Michelle Obama and the war

Michelle Obama made what for some was a controversial statement at a Wisconsin campaign rally yesterday by saying:

“Hope is making a comeback and, let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change. I have seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues and it has made me proud."

Now the media and many in the blogosphere have done their part in truncating the quote, editing out anything after the first sentence, making her seem like all she doing was America bashing. But even shortened the remark is, no pun intended, unremarkable. That is to say, given the last eight years, let alone the 26 years that have passed since Mrs. Obama was 18, there is more than plenty not to excite many folks into spontaneous ecstatic waving of Old Glory.

This is the richest country in the world that can't keep it's people out of poverty, educate it's children properly, has a dysfunctional healthcare system that makes people fiscally ill while it makes them physically well and seems obsessed with war even if it means making us less safe and jeopardizing our already fragile economic safety net.

There can be no doubt that there are many good things about the United States but the country's wholesale failure to provide for it's people is a tragedy.

Michelle Obama knows this, as many African-Americans do, having grown up in poverty in the south side of Chicago and should be thanked for telling a bit of truth about where we are as a people and how people are finally beginning to understand what needs to happen for us to live in the country we should.

The angry response to her remark is another disturbing example of the willful blindness that people in this country exhibit to the issues facing us.

It's this kind of stupidity that explains why we are in Iraq today. There are too many people in this country who lack even the basic sense of self-preservation and common sense that God gave a dung beetle to recognize what really is happening around them.

This should give everyone pause because no matter how many people now believe the Iraq War was a mistake the same idiocy that got us there in the first place is still there ready to be fearfully brought forth again.

Barack Obama talks about changing the mindset that got us into war. I wish him luck because the terrible truth of the matter is he can count every single fool who is criticizing the veracity of his wife's statement now as a future deterrent to any social, economic or foreign policy programs he wants to implement. Not because they will have reasoned arguments against them but because it is far more comfortable to to be a kneejerk reactionary than to act with reason.

Remember the first thing we can do out of the womb is scream and holler. It takes alot more time to learn how to talk.