Wonderland or Not

The disas­ter of McCain is again in focus. With the bright lights of the last cou­ple weeks star­ting to dim, the collec­tive migraine (which pro­vo­ked a large natio­nal brain fart), has been relie­ved. It took a disaster(s) of sorts to relieve it, to show how dan­ge­rous McCain will really be. At least now peo­ple are loo­king into what he says, and com­pa­ring it to what he does, while begin­ning to ques­tion what he knows.

Given the racism fac­tor, and the tight race it will pro­voke, we have work to do.

You know that indi­vi­dual who says they are not a racist, the guy who really wants to vote for Obama because he sees the McCain story a little clea­rer all of a sud­den? The man who rea­li­zes McCain for what he is, Bush again — maybe worse con­si­de­ring what has been expo­sed the last few weeks.

Maybe he won­ders on McCains many posi­tions on everything. Little things like his chil­dren all going to expen­sive pri­vate schools, and the less than com­mon man fashion show of Cindy at the con­ven­tion. Maybe he chaffs at McCain’s choice of the most unqua­li­fied run­ning mate in his­tory, or pon­ders the fact that AIG and the Car­ne­gie Foun­da­tions were major con­tri­bu­tors to McCain’s Reform Ins­ti­tute. The Car­ne­gie Cor­po­ra­tion, somewhere around 1985, sub­ver­ted by a trend of pri­va­ti­za­tion of public ser­vi­ces. A trend which crea­tes a ‘two-tier sys­tem of ser­vi­ces’ one for the rich and a les­ser one for the poor. He belie­ves from what he has read that this trend con­ti­nues to the point where sup­por­ting pri­va­ti­za­tion of edu­ca­tion has been a recent goal of the foundation.

He knows all that, and much more.

He knows McCain chan­ges his poli­ti­cal views with the tide, as is the case with most poli­ti­cians, but he is loo­king now at what McCain did, what he said, and who he asso­cia­ted with prior to beco­ming “the com­mon man”. He’s loo­king at the sup­port of pri­va­ti­za­tion of social secu­rity, the ever chan­ging dere­gu­la­tion stan­ces regar­ding the health care industry, and the sup­port without codi­cil of the war for oil which killed thou­sand of American’s, a hun­dred thou­sand Iraqi’s and dis­pla­ced millions, while cos­ting us tri­llions. This man see’s the asso­cia­tion with, and sup­port of, those who would con­ti­nue (unsuc­cess­fully), to pro­mote pri­va­ti­za­tion of public services.

This man knows the pri­va­ti­za­tion game for what it is now, something which works on paper, or in a pris­tine eco­no­mic slate (one not already full of cor­po­rate corro­sion and corporate/government mer­ges). He sees the govern­ment bed­ding of cor­po­ra­tions for what it is — something that hap­pe­ned inc­rea­singly over the last 8 years to the detri­ment of him­self and his future grandchil­dren. He knows there is a line which was cros­sed, and he knows now which side of the line McCain was on.

This man sees it all.

The wool over his eyes is gone.

Worse yet he see’s a com­pa­ri­son to Sudan. A country where there are those get­ting edu­ca­ted, sip­ping latte at the newly min­ted cafe in Khar­toum while dis­cus­sing their government’s tyran­ni­cal mur­de­ring lea­der. Dis­cus­sing it in the detached way only the pri­vi­le­ged can, in bet­ween their dis­cus­sion on which pair of Levi’s they pre­fer. Then there of those in Dar­fur, Sudan. Refu­gees with star­ving chil­dren, women get­ting mur­de­red and raped as an act of war.

This man knows as the gap widens, and it has done nothing but widen over the last 8 years, we come clo­ser to what we think could never hap­pen here. Clo­ser to a time when our govern­ment, those in power, those with the money to edu­cate them­sel­ves in our privatized/corporate society, and those who can afford health insu­rance while mana­ging to save a little money, will sit and dis­cuss in a like­wise detached fashion the fate of those who can’t.

Yet, des­pite the kno­wing, this man will not be able to pull the lever for a black man no mat­ter how well he knows he should.

If You Are not Regis­te­red to vote, do so now, there is no time to waste. Minu­tes at most. If pos­si­ble get out there and take part in a voter regis­tra­tion drive, even if you can only give 4 hours.

Encou­rage one friend who has never voted to vote. Dis­cuss the issues with those who you think are clan­des­ti­nely racist. Don’t bother with those who are overtly racist, frankly we just don’t have time — we are going to have to save their country without them.

Do it for that man. He will thank you.