Thanks Elizabeth Edwards

Some days after looking through the main newspapers in the country and many blogs, I feel very depressed and not very sanguine about the future of our country. The total vacuity of the articles, the lack of important information, the ridiculous interest in what the candidates for the presidency do, whether Obama likes arugula or Clinton had a shot of whisky is demoralizing. Read the rest of this entry »

Race or gender: not a way to choose

This is beginning to be too much. Some days watching the democratic candidates giving speeches, at rallies and debates, pretending to be what they are not, I wonder at how they are able to keep it up. They seem to have a stamina that we, the voters, are beginning to lose. And not just the ordinary voters but those whose jobs depend on reporting the news. I believe those especially have lost it. Read the rest of this entry »

Climate change talks

Taking a short break from the US election’s politics, I decided to concentrate on the environment. This is a global theme which by definition affects us all and yet it has, strangely enough, been quite absent in both the Democrats and the Republicans campaigns. But I said I was going to take a break for that, didn’t I?
Instead I will begin by describing the attitude of the current administration which in almost eight years in power has not contributed much except in a negative way towards solving or ameliorating a problem which threatens the earth: global warming. Read the rest of this entry »

Forget gender and race, let us chill out!

Yes, we should really chill out. That was not such bad advice from Bill Clinton. The opinions of the followers of both candidates to the Democrat nomination are so distant that it is beginning to look as if they were from two different parties. Today in the ‘Opinion’ part of the New York Times there were some readers’ comments to the editor. Here is an example: “The more Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton stands up to the barrage of voices from both sides calling for her to drop out, the more she proves to me that she has the guts and stamina for the job of president. For this Democrat, it comes down to the choice between an amiable dreamer and a hard-headed realist, and that’s an easy call. Jacob E. Goodman” Read the rest of this entry »

Foreclosures in America and the candidates

I never thought I would agree with John McCain! In the United States this past Wednesday the Commerce Department reported that for the fourth straight month the sales of new homes fell showing that the slump in the housing market continues. This is not good news not only for the economy of the country which is obviously affected but for many families across the land. Families that are facing financial disaster with the ever present danger of foreclosure looming over them. There is no use in pointing fingers about who is at fault, the banks, the brokers, the borrowers. In reality, the blame can be apportioned among all of the above. What is needed now is action on the part of the government.

Last December the Bush administration unveiled a foreclosure relief plan which was too late and too little as it did not reach everyone in trouble. Sensible and well prepared plans are needed and not just plans presented with the possible voters in mind. The country has enough problems, starting with the lack of proper health care, not to squander money among those that for greed or carelessness have contributed to what the country now faces and therefore do not deserve it.

We are in the middle of the presidential campaign and the candidates know that they cannot ignore the situation. Both Clinton and Obama have proposed plans to help solve the crisis. Hillary Clinton has proposed a $30 billion housing stimulus package to allow cities and states to purchase foreclosed properties and improve neighborhoods blighted by foreclosures and Barack Obama has called for a $10 billion fund to help head off foreclosures. All that is great but unfortunately it could involuntarily attract many irresponsible borrowers, speculators, greedy bankers and unscrupulous realtors. That is not what is wanted or needed.
And this is the reason for my agreeing with John McCain and saying that I believe he was right when Tuesday he said “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”

Fibs of Obama and Clinton, a hazard of campaigning

As I watch how the Democrats are destroying themselves, I think that the race is turning just plain silly and even dangerous. 4,000 American soldiers dead in an unnecessary war, millions of people not able to afford health insurance, great number of people with their homes in foreclosure, unemployment, the dollar tanking, oil over $100 a barrel…. All the woes that are holding and grasping America and all we care about is whether we are racist or not? Of course we are, both blacks and whites, and Latinos and Asians. But that did not happened yesterday and will not finish on election day. A family whose child is hungry can be helped with good government programs and those can start with the next president. A Democrat in the White House can begin to implement the necessary plans to bring and end to the slaughter of our soldiers in Iraq, and on and on. But no, we are just busy looking at our navels at best or oblivious of what needs to be done using our resources to find fault and mistakes in what Clinton or Obama do or say.

In the latest reports, the Obama followers are salivating at Clinton’s fabrication of her Bosnia trip in 1996. “See, -they blog furiously- she cannot be trusted. She lied.” And the media, thinking copy and smelling blood and having more or less nominated Barack Obama, print stories about it or report it in their talk shows non-stop. If we want to be fair, where are the reports and comments of the embellishment of Obama about the speech he gave in Chicago about the coming Iraq war, the speech that he names in his campaign trail relentlessly? He says: “My objections to the war in Iraq were not simply a speech. I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign. I was one of the most vocal opponents of the war.” According to NPR Obama delivered the speech in October 2002; he did not officially declare his candidacy for the U.S. Senate until January.

Of course, let us not forget his denials about some of the utterances in the sermons of his pastor, the Rev. Wright, before he realized he had to come clean and gave “the speech”. But that follows into the race category I wrote above and I don’t think is worthwhile going there anymore.
So, my fellow Democrats, let us unite but in a calm way. Let the nomination of a candidate be made with emotions but mostly with reasonable arguments and weighing the pros and cons, not just dismissing a candidate because he is black or she is a woman and a Clinton. Not everything was that bad prior to George W.Bush, was it?