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In addition to my objections to Obama on the grounds that he openly commits to plans to increase the size of and spending on the US military, if he is elected, and his lack of experience and the smell of his Resco real estate deal, his recent statement here,
The next time you pay at the pump,or think about how easily (unhesitantly)we blundered into Iraq, and how much it has cost us, when you think about treasury debt that has mushroomed from $5.65 trillion in Oct., 2000. to $9.2 trillion, <a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np">this month</a>, when you think about the suburban lifestyle buildout of the last 27 years, the lack of investment in passenger rail and other mass transit infrastructure, and in alternative energy development, the near total dependence on petroleum fueled transpost, and our $850 billion annual trade deficit,aggravated by our daily consumption, with just six percent of world population...of 25 percent of the world'sdaily petroleum output, half of it imported...<h3>ask yourself....am I better off today because, in 1980, the majority of voters turned toward the escape of the Reagan "happy talk", and away from the challenges, hard truths, and proposed solutions in the Carter malaise speech:</h3> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/...ps_crisis.html

Please read it, it's not that lengthy. Our problems are much greater now than when president Carter gave that speech, in 1979. Did Reagan improve or further aggravate any of the challenges and problems that Carter described, or did he lead the country away from confronting and solving them. Optimism is inspirational, compelling....nobody is attracted to an alarmist. Optimism is also infectious, escapist.

Vote for somebody, who at long last, wants to confront and mitigate, as best as can be done, after so many years of denial and neglect, and with so few financial resources and future viability, compared to just seven years ago. Vote for someone with faith in good, accountable government, in government's ability to improve equitable distribution of wealth, political power, and justice. That candidate won't be the most compelling or agreeable speaker, The one who makes you feel like a moth being drawn to a flame will sound and look most compelling. He'll make you feel good.
......and in the past, <h3>indicate that Obama is pandering or he is ignorant about history.</h3> Reagan campaigned on "Vietnam was a noble war", and on a platform of class and ethnic division that appealed to a constituency engaged in an sometimes painful but neccessary and constructive introspection about US foreign and military policy, race relations, and domestic energy consumption and pursuit of alternate energy development. Reagan's message was, "you know what? you don't have to go through any of that, let us close our eyes and concentrate on how great we truly are, and let "the free market" and blind, patriotic "white pride" transport us to a "city on a hill"....and nothing changed no lessons about foreign or military or energy policy were learned, and racewas used as a "wedge" to demonize the least powerful (cadillac driving welfare queens...)... and US treasury debt swelled from $1 trilliion to $2.5 trillion, at then end of eight years of Reagan. Instead of energy independence commitments and legislation launched after Carter's "Malaise" speech, synfuels research was cronyized and dismantled, and solar energy devlopment, financed via government/industry partnerships and grants/tax credits, was sold off....the entire fledging industry, to the petro-corps.

...but we felt great again, militarism was, and is good again, and Gulf war I, and later, Iraq and Afghanistan, were "noble wars", too....and the liberals and the mainstream news media were still forcing the military to fight with one hand tied behind it's back. Oil is $100/bbl. we have no national alternative energy plan, we're vulnerable to the whims of hostile governments of oil exporters in the M.E. , and in our own hemisphere, and the US treasury seems on a deficit spending path to bankruptcy, and the oil price aggravated trade deficit drives the purchasing power of our currency ever downward.

Patriotic Americans are incredulous, that, in such a great country (did I mention that we're at a crisis condition, as far as foreign oil dependence, and it looks like the trade and treasury deficits may drive the dollar to zero value?) some universities resist rebuilding the ROTC buildings their alumni,nearly 40 years ago, as students, burned to the ground?

If you read <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E0DD1730F93AA25752C0A962958260">the determination of Iran Contra prosecutor</a>, Lawrence Walsh, it is clear that Reagan's greatest "gift" was to make the wrongdoing, incompetence, and coverup of the last seven years at the white house, even a possibility. Reagan's Iran/Contra lawbreaking and contempt of congress and towards special prosecutor Walsh and his investigation, was Nixonesque, without the acountability and shame. He ushered in a new era of the unaccountable and shameless executive. After the special prosecutor statute was unleashed to harass Clinton for eight full years, the challenges to it, begun in the Reagan administation as an attack against Lawrence Walsh, was not renewed.

Trickle down, Reagonomics still influences the growing wealth inequity, and the "concession", made by the wealthies....a 30 percent capital gains tax ratein exchange for 1986 "tax reform" which heavily reduced their earned income taxation, and with the wealthiest enjoying an even larger percentage of total capital gains, is just 15 percent today, even less on real estate profits realized on sales of high dollar priced residences.....and Obama admires those "changes", and "change agent", Reagan.

Welcome to 1962, Barak....that is where Mr. Reagan led us back to, not forward.