If a small businessman or a rich business tycoon went to a Republican government official asking for relief from government interventions or interference with their lives or livelihoods, there is not a shadow of a doubt that the Republican Congressman or Senator would intervene on that person’s behalf. And very likely the Republican politician would use publicity and the press to highlight the problem they were trying to resolve for their constituent and the solution that they proposed to ameliorate the problem.
If you are the wife of a black man shot in the back by New York police fifty-one times, murdering him and thus denying him to his constitutional right of life and the pursuit of happiness, you certainly cannot count on Democrat Senator / presidential candidate Barack Obama to raise the issue publicly and to fight for you and the lost constitutional rights of your loved one. Instead, Barack Obama will tell you to keep your calm and utilize the audacity of hope for justice.
If you are a woman in the U.S. military or a woman contractor to the military or State Department in a war zone such as Iraq or Afghanistan, and you get raped by a soldier or fellow contractor and then told by the chain of command that the crime committed against you is of no concern to them, don’t call Hillary, the feminist Senator and U.S. Presidential Candidate. Hillary wants to be Commander in Chief and like the rest of the chain of command, she will fight for your right to serve in combat, but not for your right to serve without fear of attack from your fellow soldiers. That is just asking too much!
Blacks want Obama to be President and women want Hillary to be President. Both groups think that having one of their own in that office will make their own lives better. Think again. Have women in high places stopped warmongering and threats on Iranian women and children? Condoleeza Rice was a National Security Advisor to the President and she certainly was not a force for peace in this world. And she is no different from any male politician in her hard-line position, including dishonest analysis in favor of corporate interests with regard to the existing and planned resource wars engaged in by the U.S. John Conyers has allowed presidential impeachment to be taken off the table, despite a call for impeachment investigation when his party was in the minority in the Congress.
The sad truth is that power is the goal for most politicians, and when power is obtained, the goal is to preserve it at all costs. To get power, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton feel they must "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil" with regards to injustices, including grave injustices against their own race and gender. Why would anyone think that they would behave any differently once elected?
What is needed is not the audacity of hope, but the audacity of integrity in this presidential campaign. We need candidates who tackle the pressing problems facing Americans, and the price of fuel is not a problem, but a symptom of a problem. The War in Iraq is not the primary problem, but a symptom of a deeper problem. Reverend Wright is not the problem, but the publicist of a problem.
Republicans and Democrats are different, but they are the same. Democrats have attempted to emulate the worst of Republicans and ignore the best of their own history. Their sincerity is suspect and their occasional outrages staged and hypocritical.
To make it worse, Ralph Nader is the only candidate in the race with the audacity of integrity, and he is totally unelectable. This speaks volumes about the deservedness of the American public for good governance and the likelihood of victimized Americans ever getting justice according to their true needs.
