Our generation has never had someone to grasp onto politically. We were too young for Clinton, Gore didn’t get exciting until last year, and John Kerry was the answer for a previous generation – one that apparently forgot everything it had lived through. I say this while recognizing that our generation is still quite young; we have only voted in one presidential race. However, that is not reason enough for us to not have a politician who is, by definition, “ours.”
You can blame this on the fact that America has become too trusting in the setup of our government to question the job itself or the person in that job. We should be in the streets day and night until the problems in Iraq are fixed, the problems we created – our problems. We should be in the streets protesting, non-violently, the illegal invasion of our privacy under this president and his crack team of cronies. We should be taking over university offices to show our support of a movement that has not begun, the movement to hold people accountable, to show our solidarity to the cause, the cause of taking back our government from those who have forgotten what the institution stands for. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are what we are guaranteed, and yet we sit down and take it every time the lives of our soldiers are put unnecessarily into harm’s way, every time our liberties are limited and squared off to the point that we live in a police state, and every time our pursuit of happiness is discarded for a pursuit of wealth and greed by those in power.
In 2003, President Bush told us those who thought that we were in Iraq for oil was ludicrous and that they should be ashamed of themselves. In 2006, he used the fact that Iraq had vast oil fields in a stump speech for GOP candidates to justify why so many Americans are dying in Iraq. Is anyone paying any attention? The White House was used to out a CIA spy because she was married to someone with enough sense to show that Bush and his cronies were liars and misleading the American people. Secret meetings involving oil companies that shaped our energy policy are being held in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, and they are refusing to let us know what is said. What happened to transparency of government? Is it necessary to draw up our own Magna Carta for Bush? Are we all so consumed by greed, so focused on our pursuit of wealth and the perfect resume that we have forgotten what good man can do?
We need a leader to show us how America can be a beacon of light on a dark, cloudy night. We need a leader who can lead all Americans toward the truth in government and democracy. We need a leader who will stand up when injustices are occurring, such as in Sudan’s Darfur region, and say, “We will be committed to the betterment of mankind,” and give the time and resources necessary to help fix the problem. If America were viewed as a nation in which humanitarian efforts are more important than wealth and riches, then it wouldn’t be such a target for terrorist activity. It could be that beacon of light for all people, no matter race, religion or skin color.
Our government owes us. We have the power. We need to use the power that is guaranteed to all people through the constitution and its amendments to show that we are fed up with these injustices and that we would rather help mankind than continue this decadence that has brought nothing but shame to our once-glorious nation.
In 2008, we must find our new leader. This new leader must be one that all people can look at and call their president.
Some say that decades of experience are necessary to become president, but does that still hold true when those decades of experience involve some of the largest wrongs our country has committed? Is this so-called experience necessary when that experience was one of decadence and greed? I say no. I say a new kind of leader is necessary.
