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September 05, 2008
View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: American Democracy: Too Bad We Don’t Use It Effectively
By Joe Guzzardi
The
best quote from either the Republican or Democratic
convention came when
New York Governor David Paterson said: “If he’s
the answer, then the question must be ridiculous.”
Paterson’s
observation referred to Republican presidential nominee
John McCain. But it applies with equal accuracy to
McCain’s opponent
Barack Obama and their vice-presidential choices,
Joe Biden and
Sarah Palin.
They’re all preposterous!
The only good thing to say about election year 2008 is
that it will be tough in future years to find less
qualified candidates who have such little appeal to
enlightened voters.
I’ll
hand it to the Democrats for nominating one of
the very few from their party
that gives McCain, a mirror image of the
least popular president in American history, a
fighting chance.
I won’t be watching any of McCain or Obama’s
self-aggrandizing performances as they debase themselves
by uttering the same worn out platitudes we all know by
heart.
And I’ll not be reading any of their predictable
speeches tailored to whatever specific voting bloc
they’re addressing at that particular instant.
Most certain of all is that, unless a
loaded pistol is held at my head, I won’t vote for
either.
Nevertheless, I do have a few simple suggestions for the
candidates that might actually help them along in their
quest for the
White House.
Keeping in mind that the nation just suffered through an
endless primary season with a gazillion meaningless
debates and two exceedingly tedious conventions, I’d
like to remind the candidates of the age-old adage:
absence makes the heart grow fonder.
They would be shocked if they knew how quickly the
majority of viewers change channels when their images
show up on their television screens.
We’ve heard what they have to say. We either believe or
we don’t. Few minds will be changed between today and
Election Day.
Accordingly, I recommend that the nominees drastically
curtail all their public appearances until mid-October.
Let the Internet,
the bloggers and
the 24-hour news talking heads keep their names out in
the public.
Their campaigning should be limited to the three states
that will decide the November winner:
Pennsylvania,
Ohio and
Florida.
Why should McCain visit
California or Obama go to
Texas? Neither has a chance in either state.
For Obama, I offer specific council. Please stop
promoting
“Change you can believe in.” You have absolutely
no record of change or reform of any type. The same big
money sharks support you that supported George W. Bush.
As for McCain and his GOP cronies, please no more
feigned concern about
Hurricane Gustav victims or retroactive hand
wringing about Katrina.
If you’re so troubled, do something tangible. McCain
owns
seven houses. His wife Cindy has her own jet.
Fly to Louisiana, pick up some displaced residents from
New Orleans and Baton Rouge and put them up for a few
weeks.
The sad truth is that the American political system is
beyond immediate repair.
America has a largely uninformed and uninterested
electorate.
Lobbyists, special interest and
ethnic-identity groups have inordinate sway.
Politicians, constantly campaigning, move from one
election to the next dodging most of the real issues and
providing only superficial answers to those few
questions they can’t avoid.
Maybe the answer can be found in the East.
The
Japanese government fascinates me. Ineffectual
leaders step down rather than continue to politically
slug it out with little chance of success.
Twice in the last year, two Japanese prime ministers—Yasuo
Fukuda and
Shinzo
Abe—resigned amid wide spread disgust with their
performance.
Abe promoted a conservative agenda to restore national
pride and core Japanese values. But voters more worried
about their economic future dismissed it as out of
touch.
His successor Fukuda was done in by a weakening economy
combined with negative domestic growth and increasing
retail prices, especially food. Market analysts
dismissed Fukada’s $18-billion economic stimulus as
ineffectual.
Hmmm…does any of that sound familiar? A ”conservative
agenda,” “restore
national pride,” “weakening economy,” “increasing
prices,” and a failed economic stimulus package.
[Japanese
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukada Resigns, by Hisako
Ueno and Bruce Wallace, Los Angeles
Times,
September 2, 2008]
If those negatives are strong enough to bring down
Japanese leadership, then the same should apply in
America where we have the identical concerns.
The shame is that although the US has a democratic
government, we haven’t learned how to take full
advantage of it.
Joe Guzzardi
[email
him]
is a California native who recently fled the state
because of over-immigration, over-population and a
rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He has moved to
Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the growth
rate stable.
A long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School,
Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It
currently appears in the
Lodi News-Sentinel.
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