Article: What a breath of International Fresh Air! Richardson running for President

RICHARDSON RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT: WHAT A BREATH OF FRESH AIR!

What wonderful news! Sorry to say, but Hillary, Obama, John Edwards, Kerry,et alia, seem like uninspiring recycled hacks (or in Obama's case: great person, just inexperienced). To me, Bill Richardson running for President is far more interesting than any of the other announced candidates.

I have been profoundly impressed with William Blaine Richardson III for 29 years. I first met him in 1978 when he worked for Senator George McGovern's
Foreign Relations Committee; he had a full beard as well as one of the mostendearingly messy desks on Capitol Hill, a place notorious for clean desks.
Take the time to read Richardson's biography: Between Two Worlds.

At the onset, I must clarify that my concerns are almost entirelyinternational (for 3 years, I have been developing a UN Resolution for the UN General Assembly to create a new United Nations Undersecretary Generalfor Nutrition and Consumer Protection; those who are curious can visit my
groundwork website for United Nations Undersecretary General for Nutrition).

I recently proposed to Richardson that he and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon should go to the Sudan to convince President Al-Bashir to end the
genocide, and to hopefully bring a lasting Peace to Darfur by accepting the presence of UN troops in Darfur.

No other Presidential candidate even comes close to the level ofinternational diplomatic experience and abilities evidenced by BillRichardson.

His lengthy international resume comprise a real breath of fresh air in USA's politics, especially after the inanities and ghastly absurdities
evidenced thus far by Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/Rumsfeld and the reign of
corporate-manipulated klepto-plutocrats.

Most critics would clearly point to the Pentagon's budget and the Pentagon's actions as proof of this systemic erosion of America's good sense.

However, this is equally evident in the malfunctioning of the Food and DrugAdministration, which finally has a Commissioner, Andrew Von Eschenbach, M.D., who has responded with corporate pleasantries about how harmless aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde/diketopiperazine is. The FDA still rushes through approval for harmful food additive chemicals at the request of multinational corporations, the health of Americans and the rest of the world be damned and ignored. The most egregious of these chemicals is aspartame, the neurotoxic artificial sweetener that is metabolized as methanol, formaldehyde, and
diketopiperazine, which was forced through the FDA in 1981 by then-CEO of G.D. Searle, Donald Rumsfeld, even though the Pentagon already consideredAspartame as a biochemical weapon, and even though the FDA, to its credit,had turned down the approval for Aspartame for 16 years, since its discovery in 1966.

Richardson believes that the states must take back their powers in these realms, in order to protect the health of the citizens of each state. This
is precisely what is about to occur in the New Mexico Legislature with legislation in both chambers to ban Aspartame, which Governor Richardson has quietly encouraged. This is despite the objections from Ajinomoto's corporate lobbyists and hired guns; Ajinomoto is the world's largest manufacturer of not one, but two neurotoxic food additives: aspartame and Monosodium Glutamate. They hired Michael Stratton, Colorado lobbyist and member of the 2008 Democratic National Committee's Presidential Nominating Commission to kaibash Richardson putting the bill to ban Aspartame on the legislative call-Message from the Governor list, despite 22 out 42 New Mexico State Senators signing Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino's letter asking him to do so.

In the larger international scheme of things, the average America, may have forgotten what diplomacy and non-military interventions in the processes of
governments are all about, but I can assure you that none of the heads of state and world leaders in other nations have forgotten.

The incontrovertible truth is that the USA direly needs an internationalist Democrat, if there will ever be any hope of rebuilding the USA's international image and influence, in which we are rapidly losing traction to China, especially in Africa and in South America.

How else will we be able to recover from the rampant klepto- plutocrats running this
Administration and what they are perpetuating domestically andinternationally, by continuing to gouge the USA's expenditures into more weapons, more troop deployment, more senseless grudge matches, and another $160 billion to waste in Iraq and in Afghanistan, regardless of how squandering more billions in Iraq and Afghanistan inexorably depletes America's internal economies, the inner cities, the budgets for education, Universities, schools, social services, and research; and regardless of theloss of markets and esteem for the USA in Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America due to these depravities and depredations?

Not long ago, Lech Walesa visited the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West in New Mexico. This Nobel Peace Laureate and former
President of Poland observed sadly that despite its uncontested military powers, the USA has far less real political, economic, and moral power thanwe Americans perceived us as having over the past two or three decades ago. Walesa unequivocally blamed the present administration for accelerating this loss of political, economic, and moral power.

However, I don't really believe that the USA is doomed to suffer aninevitable descent into a lamentable status as a corporate-militarized
police state/3rd world economy, glutted on more and more wasted expenditures for the corporate hogs feeding at the public trough; if such a descent were
totally inevitable, it would be a waste of time and effort for anyone to even try to countermand it.

Bill Richardson will help to bring about such a recovery through the course of the candidates' dialogue, if given the chance he will get as a very
viable presidential candidate. If he is edged out, strategists and pundits should recognize that he will also make a great Vice Presidential candidate.
In addition to his abilities, intellect, and great resume, one more reason is clearly that he will pull in a lot of Hispanic voters, and other minority
voters, in all 50 states.

New Mexicans have seen him in action as Governor for the past four years, and he was recently re-elected to a second term with the largest majority inNew Mexico's history, almost 70%!

I welcome his presence in this ostensibly crowded field of Democraticcandidates, above all because Richardson will never be one to perpetuate the kind of international idiocy and unavoidable resultant decline, both internally and internationally, from which we have suffered from during the past 6 years. We should help him win by talking with our friends, family, and colleagues in other states, and in other nations....

Podemos todo via esperar, que non? (We can always hope!)

Stephen Fox
Santa Fe New Mexico
stephen@santafefineart.com
217 W. Water St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501