Politics are a matter of perception. Some voters see one candidate as a right wing fanatic; others might see the same person as a left wing liberal. Of course it all depends upon what that candidate says to what crowd of people on a given day during the election cycle. Causes are also like that. During the 1970s school busing was seen as pure evil by some, a necessary evil by others, and a logical correction to a past injustice by others, but one thing is certain, there were those that used the court ordered procedure to advance their own political agendas and ambitions.
Today, we have two men from the two major political parties vying for President of the United States. Neither candidate has the undivided support of the populace. Neither has its adulation or commands total respect for his views or actions, or personal aspects. Former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney appears to many to represent an elitist top-down view of government. His latest remarks that seem to reinforce that perception were made during a fund raising event in Boca Raton, Florida in May, and were released by Mother Jones Magazine. What Mr. Romney and many within his party fail to understand is that the vast majority of citizens want good paying jobs that are meaningful to their lives. Not every college grad can go their parents and beg for money to start up a business. Another reality is that there are just so many private sector jobs that can stand alone.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the United States is nearly 315 million. There are not enough private sector jobs to handle the entire working age population. Because of this inability by the private sector to provide enough sustainable, meaningful employment offering adequate salaries and benefits, it falls upon the various government entities within the nation to pick up the slack. By neccessity and not by design the government has become entwined in a symbiotic relationship with private sector employers and the People in general. It is the federal government that provides a need for military equipment procurred from private sector contractors that then hire workers to achieve production goals and contracts. It is the combination of federal and state governments that provider the bulk of infrastructure jobs necessary for the safe transport of citizens and goods. This is all achieved by tax revenues. It is the collection of taxes that fund government required programs of this sort and many private sector jobs.
Yes, there are those that have scrimped and saved to start up their own business, but sadly, such small business ventures generally fail within a three year time span. It then becomes critical for government to provide a proper working atmosphere for such businesses to grow and thrive. If government policies meant to protect the People from the harmful effects of a polluted atmosphere or drinking water are degraded to the point of becoming meaningless then government has failed a national security requirement. Therefore, it becomes encumbent upon business and government to partner to provide the protection the People need and the jobs they require. A proper environment for growth and future jobs also requires a revamping of the current tax code. That means no loopholes, no favoritism, tariff protection if needed, and no raiding of Social Security trust funds or Medicare trust funds to balance budgets.
Thankfully, President Obama has withdrawn American combat forces from Iraq, and is in the process of doing the same in Afghanistan. He completed the work the Bush Administration failed to do. But now we must ask: Why did we go into those nations? With the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I believe we did so to maintain our current energy dependent economic model. There is oil in Iraq, it has a port on the Persian Gulf, it lies adjacent to Kuwait and Iran. Afghanistan is the land through which a natural gas pipeline must cross to bring the Central Asian republics' supply to the Pakistani port of Karachi. This is the world's last known, readily available supply of natural gas that does not require the dangerous and unpredictable fracking technique to extract. Afghanistan also has an easily extractable supply of rare earth minerals that China now has a monopoly on. These minerals are essential to the electronics industry. The problem with this part of the world is that the Taliban are proxy fighters for the Pakistani ISI. Pakistan wants to maintain some degree of control over Afghanistan and to use it as an ally against India. They have proven themselves duplicitous, and have shown they are the transport mafia of overland routes to and from their landlocked neighbor.
With all this in mind, the American People must ask themselves: Who is better equipped to disentangle us from those foreign entanglements our Founding Fathers warned us against, and who is better to lead us to a more prosperous future in which our economy is on a sound, self-sufficient footing unaffected by foreign energy sources? I suggest President Barack Obama is the best leader for the next four years. He has proven himself capable, amiable, knowledgeable, engaged, and steady at the helm. Unlike Mitt Romney, President Obama's view of government is grounded in the belief that it is the grass roots constituency and the sanctity of the common citizen that matters most. I endorse the reelection of President Barack Obama.
