2008 Woodie Awards
Presidential candidates' solutions use rhetoric, not real answers
Charlie Katebi
Issue date: 2/8/08 Section: Opinion
In the upcoming 2008 presidential election, there are many issues facing the candidates: The lost Iraq war, our broken healthcare and Social Security, our economy in recession. We have not faced such hardships since Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cut us off from their oil in 1973.
Again, we are fighting a losing war, our currency is weakening and an economic depression is not such a far-fetched concept. Yet the solutions that our candidates are proposing are half-assed-they attack the symptoms, but not the root cause of our problems.
All of the candidates promise that we will leave Iraq in the near future, but to what extent? We might end our occupation of Baghdad and Iraq, we might even abandon our bases in all of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. But what good will that do?
Will that really end the growing contempt that the majority of the world has for us. It is not America's military policy that has enflamed the world in its contempt for the U.S. Was it a military presence that provoked the people of Iran to overthrow the Shah of Iran? Was it the sight of American troops that convinced the Cuban people to throng to Castro and overthrow Batista?
Why do they hate us? We have bought their resources and their labor. We take everything and we compensate them with nothing. These impoverished nations opened their borders and their markets to our investment and our experience so they may have a taste of our lifestyle.
What they got was just the opposite. They gave us everything and what did they receive? Widespread poverty, disease, and worst of all: debt. It is our financial and commercial institutions that have transformed the concept of the "haves and have-nots" into a global phenomenon.
No longer are mere individuals designated poor and wealthy, but entire countries and continents are designated these fates. They do not hate us because of our wealth and our freedom. They hate us because we don't share this wealth and freedom.
Again, we are fighting a losing war, our currency is weakening and an economic depression is not such a far-fetched concept. Yet the solutions that our candidates are proposing are half-assed-they attack the symptoms, but not the root cause of our problems.
All of the candidates promise that we will leave Iraq in the near future, but to what extent? We might end our occupation of Baghdad and Iraq, we might even abandon our bases in all of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. But what good will that do?
Will that really end the growing contempt that the majority of the world has for us. It is not America's military policy that has enflamed the world in its contempt for the U.S. Was it a military presence that provoked the people of Iran to overthrow the Shah of Iran? Was it the sight of American troops that convinced the Cuban people to throng to Castro and overthrow Batista?
Why do they hate us? We have bought their resources and their labor. We take everything and we compensate them with nothing. These impoverished nations opened their borders and their markets to our investment and our experience so they may have a taste of our lifestyle.
What they got was just the opposite. They gave us everything and what did they receive? Widespread poverty, disease, and worst of all: debt. It is our financial and commercial institutions that have transformed the concept of the "haves and have-nots" into a global phenomenon.
No longer are mere individuals designated poor and wealthy, but entire countries and continents are designated these fates. They do not hate us because of our wealth and our freedom. They hate us because we don't share this wealth and freedom.
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