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I spent a career in the United States Army. I’m not bragging or trying to influence anyone by bringing this fact up, I simply want to make a point, and this it seems, is an easy way to do it. In the Army, especially in field I was in, we formed very tight bonds with each other. We ate together, slept together and played together. I was in Air Defense, which meant that our jobs were actually “real time, all the time”, as one of our commanders was fond of saying. We could, at a moments notice, go from an exercise drill status, to the real time tracking of a target that violated American or Allied airspace. We worked twenty four hours on and twenty four hours off, 365 days a year.
This schedule, along with our mission and the proximity we shared while working together, made for a situation in which we were more like a family than just co-workers or fellow soldiers. We had a way of expressing things to each other that were brutally honest, to the point of being downright rude. We had no real privacy and very little space to breathe, let alone keep secrets. There are only a few other military fields that could compare. Submariners and special operations come to mind, but I can only speculate.
The reason I’m bringing this up is to try and illustrate to my readers how I think and what I believe. In the years from 17 to 31, I lived with other soldiers that knew almost everything about me, and I knew almost everything about them. The social interchange between us was anything but “politically correct”. During that period in my life the people around me said what they thought. Duplicity was a trait that I wouldn’t see up close and personal until I went into recruiting. In my youth, I had no problem with being brutally honest and people had no problem acting in the same manner towards me. This mindset carried over into civilian life and also into the dynamics of my relationship with my family members. Needless to say, I had a hard time learning when to keep my mouth shut.
At this point in my life I find myself writing about politics and about the personalities behind the rhetoric. In some ways, the experiences I had in my twenties have helped me to write honestly. Sometimes however, I find that honesty and politics don’t mix, and lately, I have begun to see that the truth won’t necessarily “set you free”. In fact, it could cause many doors to be slammed in your face. This article however isn’t about slamming doors, its about honesty between people running for office, and those around them. In fact, at 57 years old, I believe that I have stumbled upon certain truths that I never realized before. This I attribute to the way in which I was “brought up” working in a military environment.
One question that has bothered me throughout my life is why the people that make up the liberal/left/progressive side of the political arena are such bad politicians. One merely has to examine the political realty in the United States at this particular time to understand what I’m talking about. We are on our eighth year of living under a regime that has, for all intents and purposes, gutted the Constitution, obliterated the checks and balances built into the Federal Government, out-sourced our manufacturing base, destroyed the Middle-Class in America, and committed numerous acts of treason as to involve us in two wars that threaten to bankrupt our economy.
It would be a logical assumption that the opposition party (in this case the Democrats) would be swept into power without too much effort. It would be logical to believe that the Democrats would use the Republican record of failure to gather support and carefully stay away from attacks on one another. It would be logical to believe that Democrats would keep their distance from the military industrial complex that George Bush calls his “base”, and concentrate instead on the “high road” of American political thought, and appeal to the basic moral values of the typical American in order to lock this Presidential campaign up. Then again, to believe that logic and politics can be used in the same sentence will leave you scratching your head with me. It’s apparent that “logic” has no place in American politics. I have some concrete examples of how the Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, have placed “logic” and “morality” on the garbage heap of useless ideology.
We will start off with former President Jimmy Carter, who we all know, is not the best politician in the world. In reality, Carter was a terrible President, not for what he did, but for what he failed to do. If Carter had acted with force during the Iranian hostage crisis, he would probably have won a second term, whether the operation failed or not. The truth however, was that Carter didn’t want war with Iran and I believe that he actually sympathized with them to a degree, for the U.S. overthrowing their democratically-elected government and re-installing the Shah. Even today, Carter still desires peace and will seemingly go to the ends of the Earth to find it. When he went to the Middle-East last week, he was advised not to speak with Hamas. Carter ignored our State Department led by Condoleeza Rice, and ignored the Neo-Con government of Olmert and the Likud Party, and decided to meet with Hamas anyway. There were many former members of The Project for a New American Century, members of The Council of Foreign Relations and members of the Bush Administration that objected to Carter’s visit. The Israeli’s refused permission for him to meet with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and they refused to give him extra security that was recommended for him. The Israeli Government, acted in this manner even though he was the one who brought peace between the nations of Israel and Egypt. They acted despicably towards our former President. Olmert refused to meet him at the airport when he arrived in Israel, obviously trying to embarrass him.
The Democrats at this point, should have taken some kind of action. Here was a former President, a Nobel Peace prize winner and the senior member of the Democratic Party, being snubbed and ignored by the same country that besides being the focus for much of Carter’s life since leaving office is the largest recipient of foreign aid from the United States on the planet. If the US ever had a client state, that state would be Israel. Yet, on this occasion, they failed to offer him security and limited where he could travel, as well as completely ignoring his arrival in Israel.
It seems that the Democrats have done just about everything in their power to blow this election. As if turning their collective backs on the only Democrat that had the temerity to proceed with an agenda that was not been approved by the council for Foreign Relations or The Project for a New American Century, their leading candidate has seemingly thrown his spiritual advisor under a truck after weeks of trying to explain him away.
It isn’t like we didn’t see this coming, I think we all did. I believe that even Jeremiah Wright saw it coming. I knew that he had to go when I listened to him speak at The National Press Club. At the time I heard him speak, I was not influenced by the mainstream media in any way; in fact my TV set had been silent for the better part of two weeks. I was fortunate enough to see his speech courtesy of Information Clearing House. While I watched him speak, I thought to myself that this man explained the racial divide and liberation theology better than anyone I had ever heard. Up to this point, I had thought I understood Obama’s wish to distance himself from the fiery rhetoric of Wright, but upon hearing him expound on the subject of race in religion and the differences between black churches and preachers and white churches and preachers, I thought that he did a really good job of explaining himself.
That’s when I realized that he was about to be sacrificed, that he had to be sacrificed. The Democrats needed to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is absolutely no difference between an African-American Presidential candidate and a white Presidential candidate. Just as Hillary Clinton had to prove that there is absolutely no difference between a woman candidate and a male candidate, she had to show America that her testosterone levels were just as high as anyone else’s. Now it seems that Obama must prove that African-Americans no longer hold any bitterness in their hearts from hundreds of years of being abused and beaten by white people, and that both races have overcome any and all injustices done to them and done by them, and that all God’s children walk on the same path towards enlightenment. To hold something as personal as religious values and the rhetoric that comes with it up to public scrutiny, is to admit that there differences between black Americans and white Americans. Barack Obama may be honest and forthcoming in his views, but when it comes to an issue that both sides could use as ammunition against him, I believe that he would rather play “let’s pretend” than to actually face this issue again.
Barack Obama already had to deal with race because of Jeremiah Wright once already. Obama may not realize this, but the Republicans have no fear of using the race card. This will not be the last time that he will have to deal with the issue. How many more friends and mentors will he choose to abandon when things get rough? The issue here is that he threw someone as insightful and as honest as Jeremiah Wright to the dogs. This is an indication that he doesn’t hold virtues such as loyalty in very high regard. I tried to stay away from religion as a campaign issue. I am not a religious man and this is not my forte. I think however that this issue goes beyond religion. This is about loyalty. It’s about the presence of mind not to sell out your principles to your ambition. I’m just glad that I didn’t have to serve with him in the military. In the military, things like loyalty count.
That’s the way I see it.
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