I am Canadian, and I’ve never felt the need for a leader, but I have to admit Obama has greater leadership skills than I. With Barack as President, I would almost welcome American annexation of Canada. When I vote in the Canadian election, I will choose not Harper, Dion, or Layton. I will vote Barack.

(Actually, Canada has our own Barack: Elizabeth May, the most skilled of the party leaders in perhaps every dimension. She leads the party that synthesizes all the good of the other parties into one: the Green Party.)

Yet, about Barack, I do have doubts:

When we hear about how he will stop tax cuts to big business, I wonder if those businesses will go out of business, leaving people unemployed – but then I hear the answer: that he supports strategic tax cuts to corporations, just not to those that go to businesses outsourcing jobs to other countries, and to businesses that are already reaping record profits (oil and gas).

I find it hard to have sympathy for people who have had great wages and great benefits for years, and now complain when their factory closes – they seem a little spoiled, unaware of how lucky they have been, and unrealistic in their sense that they deserve that life, so I hesitate when I see them take Barack as their hero. I recall Winston Churchill’s statement: “Whoever is not liberal at 25 has no heart; whoever is not conservative at 35 has no brain.” Barack begins to address this when he says:

They claim that our insistence on something larger … is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that’s to be expected. Because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

And then I learn that Barack’s history is not about giving them handouts. He has repeatedly helped re-develop economies, creating new opportunities and moving people from welfare to work.

The more I bring critical analysis to Barack, the more I believe.

Some doubts linger — Does protecting American jobs fit with a belief in international economic development? Should he include some off-shore drilling in his plan? — but compared to my confidence in most areas of his platform, they are insignificant. Except this:

Doe America need to grow up? Barack may restore American and even international belief that America is “the last, great hope on Earth”, but as long as Americans self-esteem requires beholding themselves as the greatest, they are still backwards, not worthy of being leaders.

—–

I posted speech highlights from the Democratic Convention here: (days 1-3 ;  speech highlights day 4).

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Categories: Global Politics
Tags » 2008 | america | economics | election | elizabeth may | future | green party | leadership | obama | peace | Politics | world

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