I'm certainly glad this has come to a head when it did, as I had almost convinced myself that voting for Obama would be okay. I'm glad I had a chance to vote for Ron (oh why hast thou forsaken us?) Paul back in the primaries, but I knew I couldn't stomach voting for either Clinton or McCain given that I view them as flip sides of the same political coin that is giving free hand to the corporations to fleece our nation. My question is why our elected representatives care about the corporations when it's the citizens who vote.

There's no question that our nation has been fleeced. You're going to be seeing more stories about small under-capitalized businesses going into bankruptcy, and then on the CDOs that are built on the loans made to those small businesses to finance their buyout by private equity interests. A startling number of these IOUs will be shown to have been based on 'as-if' appraisals done on the assets collateralizing the debt obligations (which debt presumably would have gone to the completion of the 'as-if' requirements). The cash from the debt was dividended up to the parent private equity firm and parked on their balance sheet where it was protected by the corporate veil. This is what allowed the head of Blackstone to note during their IPO that they book their profits in advance. This was the real lesson learned from Enron, not to book the profits based on a computer model, but rather cash parked on the balance sheet. Just where exactly did you think those billion dollar paydays were coming from? They of course have to put that cash to work to juice their yields, and since energy = prosperity, it's the only market to play in at the moment. And my, how convenient, the regulators are looking the other way so they can play in offshore markets and no one else will notice.

So I'm thoroughly disgusted with the existing power structure that we've had foisted upon us. I had hoped that perhaps Barack Obama was less soiled as a politician, given the relative sparsity of his experience within our current poisoned and sick political environment. Yet his capitulation on such a fundamental principal demonstrates to me that there is zero percent chance I will vote for him. Nor McCain. There is not a single incumbent who will get my vote over the next three cycles. It stinks in D.C. of corruption and blackmail and immoral suasion and all kinds of other nastiness. This nation has too much work to do to have those kinds of forces working against it.

I am not, nor have I ever been afraid that waves of radical Muslims would be spilling over our borders and onto our beaches to behead our helpless men and violate our helpless women and children whilst they wail in despair. There is no attack that I fear will destroy the Constitution to make me quail from my lust for liberty and my birthright as an American to pursue my own destiny free of government coercion. The Constitution is not a piece of paper, it is the values writ in all our hearts for that lust for 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. I am sick and tired of the abomination that has become our elected government, and pray for the kind of bloodless coup come this November that is only truly possible in the United States of America.

But who is a conscientious citizen to vote for?