Wednesday, July 28, 2004
John Edwards
Tonight I heard John Edwards' speech. He is upstaging John Kerry! So far, Kerry has spoken rather weakly, and he has not seem to have much of an agenda or platform. Apparently he is trying to satisfy a number of factions, but by doing this he loses votes. Not so John Edwards. He first told us what the problem is. We have two Americas, one for those who live comfortably, and one for those who live paycheck to paycheck. Unlike Kerry, he told us what to do about it! He would continue the Bush tax, and he would subsidize and start programs in a number of things, and then he told us how he would pay for it, by not cutting taxes for the wealthiest 2 percent. He came through with a clear program. Then he talked about the military, saying that they deserve better than they are getting, and he vowed to chase al Qaeda down. He would get international cooperation on the Iraq situation. Then he concluded with a slogan which may echo throughout the campaign: Hope is on the Way!
He did commit a few errors, in my opinion. He said, "the third anniversary of September 11". Huhh? There have been thousands of September 11ths. Here are a few examples: 5 BC September 11, 1066 September 11, 1776 September 11, 1946 September 11, and 2003 September 11. You can't have an anniversary of a date; that's like eating your own teeth. He should have said "9/11" or "Planeattack", although the latter is not in general use. He concluded his speech using the word "God", thus alienating those that don't believe in a God. He emphasized the need to catch bin Laden and his crew; that's number 2. But he did not touch much on number 1, making sure that terrorists do not exist in the first place. That requires multinational cooperation and the development of a world culture that eschews religious fundamentalism. And most of all, he said the most serious problem that we face is terrorism. Wrong. Dead wrong. The most serious problem is resource depletion, especially that of oil. Further, he did not call for huge fuel taxes, which is what we need right now. That's excusable. If he had called for a $3/gallon tax on gasoline, he would have lost 10 million votes. I hope he and Kerry call for such a tax after Election Day, however.
But what struck me about the speech is that he said what the people wanted to hear, and he came up with clear-cut plans. He also energized the crowd with the slogan, "Hope is on the Way.", which I hope is powerful enough to elect Kerry. However, I think that Bush will win the election. The keys say so, and further, I think that Bush will win, run into serious trouble in his second term, resulting in the election of Edwards as President in 2008. This will put him in a position to become a Crisis President, one of the greatest in our history, as he shifts gears and takes dramatic action to get us across the Great Oil Shortage and into a completely different way of life, conserving energy and living in harmony with nature.
He did commit a few errors, in my opinion. He said, "the third anniversary of September 11". Huhh? There have been thousands of September 11ths. Here are a few examples: 5 BC September 11, 1066 September 11, 1776 September 11, 1946 September 11, and 2003 September 11. You can't have an anniversary of a date; that's like eating your own teeth. He should have said "9/11" or "Planeattack", although the latter is not in general use. He concluded his speech using the word "God", thus alienating those that don't believe in a God. He emphasized the need to catch bin Laden and his crew; that's number 2. But he did not touch much on number 1, making sure that terrorists do not exist in the first place. That requires multinational cooperation and the development of a world culture that eschews religious fundamentalism. And most of all, he said the most serious problem that we face is terrorism. Wrong. Dead wrong. The most serious problem is resource depletion, especially that of oil. Further, he did not call for huge fuel taxes, which is what we need right now. That's excusable. If he had called for a $3/gallon tax on gasoline, he would have lost 10 million votes. I hope he and Kerry call for such a tax after Election Day, however.
But what struck me about the speech is that he said what the people wanted to hear, and he came up with clear-cut plans. He also energized the crowd with the slogan, "Hope is on the Way.", which I hope is powerful enough to elect Kerry. However, I think that Bush will win the election. The keys say so, and further, I think that Bush will win, run into serious trouble in his second term, resulting in the election of Edwards as President in 2008. This will put him in a position to become a Crisis President, one of the greatest in our history, as he shifts gears and takes dramatic action to get us across the Great Oil Shortage and into a completely different way of life, conserving energy and living in harmony with nature.
