ELECTION TIME -- a Poem

This has been a long and unpredictable election season. I would have never predicted what has happened, but I couldn't be more pleased. The Bush Years....eight years of misery, cynicism and greed are almost over.

Still, I have no idea how the candidates can endure this constant political warfare.

So as the election nears, I thought I'd post a poem about the emptiness of the election process and what it brings us ultimately.

I hope this time with the election of Barack Obama it will different and that we will finally have someone in the White House again who gives a damn about where this country is heading and wants to do something about it.

Let's certainly hope so.

GP

*****************************************

ELECTION TIME

Am I just a figment of your populist imagination?

Another blurred face in the crowd?

Another voice drowned
out
by the political process?

You aim your TV commercials at my heart
and attempt to inspire my imagination
with flaccid speeches.

Hoping to hook us again
into believing you'll finally make a difference in our lives.

Until after election time,
when we realize we are left like
jilted lovers
with broken hearts
wondering how you rendered us so powerless.

Our pleas
and rage
die in a vacuum
of political expediency.

Washington listens to its own heartbeats
as we wonder what could have been
and live and die in the shadows of our failed dreams.

George Pappas
Copyright 2008

A PAPPAS VIEW PREDICTION -- Obama Will be Our Next President

In 15 days, we get a chance to take our country back from the cynical, the fearful, the shortsighted, the vengeful, and the greedy ... after eight years of misery.

I meant to make this prediction a week or so ago, but I've been too busy to post this blog.

I am confident Barack Obama will be our next president ... barring a horrible event I will not even mention or think about.

In all of the debates, Obama has come across as cool, calm, knowledgeable, smart, visionary and above all, presidential.

By stark contrast, McCain has appeared erratic, cantankerous, disrespectful, angry, frustrated, shortsighted, tired and lacking in ideas or vision. McBush as I like to call him is quick to fall back on his checkered past in Congress and on his war experience.

However, McCain has no real solutions for getting us out of this economic mess or our foreign entanglements. In fact, his lame policies would only continue Bush' s debacle. He doesn't have a firm grasp of the economy, which is all the public is thinking about right now.

Even his campaign's latest hail mary ploy -- appealing to Joe the Plumber backfired. Joe would benefit under a Obama's tax plan not McCain's.

McCain's health plan is a joke and won't do anything to change the existing broken system. He will also tax benefits which makes no sense.
Obama offers a health plan that promise universal health care to everyone. It will not fine small businesses -- that's another McCain lie.

Also it was so obvious in the last debate that all McCain has left is to attack Obama for past associations with Bill Ayers and ACORN. It is so pathetic. Obama explained his association with both well. They are non issues. I mean McCain has had troubling associations with Nixon stooge G. Gordon Liddy, who plotted his own terrorist acts and went to jail, and Oliver North who sponsored the Contra terrorists in El Salvador who tortured and killed thousands.

Obama will also seek policies to develop alternative energy and to get us out a wasteful and costly war in Iraq. He is offering new ideas and a fresh perspective.

McCain represents where we've already been. Obama represents where we want to go. He reminds me of the promise of Bill Clinton in 1992.

I hope Obama can help our country regain its economic power and repair our tattered standing around the world. I believe Obama is as Colin Powell described him this morning as a "transformational figure" who can bring this country together after years of contentious, partisan battles that have accomplished nothing.

McCain's temperament, and his anger issues are troublesome to say the least. We've seen what off the cuff cowboy diplomacy can do. The definition of a maverick is one who is masterless and roams on their own heeding no counsel.

Is this the kind of person we want running our country in what may be one of the most pivotal times in our history?

The challenge for Obama is immense. I have no illusions about that, but he is more than up to the job. Today Powell endorsed him and so did a number of newspapers that have rarely if ever supported a Democratic candidate -- L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, New York Times...the list goes on.

But I knew it earlier this year during his primary battles with Hillary Clinton. He offers a fresh perspective, a more inclusive approach and he just plain inspired me like no politician has in many years. People may have thought they wanted to have a beer with George W. Bush, but is that who you want running your country -- your fun beer buddy. I don't think so. Didn't work out so well.

I want someone like Obama who is thoughtful, calm, intelligent and willing to work with others to get things done on our behalf. Not someone who is stuck in divisive ideology and beholden to corporate interests like Bush and his cronies.

Only time will tell what kind of president Barack Obama will be, but this is an opportunity to change our country in such a fundamental way from the business as usual in Washington.

This is not only the change we need...it is the kind of change that America was created for.

George Pappas

MONEY...and the failings of the U.S. Economy

Our country is facing its worst economic crisis since the depression. Even my own bank Washington Mutual had to be bailed out by JP Morgan Chase and who even knows if that will last. I am hesisitant to put my money in the bank for the first time in my life.

With a serious recession looming, and the idiots in Congress grandstanding over bailing out (or rescuing?) the corporate stooges and thieves while the rest of us go without, I thought I would post a poem about something on a lot people' s minds (mine included) these days -- money. The power we give this necessary tool to rule our lives is incredibly sad at times. We worship billionaires and millionaires while also loathing them at the same time.

Yet we give money -- a man made creation -- its power through defining its worth and the worth of the people who have obtained it.

Still, even money has its limits -- it can't fend off death ultimately or buy true happiness or piece of mind.

Or maybe the Beatles had it right after all ... money can't buy you love ...

GP

***

MONEY

Money is irrelevant
until you don't have any
and the threat of bankruptcy looms.

Then it become a twisted obsession
choking off creativity.

Money is not creative.
It can be earned creatively
or you can buy
creative ventures and
creative freedom with money.

But money is an empty tool
except for the power and significance
we place on money.

Broke, busted and bankrupt
are a few of the ways we talk about
our money problems.

Rich, well off, well heeled
all refer those successful with money.
Their lives are supposed to be rich
with experiences and opportunities.
Yet money has not given these people more life,
wisdom, intelligence or prowess.

We do that through hyping the power of money.

The economics of language confounds us,
haunt us, and defines us.
No denying that.

Empty pockets remain empty pockets.
That hunger gives money its real power.

George Pappas
Copyright 2008