Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

I will not support Hillary Clinton in 2008. Pretty much no matter what. If it was her verses John McCain, as things stand now, I would probably vote Libertarian or Green, depending on how good a mood I was in at the time. It is the war. Either she knows it's wrong and is selling out the lives of countless people for political positioning, or she really does believe that we need to send more troops to Iraq, which means I don't want as my President.

Given what I know of Mrs. Clinton, I believe it to be the first. Don't get me wrong, I love HRC. I think she's really been a pioneer, and on many domestic issues, I like where she stands (and she actually does seem to take a stand on many of those things - though you'd never see CNN talking about it).

I think that, in 2002, she made the decision to attempt to neutralize the right wing's predictable attacks against her as some sort of super-left-wing mix between the manchurian candidate and the Ice Qureen.

Understandable. Most of us were still ready for some payback for 9/11 (whether we'd admit it to ourselves or not). The WMD prop machine was at full force, and I'll grant that she may have even believed it at the time. It is quite possible, had people other than the neoconservatives planned this war, it might have been a sort of 'glorious victory' after all.

Which, of course, would have set the stage for us to invade Iran or North Korea next, in which case the conflict would conceviably be much worse and much harder to end without The End. But that aside, I can still forgive Hillary Clinton's 2002 support of the war.

But I can't forgive her 2005 (nearly 2006!) support of the War. Not for 2008. And I hope no other Democrat does.

In 2008, he have a historic opportunity. The People are angry enough, and imperialism has been shown to be a fool's quest, and, for the sake of the world, the 2008 Presidential Campaign and Election must be about the War.

The Republicans sure as hell ain't going to run an anti-War candidate. If not us, then who?

If Hillary would support an anti War candidate in 2008 and then wait until next time around - she's young enough - then I would gladly support her. Electing a woman like her as President would indeed represent a huge step in progress for who we are as a people. And we would be treated to the enormous pop of Rush Limbaugh's head exploding at long last.

But right now, there are bigger fish to fry.

Are we the Republic or the Empire? Are we torturers, killers, and thieves? Or are we a people that has obtained dominance and will now give it back to the world, just as the founding fathers saw the wisdom of giving power to the people?

2008 may well be our last chance to avoid following in Rome's footsteps, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna miss it because Hillary Clinton feels her time has come due. If I was to bet, I would think that Hillary wouldn't win a general election, especially if her position on Iraq is virtually no different from her Republican opponent. She's a smart woman, and she knows how to hire smart people (one of the reason's she could be a good president), so she might win, but it wouldn't be with the peace movement's help. And the peace movement currently includes a pretty hefty percentage of the American public.

If Liberals and Progressives lose the next election, then we have failed our country. The corporatists and imperialists will have been determining policy for at least 12 years before we get another crack at it. By that point, I think we will have passed the point of no return on the current collision course America has towards disaster. Hillary is a progressive for sure (probably not as liberal as many would like to think, though), but I ask, is her loyalty to the cause and the people, or her own ambition. It is a decision which she must make in 2008.

All that being said, it is disheartening to me to see Oprah come out with this position. Oprah is a leader for millions of Americans. She is what in our society is referred to as an 'opinion setter', and she knows this. More than that, one could argue that she is, in some ways, a 'morality setter'. Lots of people look to her and her show to define themselves and the world around them, and she's gotten lots of people reading and thinking and believing that wouldn't otherwise, so I give her props for that.

But if we are going to succeed in defeating the military-industrial complex, it has to come in 2008. After that, I don't know if we will ever be able to. I apologize for getting all apocolyptical on y'all, but we all see the writing on the wall. This has been building since World War II, and has only accelerated since the end of the cold war. The President who takes over in 2008 will determine the course of America (and all the impact which our course has upon the world around us, for good or bad) for the forseeable future.

Consider, if we were unable to mount an opposition to the corruption infesting our government in 2008, between media hype, extreme discouragement among those who believe that todays events are wrong, and the fact that many independents would probably just give up on the Democrats, we would likely not have another shot for a long time.

And just imagine if not one but two or more of these corporatist administrations rules consecutively. You want to live in that America?

I have much respect for Oprah. For a person to accomplish what she has, even with tabloids and the rest hounding her the entire time, is more admirable than I can put into words. And it's not just because she's black or a woman, though both of those things certainly had to have added to the challenges of her success. Oprah has been an pretty phenomenol person, period, regardless of the civil rights angle to her story.

I mentioned that people look to Oprah's show for moral guidance. If we are going to win in 2008, we have got to wake people up. This complacency and indifference to politics and current events that set the stage for this hijacking of our nation has got to go.

If Oprah is supporting Hillary, then a great number of people will be able to rationalize supporting her as well, and I think that would be a tragedy.

To a certain extent, I feel guilty for writing this diary. After the ridiculous spat over a Cindy Sheehan comment on dKos, and given the usual left wing self-flagellation, it really does not feel good to write something attacking two really great women.

But it has to be done. This war is our soul, and if we can't end it and make sure that something like this never happens again... strike three. The world would turn against us, and we would turn against ourselves. It is not a future I want. We need a leader in 2008. We need someone who is willing to take a stand for us, and we need to take a stand for that leader. If we can do that, if we can unite around someone who is actually willing to take a stand for what's right, politics be damned, and actually win an election with that person, then it would be a major victory. Sort of like the destruction of the second death star. With her support of the war, Hillary Clinton can not be that leader right now.

If Hillary will wait until after this struggle for America's soul has been decided, then she will have shown her ultimate loyalties to belong to people and nation, and I would gladly support her however I could, as I believe many of the peace movement would. Ultimately, we are a forgiving people.

As things stand for 2008, however, we're coming for Washington, and it would behoove Mrs. Clinton not to stand in our way.