Is this the best we can do?

Where is Ralph Nader when we need him?

Another weak debate advertises the absence of an effective third force in American politics
You would not have had an inkling from the presidential candidates' third and final debate last night that Wednesday had been a day of fearful carnage on Wall Street, throwing into question the desperate efforts of the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve to stabilise the situation.
You would not have known that in a month the Dow Jones industrial index has lost 25 per cent of its value. You would not have known that in the considered estimation of many economists, the United States could well be entering a prolonged recession without much chance of recovery for many years.
There were, to be sure, dutiful references by both Obama and McCain to crisis, but mostly it was as though they were talking about a troublesome traffic accident a couple of blocks away. McCain flourished a proposal to bail out homeowners. Obama claimed that the bankers' bail-out bill for which they had both voted contained exactly such provisions.
Then the two retreated to mechanical reiteration of their tax plans, their health plans, their plans for energy independence, all of them topics interminably raked over in the earlier debates.
Three instant polls showed that the all-important independent voters thought Obama had had the best of it. After a spritely beginning, McCain soon looked puffy and tired. His little jabs at Obama sounded peevish rather than fierce. Obama somewhat unconvincingly assumed the role of genial sparring partner, plastering a smile across his face as McCain flailed away.
Given the political news yesterday, Obama could afford to smile. A poll conducted by the New York Times found the Democrat with commanding leads in crucial states. The margins are beginning to suggest a stampede to Obama and the Democrats.
The morning of the third presidential debate a friend of mine in Landrum, South Carolina conducted an informal survey of voter sentiment in this rural town in the heart of Dixie. He pulled over at a convenience store-cum-coffee shop, and walked in with a wad of McCain/Palin stickers. "Don't you bring those things in here," said the man behind the cash register.
My friend strolled among the regulars sipping their coffee, most of them retired, and could find no takers. "Not one, and these were people who voted 100 per cent for Bush in 2004. They're angry." Why? After a terrible summer of soaring gas prices and plunging stock portfolios "a lot of them have lost their retirement funds and health savings". He added that all the talk about Obama's links to terror, to Islam, to bombers, has also had the effect of intimidating elderly Republicans from even putting McCain-Palin signs in their yards. They fear Obama's Islamic bully boys will come knocking on their doors.
My friend's experience in Landrum came amid the inglorious tailspin of the disastrous strategy of trying to sink Obama by hanging former Weatherman Bill Ayers round his neck.
When Republican consultants like Mary Matalin and Steve Schmidt first pondered this tactic in the late summer, it must have seemed to them like a no-brainer.
In the final weeks of Campaign 2008, Barack Hussein Obama would be hit with accusations (actually first aired by Hillary Clinton last April) of being an alien radical with intimate ties to a man who had tried to blow up Congress and the Pentagon.
It might have worked, but for the fact which apparently escaped the notice of the McCain campaign – that Americans are entirely consumed by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. There has been a total disconnect between the financial hurricane hitting America and some archaeology about a Sixties radical sitting with Obama on the board of a non-profit foundation.
Across the three debates Obama has been the default winner, if only because McCain has been irritable and repetitive, a cranky old geezer. But has the Democrat taken command, persuading his vast audiences that amid the loom of adversity and ruin for many Americans he is prepared to lead and has a plan? The answer here is surely no. He's got less inspiring as the weeks tick by.
This election has advertised not only McCain's political ineptness, but also the absence of an effective third force in American politics, at a moment when the credibility of both parties and of both major candidates is open to sweeping challenge. Voters are disgusted with the entire system and the
direction the country is taking. Disapproval of Bush and of the Democrats running Congress is at the same high level. Yet Obama and McCain share many positions, starting with the bail-out and continuing with endorsement of a belligerent foreign policy from Georgia to Iran, total fealty to Israel and a ramp-up of the doomed Afghan campaign.
Ralph Nader is a man for whom the economic crisis has come as total vindication of everything he has been proclaiming for decades: about the corruption of Wall Street, the ties between Wall Street and Congress, the economic sell-outs of the Clinton era, from free trade deals to the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Yet Nader has no party and so despite being on the ballot this year in over 40 states suffers from hugely diminished political purchase on everything from volunteers to finance to media presence, at a moment when his message could have resonated hugely with the furious and fearful electorate.
The political groups and coalitions that rallied to Nader in 2000 are all shadows of their former selves. Eight years of Bush have pushed the environmental and labour lobbies back into the Democratic Party, where their voices are inaudible and political influence scarcely visible to the naked eye.
Has Obama changed the political landscape? On September 23 he stated on NBC that the crisis and prospect of a huge bail-out required bipartisan action and meant he likely would have to delay expansive spending programmes outlined during his campaign for the White House. In addition, he said that his proposed economic stimulus program "is not necessarily something that we should have in this package".
Thus did he surrender power even before he gained it. As an instigator of beneficial change, the Clinton administration was over six months after election day 1992, when Clinton turned to Al Gore and said, "You mean my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and some fucking bond traders?" Gore nodded and Clinton promptly abandoned his economic plan to follow the dictates of Wall Street tycoons like Robert Rubin, now a top advisor to Obama. Assuming he wins, Obama beat the speed of Bill Clinton's 1993 collapse by almost seven months.
FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 16, 2008

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45649,opinion,where-is-ralph-nader-when-we-need-him-asks-alexander-cockburn

I'm concerned also....

