Politics of a New Paradigm

I have to thank Sarah Palin and John McCain.  I have been feeling progressively less enthusiastic about Barack Obama’s candidacy since he has been nominated because he has gone so far to the right that I began to find it difficult to see a profound difference between Obama and John McCain.  I am saddened and outraged by the breathtaking, across the board carnage that has been wrought by the Bush administration, and I want to see real change.  I want to see a clear line of demarcation between McCain and Obama.

Obama’s support for the expansion of nuclear power plants, that absurd “clean coal” crap, and offshore drilling have dimmed my enthusiasm.  His “tough talk” on world affairs suggest a mere shifting of military priorities, not a profound demilitarization of the American mindset.  His pledge of allegiance to AIPAC left me feeling as though we are in for more of the same, since our Middle East policy was written and implemented by dual American-Israeli citizens for the most part.

But now that Sarah Palin and John McCain (I’m not sure who wears the pants in that family) have seen fit to hammer home the “association” between Obama and Bill Ayers,  I am beginning to see the profound differences at the core of the two rival candidacies.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?  Mr Ayers, who Palin and McCain refer to as a “terrorist,” committed some acts of violent protest about 40 years ago because he was outraged over the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War.  Let me lay down some facts about the war he was willing to go to extreme measures to halt.

He was watching his friends and family members get drafted into service and sent to Vietnam.  Many did not want to go.  They were sent against their will to kill and be killed.  That’s pretty heavy stuff.  It is estimated that over 2 million people were killed in Vietnam, and over three and a half million were wounded.  58,169 Americans were killed in Vietnam, including over 11,000 teenagers (stop and think about that).  587,000 innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed.  And by his own admission, John McCain killed more than his fair share of these civilians. (Source: A Vietnam War Diary).

Violent actions perpetrated under the auspices of the American flag are not always moral or legal.  When you were a young American during the war, you saw the body bags on television every day, and your friends, neighbors, and relatives coming home without limbs, in wheel chairs, physically and mentally scarred.  You read reports of the My Lai Massacre, when American troops killed up to five hundred innocent civilians, including the sexual assault and torture of women and children.  There was massive opposition to the war, and William Ayers was one of those who was adamantly opposed, and rightfully so.

It looks to me like he was a passionate young man who was made of such strong moral fiber that he could not reconcile standing idly by, out of harm’s way, when so many people were fighting, dying, and suffering needlessly.   So he participated in a strategy that was intended to get people’s attention, but not kill anyone.  For this the Palin/McCain ticket has branded him a terrorist.  I would suggest that Bill Ayers, a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is a hero of sorts who could intellectually swallow Ms. Palin alive in one gulp.

In the days when Ayers was active in the anti-war movement, if you were a 17 year old kid who just got out of high school, hanging around the basketball courts in New Jersey or Missouri…or Alaska…your own government was far more of a threat to your safety than that of North Vietnam.  There was an infinitely better chance that you would be drafted and killed in Vietnam than killed by an invasion of America by the Vietnamese.  Ayers, and others, knew this, and that is why they were so passionate about stopping the war that they were willing to resort to extreme measures.

When John McCain voted against making Martin Luther King Day a holiday in Arizona, he tipped his hand.  When he called Obama “that one” in Tuesday’s debate, he tipped it a little further.  He went as lilly white as he possibly could in his selection of a running mate.  He admits that he still “hates the gooks.”  He can’t look at Senator Obama, or even utter his name out loud.

Personally, I am not Christian like John McCain and Sarah Palin.  Perhaps that is why I consider the value of all life to be equal.  McCain killed innocent people, on their home soil, with full conscious intent to do so.  The Weather Undergound never killed anyone.  If you don’t think that Americans, and white people in particular, have the right to kill people of other races indiscriminately, by what logic is Ayers a terrorist and McCain a hero?

So I thank Palin/McCain for reminding me about the legacy of Vietnam and John McCain’s background versus that of college professor and educational reformer William Ayers.  It puts things into perspective for me, and I am more enthusiastic about voting against them.