Edwards trial and big picture

[veronica_rich]

Eight years ago, I voted for John Edwards - well, I voted for John Kerry, but Edwards was his VP candidate on the ticket, too. I liked some of his ideas, how he was one of the first to point out "the two Americas" and bring attention to the disparities in human services and distribution of opportunity in this country, and I liked that he didn't start out rich. (I'm also one of the few people who understands while you should never trust a lawyer too far, they're not usually evil bastards with no soul - I worked for a criminal defense lawyer for several years, knew others through him, and found they were basically decent people trying to make a living who largely believed even if a person HAD committed a crime, the justice system still needed to observe rules in treating them a certain way; trust me, they didn't like some of their clients any more than you or I would. And some of them even had lines - the one I worked for wouldn't take rape cases).

Yesterday, Edwards got off of federal charges of criminal use of campaign funds, on jury indecision and technicalities. Was this right? I don't know all the details, so I'm not going to tell you. I can say I don't think any conviction, had it happened, should have been based on his personal behavior involving his now-dead wife, mistress, and child - a low-down dirty dog he might be, but if there was campaign malfeasance, THAT'S what needed to be proven. (And I'm not saying there wasn't, just because it wasn't proven beyond reasonable doubt or convicted. Remember O.J. Simpson, y'all ...) For this reason alone, though, I know there are going to be people angry he didn't get his "just deserts." They're sure entitled to be angry with him personally, as am I. Possibly even on campaign finance law.

But what I want to know is, are these same people just as upset that there are war criminals still on the loose who were in charge of our country for the first several years of this century, who've never been charged or tried - one of whom got his portrait hung up in the White House yesterday? It's just a thought I had early this morning while driving to work.

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[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

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As for jobs and the economy, it should be Job One to build it all back up. I always twitch a little, when I hear people insinuating this is all on Obama like he's the one who brought about our ruination in the last three and a half years. For one, he has tried some actions to stimulate sectors of the economy with jobs and spending - people who complain about stimulus packages and road work and unemployment benefits extensions and health care are not taking an important thing into account: A grand portion of the money spent on those initiatives is spent in local economies. (Some of it by necessity has to go elsewhere - all the petroleum-based materials in new and repaired highways, well, the oil probably isn't coming from the U.S.) Ditto with the auto companies' bailouts - the point was to preserve jobs, and there aren't as many as there were several years ago, but there are more than there would be if any one or two of the Big Three had gone under. (Hell, even Romney is trying to take credit for it now, and Bush, in one of the moves I approved, is the one who started that ball rolling in late 2008.) I'm not making excuses for or against either side, but whether it was Obama or McCain who came after Bush and Cheney, they had a HELL of a job to tackle rebuilding our economy. (And yes, this includes the long-term after-effects of NAFTA, which both Clinton and Bush Sr. are responsible for, the motherf****ers.)

For another thing, these two wars are tied to the economy. How can we spend 2-point-something-trillion on no-bid contracts and troops and weapons and rebuilding what we've bombed and it not affect our own economy here at home? It does; that's money we could have spent on education or stimulating our own businesses and organizations to improve society. If we didn't insist on having a war every 20 years or so just because we can, we'd still spend on troops and weapons to have in store, but it would be a fraction of the cost, plus mean less death and destruction. (Which, at the rate we're breeding, maybe that has to happen, I don't know ... but don't ask me to approve of it or want to pay for it.)

Of course "hope and change" was a bunch of words; both sides have used a variation of it for 230 years ... whatever the two sides are at the time, LOL. Obama promised to close Gitmo and hasn't; he promised a public option health care bill, then backed down on it, too. Also, he hasn't put an end to Afghanistan war like he should (to be fair, he never promised to do that - I paid attention and to my frustration, he never said anything on it). But, if there are two options, you better believe I'm not voting for the one that's aligning himself with the party of open greed and destruction and outrageous lies for the past two decades. It's possible Romney isn't a bad guy and would be a moderate on issues I care about moderation on, but I can't tell because like every other GOP candidate for years, he's trying to mollify the Jesus freaks (and I do mean the vocal, radical freaks - not sensible, thinking Christians) and Teabaggers, and paying little attention to the center.