THE SYSTOCRAT PAPERS

Fellow Systocrats:

The Systocrat Papers is pleased to announce its endorsement of Barack Obama for President of the United States.  At this critical juncture in American history, a vote for Senator Obama is nothing less than a vote of confidence in the power of the American people to unite in common purpose in order to move this country forward.  A vote for Senator Obama also constitutes an emphatic rejection of the divisive, failed agendas of the Bush administration, which is almost exclusively responsible for the sorry state of affairs in which this country finds itself at present.

Earlier this year, I read Senator Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope.  I found this insightful passage in the first few pages:

Not only did my encounters with voters confirm the fundamental decency of the American people, they also reminded me that at the core of the American experience are a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that makes our improbable experiment in democracy work.  

Senator Obama went on to discuss the need to unite the American people in common purpose:

I recognize the risks of talking this way.  In an era of globalization and dizzying technological change, cutthroat politics and unremitting culture wars, we don't even seem to possess a shared language with which to discuss our ideals, much less the tools to arrive at some rough consensus about how, as a nation, we might work together to bring these ideals about . . . .

My argument, however, is that we have no choice.  You don't need a poll to know that the vast majority of Americans - Republican, Democrat and independent - are weary of the dead zone that politics has become, in which narrow interests vie for advantage and ideological minorities seek to impose their own versions of absolute truth.  Whether we're from red states or blue states, we feel in our gut the lack of honesty, rigor, and common sense in our policy debates, and dislike what appears to be a continuous menu of false or cramped choices.  Religious or secular, black, white or brown, we sense - correctly, that the nation's most significant challenges are being ignored, and that if we don't change course soon, we may be the first generation in a very long time that leaves behind a weaker and more fractured America than the one that we inherited.  Perhaps more than any other time in our recent history, we need a new kind of politics, one that can excavate and build upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans.

Obama's message of unity, which we have heard him iterate in countless ways on the campaign trail over the last two years, echoes a universal truth that applies to the entirety of existence on this crude material plane - that all things are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent.  We are all in this together, and what happens to one of us happens to all of us. 

This is not just empty rhetoric.  In a personal sense, what this means is that if a fellow citizen can suffer a wrong today, you can be wronged under the same circumstances tomorrow.  For example, once our government decides to compromise the civil liberties of one person, the civil liberties of all are at risk.  Moreover, no one seeking broader, concrete examples of the interdependency of Earth's citizenry need look any further than the current economic crisis, which started with a relatively small number of greedy, irresponsible parties here in the United States and quickly fanned out to cripple the global economy.  Global warming is another ready example - the greenhouse effect threatens the existence of many forms of life in every sector of the planet, irrespective of the fact that this issue has been perpetuated by a subset of the entire population.  The systematic pollution of our air and oceans also exemplifies this principle in action - it is indisputable that we depend on the rest of humankind to safeguard the integrity of these two components of our biosphere so that conditions conducive to the perpetuation of life on this planet continue to exist.  

The unassailable truth of the matter is that many of the immediate problems facing humankind cannot be solved unless we develop the capacity to work in concert with disparate factions to achieve and implement solutions.  For example, anything less than a global consensus to keep our oceans clean will likely render any effort in this regard futile.  We have reached a stage in our development as a species where it has become clear that we must move forward together or not at all. 

The reality of today's globally interconnected society has conclusively rendered the politics of division obsolete - the only real function of divisive politics is to keep ordinary people at each others throats in front of the halls of power while the real criminals enter from the rear, stage a quiet coup d'etat and surreptitiously arrange things to suit their own selfish ends. 

The Bush administration executed this strategy to perfection over the last eight years, skillfully parlaying our fears in the aftermath of 9/11 into a misguided war on the Iraqi people.  As it turns out, the Iraq War was really nothing more than a front to funnel billions of our tax dollars into private hands through lucrative, cost-plus, no-bid contracts awarded to defense and reconstruction contractors fortunate enough to have ties to the Bush administration.  During this sustained looting of our tax coffers, the Bush administration utilized various devices to distract and otherwise keep the American electorate in line.  The creation of a fear index, otherwise known as the Homeland Security Advisory System, which perpetually modulates between "Elevated" and "High" alert levels, is one such device. 

