Did you catch the Obama acceptance spectacle?   Wow what a production.  From what I heard it had more viewers that the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics.   Not bad.  That is marketing at its finest.
 
I was watching because I wanted to hear straight from the candidates mouth, just how exactly he wanted to change government and naturally, what's in it for me.
 
Were you satisfied with that generations old, standard political, whimpy drivel?   My God.  What is new about we are going to save the huddled masses, the republicans are bad, all the problems in the world are because of the other party?  
 
The only real change was Obama's delivery,  spoken like a true Harvard lawyer trying to convince a jury of the great unwashed that he is just like us.  I will give him that, he can talk the talk.
 
I do want a change.   I want real change.  But not the kind of change a liberal socialist will bring. 
 
I want a roll back. 

• I want a repeal of the 17th Amendment and a return to the representative republic we once were.
• I want a repeal of the 16th Amendment and an honest look at how the amendment was put into law without ratification
• I want a smaller federal government based on Federalist principles.

More than anything, I want a serious change in the political process.   Our leaders, whether it be Representatives, Senators, school board officials, or whatever, ARE NOT elected on merit.  Our leadership is a product, like diapers, or fertilizer that is sold by high dollar, Madison Avenue campaigns. 
 
Every imaginable device from the 30-second sound bite to the slick Obama production is designed for one thing and one thing only . . .  to sway people away from doing their own research.  It is designed to make them feel satisfied that they can possibly know enough to elect the leaders of the greatest country in the world without taking any initiative on their own to learn about the candidates. 
 
Are you satisfied that you know enough about Obama or Mccain based on what you read in the headlines, hear in blips on the news, or consume in sound bites.  If you are, do the country a favor, stay the hell out of the voting booth.   
 

 

 

During the DNC lead up to Senator Obama's acceptance speech was the "get to know Obama" video. 

 

A slick presentation to be sure.  Particularly slick was what it left out, not what it so carefully framed.  But if you believe the man, he had humble beginnings and through sweat and hard work made it to and throught Harvard Law.

 

He waxed eloquently about his humble roots and how his mother would wake him at 4:00 AM to do his home work.  And, from that simple beginning, he is now the Democrat Party chosen candidate to run for President of the United States.

 

I have no problem with any of that.  As a person who was raised by a mother that was abandoned by her husband just prior to my birth, I know the struggles of a family of 5 (mother and 4 children) trying to survive on the paltry 70 cents an hour minimum wage my mother could earn.  Fortunately, my brothers were older and went to work soon after I was born and helped keep the family afloat.

 

What little government support was available at that time, my mother flatly refused.  She was not about to let us fall prey to the handout mentality.    It hurt.  While my friends were showing off their new Keds at the start of the school year, I was putting cardboard in the soles of my last years shoes. 

 

But that is not the point.