we have the Bushies bragging about how many new schools, hospitals, roads and highways, and all the infrastructure they have rebuilt in Iraq, while New Orleans still languishes in despair and disrepair.
Despite all of this, president-in-waiting, John McCain walks around Israel with a Yamika on his head and with Joe Lieberman at his side, coaching him and correcting McCain's errors regarding Iran and other international issues. I thought his strength was in international issues? He admitted he knows very little about economic issues. What's left? How about health care, education, energy, and employment?
The first thing this guy does is traipse off to Israel, instead of New Orleans, to assure folks halfway around the world that we are there for them. Hey, John, what about us?  Man, I can't wait for the presidential debates to start. 
Finally a few Black Republicans came out to support McCain. Michael Steele, Larry Elder and Ken Blackwell have all made positive statements about old John and why we should elect him as our next president. I refer them to the Miller High Life brother. What is it about political party loyalty that would make intelligent men and women support, at least in rhetoric, some of the characters placed before us today? Is it the prospect of a job in the administration? Is it insider deals? 
George Bush says the war is "noble" and they go along with his stupidity. What's noble about lying to get into a war? What's noble about 4,000 lives lost because of  lies? What's noble about commandeering a country's resources? What's noble about spending a trillion dollars on this war for five years, with no end in sight? 
Tricky Dick Cheney, responding to recent polls that show two-thirds of Americans say the Iraq war is not worth it, simply says, "So?"  This draft-dodging, deferment grabbing, egomaniacal, jingoistic, contradiction of the man who gives new meaning to the title of "vice" President, should have been kicked out of office years ago. But, we have folks in "the party" who support him to the end. Dems are obviously afraid to confront his arrogant, flippant, disregard for what 66 percent of Americans think about his war, as well as what 80 percent negatively think about him. He thumbs his nose at us, flips us the bird, and takes a cruise in the Gulf of Oman with some Oil Baron. What a joke all of this is. Yes, folks, and the joke is on us.
The sad part about this entire scenario is, despite the many problems we face, most of which were caused by George Bush's administration and his band of thieves and exploiters, John McCain may be our President in January 2009. Imagine a 74-year-old anachronism, having to be corrected by his handlers, still searching for that "Cuban that came to the prison camps of North Vietnam and tortured and killed my friends. We'll get him and bring him to justice, too." Will somebody shake this guy and tell him that was 40 years ago? You know the saying, "The older we get the better we were." McCain is probably illusionary by now.
McCain is trying to be elected on the basis of having been a POW. In my estimation, he needs much more than that. Oops! Maybe not. Bush did eight years, didn't he? We are so dumbed-down as an electorate. As we fight over Obama and Clinton and allow so-called conservative talk show hosts to control our agenda, which is reactive at best, old John may just get in. 
So get ready, just in case. Get ready for more war, more needless death, more insulting excuses and rationales, more economic hardships, more corporate welfare, more invasions of sovereign nations, more cuts in services, more high prices for essentials of life, more lies, more arrogance, more being ignored, disrespected, and disregarded, more greed, more thievery, more fear-mongering, more invasion of privacy, more Clarence Thomases and Anton Scalias, more presidential puppet masters, and more of Joe Lieberman. 


James Clingman is an author and founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce.

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