The Issues

     What are the issues before the nation, and how can you tell?
     I'm struck--one might say appalled--by the efforts being poured into the current round of primary elections and fearful that the main event will be even worse. Living next door to New Hampshire has provided great detail and what passes for news, even as I tried to ignore the whole thing. The process continues through Florida and beyond.
     Conscientious citizens spend a great deal of time listening to the candidates, the debates, and the commentators. They discuss and argue: all in an effort to pick just the right person. After all, that person might be president--incumbent Obama has entered the campaign--and must be counted on to turn the country around.
     But what are they talking about? Every campaign organization picks "issues" calculated to help its candidates win, issues that favor these candidates, or those issues that denigrate opponents. Political ads and the media follow suit, and we soon find ourselves trapped in a web of minutiae, totally distracted from what really counts. Single issue voters are particularly vulnerable in this process. I ask: If we use a dart board to select our president, is there any chance that we'll return to back alley abortions?
     You may not agree with my choice of our number one problem--corruption of our administration and legislature. But how about number two, our burgeoning debt?
     With the exception of insider trading, none of the candidates is credible regarding corruption. And none makes any arithmetic sense, at all, as to how the debt will be managed in a responsible fashion.
     We have a crystal ball at hand; it's called Europe. No, we're not as bad off as Greece. With the possible exception of the U.K., Europe does not have a plan to manage its debt, and it hasn't touched the economic reforms needed for balanced, healthy economies--the two go together. And we are behind them in terms of recognizing, defining, and accepting our real problems.
     How about a permanent Occupy D.C. Movement?
    
     And now a brief word from our sponsor:
     My new novel, STRIKE, is now available as a Kindle e-book on Amazon. For more information, consult my blog. Click on the following--
www.joebakewell.wordpress.com