Hiatus

I have returned to this blogging exercise after several months hiatus, which I am told is a cardinal sin in the blogosphere. My excuses are the usual: time constraints, travel, business and family responsibilities, etc. All would be legitimate and all would be lame. The underlying reason for my silence was that I had temporarily run out of something constructive or insightful to say and the time to say it, and I have never intended for this space to be comprised of drivel or borrowed insertions as many blogs seem to be. A number of developments have brought me back to the exercise.

First and foremost is the economic meltdown we are all witnessing. I am not at all surprised by the current state of affairs. Indeed, I privately predicted something like this would eventually take place as a result of the demented neo-imperial military adventures of the neo-con Bush regime fueled by wanton corporate greed. The euphoric leveraging of America right under the noses of a witless and ill-informed electorate carried along by waves of news, commentary and reassuring presidential and congressional pronouncements - that things are going to change, that all is well, that we are winning the war in Iraq, that the economy is good, that America is the greatest country in the world - underscore the urgent need for a change in the way information is communicated. Media organizations have, like everything else in the 'developed' world, become corporatized. News has become info-tainment. Politicians absolutely must manipulate public opinion in the most cynical ways or they won't get elected.

Which brings me to the second reason for re-activating this blog: the U.S. presidential elections. I'll say right now that my vote is for Barack Obama because I firmly believe that Bush and his Republican base have led the country into a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. Bush has sent thousands of young, innocent American men and women to their deaths and severely damaged the lives of many thousands more, not to mention the horrific depredations inflicted on overwhelmingly innocent Iraqi and Afghan populations in the name of The War on Terror. Because Iraq and Afghanistan are 'Over There' and the public media largely censors the horrors for public consumption, the American electorate pretty much allowed the US administration to keep spinning tales of change, success and an eventual happy ending. However, anyone who reads history knows that the downfall of empires is almost always caused by over-extension; by waging expensive wars on multiple fronts. In another time, the media might have pointed this out but, even if wise commentators have done so, their warnings would have been drowned out in the perpetual nightly news circus that pitches opinion against counter-opinion with the result that all opinions cancel each other out and the hapless viewer is left none the wiser.

I am voting for Obama because the neo-cons have sold America down the river, have destroyed America's reputation in the world, have undermined the Constitution , and have taken away - temporarily, I hope - some of our essential freedoms, all in the name of The War on Terror. This has been accomplished with the complicity of a cowed and compromised media. I am voting for Obama because John McCain is way too old to bear the crushing burdens of the presidency. I have many friends around the same age who are in better health an more energetic than McCain and they are all slowing down. It is a grave mistake to elect a man of advanced age to the presidency. I am voting for Obama because he is a great communicator. In this day and age, the US president has to be able to communicate with the American electorate and the world. The most effective presidents - Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Reagan and Clinton, have been great communicators. We need a great communicator now more than ever before and Obama holds out that hope. I am under no illusions that Obama is some Robin Hood who is going to solve all the problems of Republic and restore the purity of America. He is a politician. To achieve his goal he has already made unpalatable and unpublishable compromises; of this I have no doubt. But he does represent change and the best hope to reverse the awful and catastrophic policies perpetrated on America and the world by the existing regime. Also and incidentially, I am voting for Obama because it is high time that a person of color should occupy the White House. It is long overdue.

By nature I am totally apolitical. Politics are anathema to me. But politics are now so intertwined with communications that I see no choice but to weigh in with comment, no matter how little weight my comment will carry.