'The mark of a profound person is the ability to foresee consequences before one acts'
This is an e-mail from B.Gen James Cash, USAF, who has written some very good articles on the subject. Here he recommends someone else's e-mail that impressed him, and scared him.

General Cash Wrote:
Occasionally, I receive an email that I agree with so totally I want to pass to everyone on my list. This is one of those emails. I have approval from the writer to forward the attached, and feel free to post it on your websites, or forward to friends. The election of Obama as President of the United States will mark the apex, and beginning downslide of this Republic. The only question is the rate at which the downfall will occur.

The writer of this essay is Jerry Molen. Jerry is a great friend and an Academy Award winning Hollywood Producer. He did Jurassic Park , Hook, Rainman, and many more class movies. He won he Academy Award for Schindler's List. Jerry is one of the very few clear thinking conservatives that I know from Hollywood . We need to get this out to as many as possible to include liberal Democrats.. We are about to make the Mother-of-All-Mistakes, because the Republican Party gave us no reliable alternative. In my opinion, if the conservative movement does not rally behind the only alternative left to us, this country will become a true Socialist State within the next two Presidential terms. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the most grave situation this nation has faced in my lifetime.

Jim Cash B/G, USAF, Ret.
Jerry Molen wrote:
'Election woes defined by prose.....'

We just experienced an overhyped, positively outrageous primary election season that has left me cold and wondering where the heads of our citizens are hiding out. Must be someplace where the sun doesn't get to very often.

At one time in my life I was a determined, dedicated and ever loyal registered Democrat. Then something happened (Lyndon Baines Johnson) that turned my life around and gave me much pause as to the veracity of a party that dwelt on and fed off of the most unfortunate among us. Some of those unfortunates were in their positions in life by way of their own choosing and others were there by circumstance But always, always with a door open to them to reach for new heights, achieve new goals, change their lives for the better. And also, always ever present were the bottom feeders doing everything they could to take advantage of those who had not or have not seen the light of better days and times nor realizing they were in fact the masters of their own destiny. They had come to believe that they were dependent on those in power in Washington and that they would look out for them and take care of their every need. They are still waiting and expecting all those promised freebies.

Most people aren't even aware that the Democrats ruled Washington for over 40 years. It wasn't until 1994 when the so called Gingrich Revolution changed that for a short period of time. Nor do people realize that it was the Dem's that created the failed policies of the many entitlement programs that are falling apart right before our eyes. Please do not think I find the Republicans blameless in all this. They too, suffer from ego inflation and greed motivators built into the system. It's just that the past few months I've listened to the rantings and railings of the left in America calling for more giveaways and better ways to obtain the proverbial 'free lunch'.

I think that to sum up my feelings and why I am so set apart from those within the circles of political power and influence can be illustrated best by a quote by noted basketball legend and talk show co-host Charles Barkley:

'Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years...and they are still poor'.

And now with the election results comes the promises of 'change'. 'Change we can believe in.' 'Change for the future'. When in fact if you really, I mean REALLY listen to what the new MESSIAH is asking for is not 'change of policy' or 'change for the better'. He is warning all of us that he wants our change all right, 'loose change', pocket change', social change and political change......So people wake up. For if you don't the change you get may not be the change you were expecting or the change you wanted.

To close my screed, I want to leave you with some JM predictions in the event the junior Senator from Illinois becomes President and especially if the House and Senate are veto proof.

1). Strict new gun laws will be enacted even though he promised he would not.
2). The phrase 'In God We Trust' will be removed from all currency.
3). He will back away from his pledge to Israel and leave them to the wolves of Islam.
4). Hillary Clinton will be named to the Supreme Court.
5). Tax rates will return to their highest levels in 30 years.
6). The capital gains tax will be at least double current levels.
7). Retired Army General Wesley Clark will be named Secretary of Defense.
8). The borders will be 'basically open' to all comers. Especially those from the Middle East and South America ..
9). Amnesty will be granted to all illegals now in the U.S regardless of status or even gang members (MS-13). and
10). The war in Iraq will be brought to an abrupt end and the results will be tragic and the consequences to our military will be devastating.

I realize that my predictions may not sit too well with some people and the best we could all hope for is that I am totally wrong. Any bets?

Jerry Molen