POLITICS - NOT AS USUAL
There is much talk these days concerning the upcoming presidential election in 2004, but so little of what is being said seems to be concerned with issues which will face us at that time.
This appears to be a half-hearted battle of personalities who started the fight before deciding, for sure, what they were going to fight about. They are awash in a deluge for trivia coursing through a wasteland of forgot dreams and aspirations their own party predecessors abandoned as being too old and meaningless years ago.
I have feeling this is not exactly the fault of the candidates, either.
Rather, I think it might be traced back to the fact that we, the general public, are not in the least interested in what might be called the major issues of our times. Our generation, we have been living in "prosperous" times for a long time and many people do not take potential disasters as being serious a-even yet, after 9-11-01 Continued “good times", more or less, might assure us of having an exceptionally dull campaign .. I find very few voters who seem to award vital concerns of our own time. With political figures intent to such a degree of aligning themselves supposedly advaanced level of so-called leaders in past party history - testing their every move against the way their idol may have done it - are doing themselves and all of us a dis-service. If a Democratic of today feels it necessary to estalish that he is a “Clinton-FDR-McGovern-Johnson-JKF-Truman”- or any other particular brand or species of Democrat, he is showing a mark of weakness and a strong indication of failure.
A true candidate must stand on his on merit.
As I look back I wonder if our more intense political encounters have all taken place in times of stress, depression, or times of social change. It seems to have been that way way, but much would depend on which part of the nation happened to be your home. Politically our nation is a regional entity, I feel, and some areas take it more seriously than others.
Nor is the trait confined to one party. I question the Republican who feels it be mandatory that he identify himself as being a "Reagan" Republican, just as much as I resent a Democrat hiding behind a self-chosen deity of past political eras and dealing with issues which are not facing us today. I cringe inwardly when I merely think a ghostly FDR deciding what we must do to make today better and tomorrow more certain.
The decsions being made today by govrnment officials ought to be founded on today's available information and not on the thinking of by gone party leaders however right they may sem tohave been at one time. The leaders of our nation have not been entirely correct, othewise we would not have many of he problems we must deal with today.
Modern political thought and action must deal with today and tomorrow and less with the past than we seem to want to force to do.
The time is now.
A.L.M. August 16, 2003 [c522wds]
