dare to rant

It’s finally here. The day we’ve all dreamt about. Barack Obama is the next president! I’m so proud to be living in the States right now. I’m so genuinely happy to be part of this event. It’s something I and many others will remember for the rest of our lives. My belief in the general sanity of the American people has been restored.

One thing that has become clear is that Obama’s presidency will probably take away from the overwhelming success of political comedy. Shows like SNL, The Daily Show, and Colbert Report will no longer have an endless supply of ammo with which to entertain us. Sometimes their jobs were just too easy. No editorial or literary genius was required — Tina Fey could simply quote Palin’s words line by line and it would make a great skit.

If you stop and think about the ramifications of Obama becoming president, you will quickly be overwhelmed. Putting aside all the positive changes his own policies will bring about — the side effects are going to be powerful in their own right. The general reaction to Obama’s victory across the globe has been overwhelmingly positive. It is very heartening, and to a large extent, a relief. Finally the reputation of the United States will get some healing. The world may finally avert its course toward global hatred of America.

Along with the dominoe effect of global perception comes the internal effect of national perception. Students, lawyers, writers and people from all industries suddenly want to go to Washington. They want to be part of this government. They want to contribute. This sort of spirit has not been seen since the days of JFK. It is something that should be converted into direct action — and as a friend of mine pointed out, the onus lies on Obama to direct people by providing specific calls to action. Obama has an army of people willing to do anything to fix this country. It is so wonderful to know that he is just the man to lead them.

We all watched this election very closely. All the articles, interviews, debates, and the speeches took our attention for many months now. Today, I learned that Edward Norton has been documenting the Obama campaign trail for years. He has kept his production company’s work a secret, to avoid fueling the “Obama is a celebrity” bullshit angle. I personally am a fan of Norton’s work, and I am really looking forward to this film. It should be an excellent relation of one of the most inspiring stories of our time.

Ignorance is everywhere. This country is full of it (in more ways than one).

We all watch Sarah Palin’s televised enactment of Tourette syndrome. Despite all the questions about her appropriateness, about how she might be hurting the campaign, I’d like to offer a different perspective. In fact, I will go as far as to suggest she is being extremely useful to the McCain campaign right now.

The fact is, the McCain campaign is one of the ugliest in history. It’s just plain low. What most people don’t know, however, is that there are lots of McCain support groups which do far worse than his own team could mastermind.

Right now, pro-McCain support groups such as the Clarion Fund are paying 70 newspapers to distribute an anti-Muslim propaganda film called Obsession. This movie is being included as a free DVD inside the newspapers. Its direct goal is clear — a scare tactic to trigger a reflex move on America’s part to vote against Obama.

Groups like the Clarion Fund will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal, with no consideration for the consequences. Today I read one of the most disturbing, abhorrent, and personally frightening news I’ve ever encountered:

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession were distributed by mail in Ohio, a “chemical irritant” was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain’s supporters has led to — Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

I have no words to describe my reaction to this news. The article goes on to cite an email from a friend of one mother who was in the room that was gassed, along with her children.

She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there.

This will never make the news (but of course, Obsession was aired numerous times on FOX). The debates will not talk about this, nor will a press conference be held to address it. These are not the important issues. As usual, this issue will drift into the foggy sespool of terrible things no one talks about.

Being associated with such an atrocity should be a campaign-killer for McCain. Keyword: should. What do the Democrats focus on? Look look! It’s Sarah Palin! Ain’t she stupid? That’s the worst part of his campaign!

…Still think she’s useless? She may not have any ideas, but she’s serving as a great light bulb right now. The democrats, the media, America… like moths to a flame.

What’s great about society is that, as a whole, people have a very short attention span. Something that is considered wrong or unacceptable at a fundamental level will be protested… but the interval of the protest is almost always a limited period of time.

Let’s take the whole post-9/11 “arrest now, decide why later” policy. There are people who are getting out of jail today, being released with absolutely no charges. We’re not even talking about people who aren’t guilty, we’re talking about people who haven’t even been accused of anything. It’s just outrageous. But this was a known fact many years ago. People forget. People stop caring. Only recently, some of the wardens remembered they exist, and their “cases” were “tried”.

Want to hear the real numbers? It’s scary. Over 7,000 prisoners have been taken in related to terrorist activities. Out of those, 700 ended up in Guantanamo Bay. From various sources, it has become known that some were released, and 500 are still thought to be in Guantanamo. As for the rest, no one has any idea what has happened to the thousands of potentially innocent people still held in prisons. That information is still classified. They are presumed tortured or dead. This is the most daunting fact:

Out of ALL the 7,000 prisoners that were taken, only 10 have ever been convicted of anything. That’s a whopping 0.14% conviction rate. Continue reading →