Article: Is voting for Obama enough change?

Seriously. Compared to McCain and Palin... he's the cavalry. McCain isn't so much evil as he is stupid. Palin is evil in her stupidity. Both add to evil as their enablers of far darker forces that would be even more divisive and hatefilled than their campaign was. But that's not entirely what this election is about. Yet we're still adding up the evil not just of what the GOP can do ...but what they have done in the last 8 years. I don't have to tell most of you... my friends.... you who are my friends are so because I value your intelligence even if I don't always agree with you. We can talk about all the deregulation that has allowed corporations unfettered to run rampant making more money in their yearly postings for their stockholders and CEO's... all the favors Bush has done his banking friends who lost other people's mortgage money and pension money but in the end didn't lose their own because Bush/Cheney was looking out for them... or Bush's oil friends, even while you're paying 3 times what you were a couple of years ago and they're posting 3 times the profits than previously in this year's postings. We can talk about domestic spying... we can talk about the attempted retraction of the right of Habeas Corpus for citizens, non citizens and POW's. We can talk about all abrogations of internationally accepted standards of human rights and the ridiculous justifications of the use of torture. We can talk about the continuous refusal of health care for children and continuous support for unethical practices of pharmaceutical industries. We can talk about the archaic religious policies concerning sex education, sex equality, and AIDS programs...and their SEX NEGATIVE approach. We can talk about their suppression of scientific inquiry, their denial of scientific fact while pandering to a few extremist televangelists with cheesy haircuts and bad cologne. We can talk about the two faced double standard the Bush years employed regarding white americans and black americans and the inner cities they let decay and the Katrina victims they let suffer. We can talk about the wars they conducted in haphazard fashion... abandoning Afghanistan to push for a war of Oil territories conquest justified on a thin coating of lies. We can talk about the cessation of all that. But that isn't the total of all of that. Because we have to be looking ahead. Looking ahead while glancing behind to see where they've been. Obama and Biden promise us a relief of all of this. Yet.... if I look at what Obama has voted 'yes' on... I can't expect an major change of the status quo. He did vote for the bailout... the golden parachute for the criminally greedy and wasteful. He did vote for the 'Military Commissions Act'...in all fairness, he did vote for the bill to allow detainees the right of Habeas Corpus. He did vote for the restriction of federal assistance based on compliance of immigration rules. He did vote for war funding ...even if it was attached to unemployment benefits extension and ammendments to the GI Bill. And there are important issues that he didn't vote at all on. He's put alot of effort into his 'centrist' credentials while still voting progressively on some social legislations. For alot of us... this is enough. Because of what we've had to put up with for so long it's like it seems like the best deal we can get. Biden has strong ties to Israel... does that mean that both Obama and Biden will turn a blind eye to whatever human rights violations the Israelis military or far right gov't chooses to perpetrate? Does it mean that we're still at risk of a war beginning with Iran, Syria and Lebannon's Hezbollah? Personally I believe that Obama and Biden are far more intelligent than the men that Bush surrounded himself with... or atleast have better motivations. Atleast smart enough to seek out more solutions than just military options. But is it enough???? There are many issues I agree with Ralph Nader on. And that I agree with Cynthia McKinney on. I couldn't tell you if I agree with Bob Barr on anything but as far as Ron Paul libertarians go, I agree with him on issues of personal rights and privacy issues and about military nonintervention. I don't agree with many of his anti federalist secessionist ideas. Nor with his anti multiculturalist, anti left views. I'm just not that big on rightwing Von Mises/Ayn Randian politics. But that aside... it's been quite healthy for him for to have added to the public political discourse awakening many to what we've lost in the Bush years. And as he's coined it, his 'REVolution' But is it? My friends are debating. Many are entirely behind Obama... wishing for change... any change. My anarchist friends believe that nothing changes and it's just a perpetuation of the same ole same ole.... 'so why bother'. In a sense they're right. And by the same logic,... a vote for McKinney and Nader and Barr is just as meaningless. Because in the end,... that would still be casting a vote for those outside the machine... outside enough to be ineffectual... nor is it dismantling of anything...and therefore nothing about the system will have fundamentally changed. It's still just two parties...and one entirely driven and propped up by the most craven corporate interests. And the other, whose progressive wing is continually betrayed and undermined either by a faction of ' GOP in Dem's clothing' (re: Blue Dog Dems) ...betrayed by a leadership that's far too concerned with playing politics and selling us out in deals that are universally condemned by their constituencies. But none of this is the 'revolution' that this country needs. Where all communication media is concentrated in the hands of a few tied to one party interest or another. And thus, is the instrument of manipulation for it's corporate concerns. Some of my friends think Obama's victory just delays that which will exascerbate the need for revolution. But... then .... what is revolution? It's a movement that begins among neighbors, friends, family and coworkers. It's our effect upon the day to day ...and upon those we come in contact with. It's those alliances that make the greater and more powerful players irrelevant. And that is something we can begin at any moment of our lives. I have no illusions about Obama/Biden. I know I'll feel betrayed by them... I already have...( I like Rev.Jeremiah Wright and I agree with his views and understand where they come from) But to not vote because this isn't enough revolutionary change...aaahhh, that would be highly selfish or atleast self indulgent of me. Because I may... or may not be the one made to suffer by the dark age policies imposed by McCain ...or by Palin (who I worry about and strongly suspect will quickly inheirit the office) The next Supreme Court nomination will either cement the regressive direction this country has taken... or begin to turn it around or create some equilibrium ...from the influences of the pro corporate pro religionist Federalist Society alumni that inhabit the bench right now. I don't think I need it to make it worse for anyone else for me to have my revolution. We can have anytime we want it... and we don't need to make it worse for anyone else for them to see the need for it either. And anyway, ..I'm an optimist... I kinda like Obama... I wouldn't mind having a beer with him.