The Campaign Trail of Tears--This is both wonderful and bad. Why is it bad? Because Obama talks too tough about Iran: "All options are on the table." She said it too, and so has he. This isn't to say he isn't a viable candidate--it's likely that he's going to respond to the public will, which is generally more correct than that of economic elites and social planners.
I'm not going to lie. The idea of a Black president is very exciting, even thrilling, to me. I'm hardly alone, but why not get Ralph Nader in there as a cabinet member? Hillary as VP doesn't feel right for every reason imaginable, namely that she's beholden to big business in so many ways. Obama is as well, but it appears to be less so. He's hardly perfect, and we need to be hitting him with very tough questions. He had better answer them correctly and honestly.
There's no time to gloat over Hillary Clinton's loss to Barack Obama in the nomination process. What needs to happen now is a full-on attack of John McCain and the GOP in general. This is long overdue, and has nothing to do with payback, and everything to do with taking-back the rights we've lost under this regime.
If we have a president Obama, we have to expect a lot out of him, and we need to let him know it in no uncertain terms. If it requires non-violent protests and a groundswell, so be it. If McCain somehow wins, it's going to happen de facto.
A "To Do" List:
1. Support the creation of an independent prosecution team that will aggressively investigate any and all crimes committed by the Bush campaign/administration from the 2000 elections until January 21st, 2009.
2. He must support and call for an immediate restoration of habeas corpus and the traditions flowing from the Magna Carta.
3. He must support and announce an immediate pullout of American military personnel from Afghanistan and Iraq, just hours after taking office. A fixed-timetable will be a mandatory prerequisite.
4. He must reverse any and all questionable executive orders and signing statements penned by President George W. Bush.
5. He must support and act on evidence of war crimes against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and all other parties involved in the formulation of policy surrounding the illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the use of torture against war on terrorism suspects, illegal rendition, and the creation of the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval base.
6. He must act on rolling-back all Bush tax-cuts for the wealthiest in his first 30 days in office, with resounding success. No rest until it's done.
7. He must call for an end to the power of the pardon in the executive branch.
8. He must investigate the energy industry aggressively, especially the oil industry, including those corporations who service it--particularly Halliburton.
9. He must officially remove all Bush appointments from within the federal bureaucracy on his first day.
10. He must encourage the right of the American working-class to form unions, and end: NAFTA, GATT, and unrestricted trade with China that really amounts to exporting production overseas. He has a lot of executive orders to sign, while we will have a lot of work to do forcing him to do it.
11. He must end all domestic surveillance of the America public, as well as sunsetting the "star chamber" FISA court.
12. He must push for an end to unconstitutional statutes that violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which guarantees that the military and the police of this nation will never be used to deprive us of our liberties in the name of some abstract "safety" and "security."
13. He must bring about a closure of all permanent military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
14. He must work in repealing and removing all laws proposed and passed by the Bush White House and the former GOP majority.
15. He must end all faith-based initiatives upon his arrival into office, ensuring the preservation of the the time honored American tradition of the separation of Church and State. New laws need to hammer this door shut.
16. He must end all military and non-military aid to Israel until the formation of a Palestinian state.
17. He must create a price-control bureau, particularly in the regards to the oil industry, levying unprecedented taxes on energy corporations to pay for the creation of a new American Energy infrastructure that is headed towards complete nationalization for coming generations.
18. He must encourage small business, while discouraging the formation of giants trusts, corporations, and conglomerates.
19. He must make government predominant over the business sector, rather than the current malaise.
20. He must tax all polluting corporations for every pound of waste that they create.
21. He must expand the Freedom of Information Act for all bureaus of government, including timely access to the internal records of all presidential administrations.
22. He must repeal the Patriot Act and all its provisions.
23. He must work towards encouraging and funding the development and implementation of alternative energy sources--primarily natural ones--that will be publicly-owned, not privately.
24. He must reverse the trend of privatization in areas traditionally handled by the organs of the federal government. This would include the military in virtually every respect.
25. He must support and encourage the creation of a single-payer health care system that is modeled on the best systems in the world, such as France, Taiwan, Canada, the U.K., Sweden, and elsewhere in the developed world.
26. He must normalize relations with Cuba and Venezuela, ending hostile diplomacy and the nearly half century of embargoing of Cuba.
27. He must push for a shuttering of nuclear facilities over the next 30 years.
28. He must push and support any and all initiatives that encourage self-employment.
29. He must begin making the broadcasting/media industry to pay substantially higher fees for licensing, a return to the doctrine of "fair and equal time" at the FCC, and a rollback on the consolidation of all media in America. The time has come for real competition. The American public owns the airwaves. It's time they were paid properly for this ownership and the right of others to use it. All candidates running for political office shall receive equal time
30. He must push for a curbing of political appointments in the judiciary and the federal bureaucracy. Many of these posts should be elective ones.
31. He must end all corporate welfare, no exceptions. Again, it's time for real competition in America, long-overdue.
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