Change is coming to America

In less than 12 months on the steps of the capitol, our country will witness the oath of office for a new president and George Bush will become something of a footnote, only referenced as the man who put us in this horrendous mess. We will have survived the Bush era but can this country endure the next president?

As the Clinton campaign comes to a painful and long over due end, and the John McCain distracters self-destruct the Republican Party, the only thing left to assume is that Barack Obama will become the man in the oval office for the next four years.



Change is coming to America, but can this country handle such sweeping change?

With President Obama at the helm and a house and senate controlled by democrats, we can expect a resurgence of income taxes and a reduction of military presence in the Middle East. We can expect endless hours of infighting and finger pointing regarding what is wrong with the economy and how to best stop the continuing recession while being faced with increasing and rapidly rising costs of energy, basic food items and medical care.

Any reduction in military spending will help prolong the recession, while the lack of US forces in the Persian Gulf will cause oil prices to soar to heights never deemed plausible a decade ago. American auto makers already struggling will continue to cut labor costs, as demand for the once profitable SUV market goes the way of the mini van. Builders will drastically cut back or eliminate new housing starts completely, leaving thousands of illegal workers stranded on the wrong side of the border.

With a quasi minority in the White House entitlement advocates will descend upon Washington and the White House like locust, demanding social programs for the poor, the homeless and minorities suffering from the lingering effects of perceived discrimination.

I shook hands with Barack Obama in Orangeburg on a cold February day in 2007, and I felt then as I do now that most assuredly he would become the next president of the United States. The reason is his unwavering charisma and that Americans are tired of living in fear while enduring the nearly decade long war on terror.

A war that has done nothing to secure our borders, remove the threat of terrorist attacks, improve our image overseas, or reduce the cost of our oil. A war where the CIA, Justice Department and FBI throw due process out the window, scrutinize our phone records and whisk suspected terror plotters away to prisons that have no known address. While everyday Americans are terrorized by government employees wearing TSA uniforms, enduring intrusive pat downs strip searches and insulting harassment at their own airports.

The general population is convinced that their only hope is to follow the chosen one like fearless lemmings off the cliff into the promise of “change”.

The Rush Limbaugh and Glen Becks of the country are nothing more than hubris promoters of fear and distrust. Their failure to embrace the McCain campaign and recognize the Obama potential will have done nothing but hand the White House to the democrats on a silver platter in the most amazing landslide victory since Ronald Reagan carried every state except Walter Mondale’s home state of Minnesota.



My only hope is that someone will see fit to stock pile the doomsday vault in Norway with the seeds of America as we once knew her.