(I don't mean you specifically AKA, at least you are interested in civil discourse and are interested in ppls opinion. I'm taking about the batshit trolls here and elsewhere. I just can't do this anymore.)

I need to take a break from Salon. So much rage against a good man giving a good speech, rage FOR NO REASON. This election is SO FUCKING EASY for a Democrat or a progressive.

It is the textbook definition of a NO BRAINER. The problem is the angry hordes of people with no brains are trying to make this complicated.

Again, maybe we don't deserve Obama. I thought we learned our lesson with AL GORE. I recall the lynching of that good man by angry leftists, low information voters and a brownshirt media all too well. I mean, what the fuck.

Maybe we deserve a hundred years in Iraq, a war in Iran, 60% unemployment, a wsorthless dollar, no health care for anyone but the super rich. I am no longer emotionally invested in the outcome. I'd rather move to Corsica and shuck clams for a living, at least in Europe the ideals of the Enlightenment still hold sway, anything is better than a country that has gone comepletely fucking batshit crazy.

I don't give a fuck who anyone here or elsewhere votes for, write in Vlad the Impaler for all I fucking care. Either you are capable of rational thought or your not. Its not up to me. Its not really up to Obama. Nothing he can do or say can make the insane sane.

As always, Obama is long on rhetoric and short on substance. I heard a lot of empty talk about the struggles and triumphs of the past, but nothing about what he expects to do for our future except increase the number of troops in Afghanistan and go after those evil terrorists, presumably in Iran, Syria, Pakistan or whatever other country the neocons dictate is a threat to us.

It is is easy to talk about the Berlin Wall, but what about the apartheid wall that Israel is building with US tax dollars to steal land from the Palestinians? Apparently, that isn't what Obama had in mind when he talks about tearing down walls. He invokes the Berlin Airlift, and the specter of the Soviets blockading and starving out the populace of Berlin in an attempt to force them into submission. But he has vowed to do "everything in his power" to defend another evil regime that is blockading and starving the people of Gaza in attempt to force them into submission. I take it we won't be seeing a "Gaza Airlift" or a Marshall Plan to save the Palestinians anytime soon.

How convenient that he mentions the defeat of Apartheid in South Africa, while supporting apartheid in Israel and the Occupied Territories. The president he claims to admire the most, Ronald Reagan, was an active opponent of sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa, and like many other US presidents an active proponent of state-sponsored terrorism throughout the world, particularly in Central America. Maybe we need to look at the terrorism we support before we address the terrorism that has arisen to resist it.

In short, spare me the hot air and the bullshit. We've heard this speech a thousand times before and it is every bit as meaningless now as the multiple times before it. How about some concrete plans about what he intends to do to save our country from its imminent collapse? How about some recognition that our greatest enemies are not in Afghanistan, but are internal? How about a promise to break from the barbaric and depraved warmongering of the neocons, or the ruthless greed, corruption and thievery of the deregulated "free market" that have disgraced this country and brought it to the edge of economic bankruptcy and way over the edge of moral bankruptcy?

I really don't get how so many people can't see through this guy. Haven't you had your fill of mealy-mouthed bullshit and vaguely-worded bromides yet? If we are to save this country, we need someone who will openly, honestly and radically break from the failed and destructive policies of the past, not someone who invokes Reagan of all people as the kind of president he'd like to be. Yeah, I'm sure he he'll be marginally better than McCain, but the people dodging US bombs throughout the world might not be able to notice the difference.

achtung achtung SCHIWE SIZN es verbotten!

Throughout March

When yellow stars of crocus

Come and go

Throughout the ‘gleichshaltung’

When Herr Goebbels distorted

Stalingrad into victory

Throughout the beginnings of 1943

When allied bombs

Began to crumple buildings

German women –

Most “pure” Aryans –

Marched to ‘polizei’ headquarters

On the Rosenstrasse

Demanding release of their spouses

Jewish men – consigned to die

By goose-stepping troopers ready to bring storm

From Berlin’s railway station

The trains continued to roll

Whistles signaling a horrible premonition

Or was it a recurring ‘nachtmare’

Images of snarling dogs

Herding frightened prisoners

Silently consigned to Riga, Osciem, Thereisenstadt,

Across flowering fields

Where yellow stars of crocus

Come and shortly go

Never realizing the dreaded Gestapo

Efficiently snapped pictures

And made meticulous notes about

These purebred German women

Carrying banners defying the invincible Reich

Insisting on freedom for their husbands

And the people of Berlin

Hid their eyes and closed their minds

While these women screamed and shouted

For illusory justice

Hoping to end

Ongoing ‘konzentrationslager’ madness

Hoping to end atrocity

At least for their own ‘ehemanns’

And on a bright day

When yellow stars of crocus briefly bloom

Jail cells opened as train whistles wailed

Or was it

A child’s screaming in terror

Which summons recurring dread

As the recently released cry

Thankful for another day

Whispering

Praying that those packed on trains

Should be as lucky

As they were now – ‘zugts afen mir’

Leaving for homes momentarily saved

By love of those Aryan wives

Only a few

Observing the ritual ‘schiwe sizn’ –

Sitting on low stools mourning

Coming death

Knowing

They and their wives

Would soon be permanently taken away

From life

As fleeting as the yellow stars of crocus.

• {this is a true story of German women’s

bravery on the Rosenstrasse during WWII}