Tag: Politics & Activism

Senator Barack Obama voted with his wife, Michelle, on Tuesday morning in Chicago:

Doug Mills/The New York Times

My very good friend Otto Bruno hosts the Sunday Music Festa on Jazz90.1 in Rochester, NY. Here’s his take on tomorrow’s election:

Okay Nation:

We’ve got one more chance. We screwed this up royally the past two Presidential elections. Tomorrow may be, in more ways than one, our last, best chance to “right the ship” as they say.

I’ve said before that I think the nightmare we’re currently living through began on January 20, 1981, when Ronald Reagan took over as President. He was elected by ” a mandate” of the people. His administration ushered in an era of greed, deregulation, selfishness, and a perversion of corporate power unlike this country had ever seen. The following 27 years have been a spiraling ever deeper into this economically disparate abyss as the rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer, and the “middle class” is now all but extinct.

Officially, and in theory, we’ve had three Republican Presidents in the last 28 years and one Democratic President. In reality, we’ve had 28 years of Republican Presidencies. I’ve always thought of Bill Clinton as much more of a Republican than Democrat. First of all, he was a huge hawk. While we were in no major wars during his Presidency, he nevertheless kept our military very busy all over the globe. Unlike Ronald Reagan who vowed to decrease the size of government and then did just the opposite, Clinton really did reduce the size of the government, cutting government jobs, closing military bases, and abolishing social programs for the needy. I will give him credit for one thing, he didn’t strip us of a myriad number of constitutional rights the way the Bush Administration has done.

So tomorrow the choice is a pretty simple one. If you’ve been happy with the direction our country has gone in the last 28 years than you should vote for the Republican ticket. If you make more than 250,000 dollars a year or you have a net worth of more than one or two million dollars, than you should, by all means, vote for the Republican ticket. And I say that with no sarcasm or disrespect intended. I truly believe if you fit into those categories, particularly the economic ones, than it’s probably in your best interests to vote Republican tomorrow.

However, if you are unhappy, distressed, concerned, or fearful of the direction our country’s gone in the last 28 years than I think your only choice is Obama/Biden. If you are sitting at the kitchen table on a weekly or monthly basis trying to figure out how you’re going to pay your bills and which you should pay first and who’ll be willing to wait a little longer for their money, I can’t imagine how or why you’d vote for anyone besides Obama/Biden. If you’re angry that we’re continuing to pour over one hundred billion dollars a year into Iraq while we have people here in our own country who can’t afford to pay for medicine or schooling or decent housing, than perhaps you need to think about voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden tomorrow.

I really don’t expect the Obama/Biden ticket to solve all our problems. I don’t, for a minute, think they’re the saviors who will bring the country right back to it’s place of prominence in the world but I do know a few things. In 2000, many people thought it would make little difference if George Bush was president or Al Gore was President. Without a doubt, one of the monumental mistakes in our nation’s history. I didn’t think it was possible for us to fall so far and so fast as a country as we’ve done under George Bush and Dick Cheney. So the choice tomorrow is really a simple one. With Obama and Biden we have a chance to begin the long climb out of the pit we’re currently in as a nation. They’re intelligent, articulate, dedicated public servants. Without them – I think we’re screwed.

Get out and vote!