A Cuban Immigrant's Warning about CHANGE: “Luckily, we would never fall in America for a young leader, who promised change without asking, what change? How will you carry it out? What will it cost America?”
The fact is that we do need to change. We need to evolve, working towards making this world a better world: a world of compassion and at peace.
The fact is we need a younger person who can lead and motivate young people to create the changes that are necessary. It will be motivated young people with a vision of the future, who don’t carry the baggage of antiquity and who are not yet tarnished and harnessed by life’s vicissitudes, who will create this change. Young people who have not yet collected a lot of baggage. We need young people for the same reasons the military needs them to fight wars. Now we need them, more than ever, to lead the battle for compassion and peace.
Now, it does not mean that someone who has made a longer journey into life cannot lead and create these necessary changes. However, it does mean that the man or women who will become President of the United States must have grown and evolved in his or her life, and who have left antiquated baggage behind in their journey. A man or women who has vision, wants to test new ideas, listen to ideas rather than preach them, has character, has compassion, can make good decisions, is concerned about America’s relationships with other countries, and is concerned about the welfare of you and me.
John McCain is a warrior. He is someone who carries a lot of antiquated baggage. He still carries the stigma of not winning in Vietnam. The translation of that stigma is we must win in Iraq. Win is the name of the game. He has old ideas about politics, governance, foreign relations, war, peace, diplomacy and negotiation, and economics.
The Friday night debate, September 26, 2008, was very revealing of the differences between these two men, not only in what they said, but also in their demeanor. John McCain’s body language was very condescending; Obama was very open, talking to McCain in a personal way. It is very telling of the way the next President of the United States will handle himself in discussions with others.
Now there is no question about it, Obama’s views are liberal and socialistic. However, McCain and conservatives employ de facto socialism in many ways. The bailout is a good upfront example of that. The conservative call for deregulation, letting markets operate without boundaries, has a great deal to do with our current economic quagmire. John McCain’s hero Ronald Reagan was the king of small government and deregulation.
We do need a small government footprint in our lives, but we also need compassion, and concern for lives and the human condition. In today’s world that means we must set boundaries on the ways and means of all transactions. I believe we can have both: Libertarianism with a compassionate concern for the indigent and for the average Joe and Jane, as well as everyone else.
With John McCain none of this can be accomplished. With Barack Obama there is hope. Barack Obama displays compassion, favors peace over war through negotiation, and is someone who can motivate others to action. Barack Obama will lead by example because he said America must and I believe him, and he has ideas with the ability to articulate them.
Barack Obama is absolutely correct when he said: “… that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from Washington [McCain’s rhetoric]. Change comes to Washington [not in a new leader coming to Washington, but a bottom up change -- from the roots of our democracy – meaning you and me].”
"Each of us should choose which course of action we must take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing." Ron Paul
“Let us recommit ourselves to the slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which peace, not war as being inevitable.” Dennis J. Kucinich
I believe that John McCain would maintain a negative position of Paul’s and Kucinich’s views, while Barack Obama would be in agreement.
America desperately needs change. McCain and Obama are both promising change. It’s Barack Obama who promises compassion and to work through negotiation for peace; it’s John McCain who promises only change in Washington and confrontation over negotiation.
Rach