The deliberate act of demonizing every single Muslim in the world by labeling adherents of the mainstream Muslim faith "terrorists" is another. Thanks to President Bush, the stigma against Muslims in this country is so strong that a presidential candidate dare not risk even the appearance of being in any way affiliated with this faith, a ridiculous state of affairs given the millions of fine, patriotic Muslim-American citizens.  Former Secretary of State Colin Powell recently pointed out the absurdity of the Muslim situation - this is indeed a shameful chapter in the history of a country that, at least in theory, purports to offer equal rights to all.

After eight years of Bush, the country is so divided that most rational discourse between people of different views has ceased. In the resulting bilateral vacuum, unsupportable viewpoints are transformed into unchallenged, and over time, unchallengeable dogma.  While many of us insist on defending indefensible positions and otherwise bicker amongst ourselves, our markets have been crippled, our children are not being educated, our jobs are being shipped overseas or otherwise eliminated and we are fighting wars on three fronts (if you count the ill-named "war on terror" as a separate front).  If we cannot even discuss these issues in a rational way with our neighbors, who may hold different views, we cannot reach consensus and move forward in any meaningful way.

I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of the current state of affairs.  Like Senator Obama, I'm absolutely convinced that we are more alike than we are different, and that if we can find a way to engage in rational discourse with people we disagree with, we'll find that we're not as far apart as we think we are.  For example, I have a neighbor who is a fiscal conservative.  We frequently argue the relative merits of various economic policies and philosophies, but when the dogma and the talking points are dispensed with, in many instances we are able to reach consensus.  For example, although we stand on opposite ends of the fiscal spectrum in terms of ideology, we both agree that if people truly cannot support themselves, despite their best efforts to do so, the government should provide assistance to these people.  We also agree that people who are capable of working should be forced to do so in lieu of receiving a government handout.  To cite another example, although we may disagree about the justification for the Iraq war, I think we can all agree that our troops deserve to be fully and properly equipped before they are sent to the front lines, and that injured soldiers are entitled to the finest, most comprehensive medical care that we can provide, in contrast to the neglect and frustration that our troops experienced at Walter Reed Medical Center.

If you agree that rational dialogue and real consensus are necessary elements in crafting solutions to today's problems, Senator Obama is your man.  John McCain, once an honorable man, and a man who deserves our respect for his years of dedicated military service to this country, has lost his moral compass in his quest for the White House and now seeks to rule by any means necessary.  His campaign has made the conscious and deliberate decision to focus on the politics of division to make up for the lack of anything remotely resembling a cohesive campaign strategy.  Instead of focusing on the issues and/or saying anything positive about his candidacy, McCain has decided to promote the idea that Obama is "different," and that therefore we should fear him.  After all, Obama IS different . . . He's black.  He pals around with terrorists.  He'll raise taxes and increase the size of government.  He's a Muslim.  He's a socialist.  He's a communist.  He pals around with an anti-white preacher.  He's had dinner with members of the PLO.

Here's a thought - what we really should fear is a man who has done everything in his power to align himself with the Bush administration over the last three years, an administration that tricked us into a needless war, used that war as a means to steal billions of dollars from us, and in the process murdered thousands of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.  What we should really fear is a man who seeks power for its own sake and is willing to use ugly, dishonest, divisive tactics to achieve this dubious end.  John McCain will not lead us forward.  He will keep us right where we are - locked in a tight downward spiral towards oblivion.

I'm voting for Senator Obama because I'm tired of the politics of division, and because I want to see liberals and conservatives come together, dispense with the dogma and the talking points, and work in concert to achieve consensus and make this country and the world a better place. 

I'm voting for Senator Obama because a vote for him is a vote for all of us.

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