24 February 08

Touching the Third Rail

To the immense relief and, indeed, pleasure of our County folk, there has emerged a presidential candidate, a second such, with the courage to touch the third rail of U.S. politics: Israel/Palestine and Saudi Arabia.

Ralph Nader! may his tribe increase!

There is little to almost no expectation that the informed of our county will actually vote for Mr. Nader, but it has been established that nearly 99% of our population (at our last poling) wish to discontinue our patronage of Israel and its genocide against the original occupants of Palestine, the Palestinians . We/they simply want justice for the Palestinians. The Palestinians have democratically elected leaders, but this administration must accept the Israeli label for them, “terrorists”, simply because they want their country back and are willing to fight for it.

Then we have the truly arrogant and obnoxious Saudis whom we allow damn all for their oil.

We see not one whiff of our praised and desired political system - democracy- there, but, alas, we see oil and feel we cannot ask our citizens to raise the drivers’ age to 18, cut it off at 80, allow no high school or college student parking and thus save millions of lives in addition to much oil consumption. If we were willing to make any sacrifices at all, we would not have to put up with the insults and waste we face daily.

NOW, if Mr. Nader can force his opponents in the Presidential race to acknowledge the third rail, he will have done far more for this country than most of the others, most of our elected combined.