An AlterNet article Republicans Have Handed Democrats a Winning Election Issue (http://www.alternet.org/environment/9546 9/) proposes that the Democrats, and Obama in particular, should shift the focus of the energy crisis to renewable energy and away from offshore oil.  According to the article, they should place the emphasis on renewable energy and allow the Republicans to filibuster in Congress against a bill proposing to extend subsidies to the renewable energy sector.  The filibuster would expose the Republican's real agenda, which is to continue to support the oil industry and cut off funding for renewables.

Traditionally, candidates seem to have two ways to travel during an election: the high road and the low road.  Obviously this is oversimplified drivel but it is true that a candidate and his campaign team will choose the general direction of their strategy.  It is becoming very transparent that McCain has chosen neither but has opted for some subterranean, miasmic nether world where he can spew out his calumnies about Obama.

As we mercifully approach the end of the Bush Presidency, the pundits will mercilessly begin the process of evaluating his Presidency.  He has failed in so many areas such as foreign policy, diplomacy or lack of it, respect for the constitution and rule of law, the economy, trade and social security to mention only a few, that it is a challenge to know where to begin.  Since the President recently intoned with great bravado and chest-thumping that the fundamentals in the economy are sound, it sounds like a good place to start.

The author http://www.alternet.org/story/95126/ brilliantly describes how humans evolved to a consumer/capitalistic/patriarchical society which we delude ourselves into believing is sustainable. He omitted a very significant revolution, information, which as the others, accelerated our pace towards ultimate doom unless we escape our delusions.

Half of the American budget is devoted to defense spending and the economy would be in a real quandary without it.  American political leaders would have to decide how to spend all the money freed up and since they believe in minimal government (except for defense, of course), they will face a real challenge.  Possibly they could invest more in space travel to speed up our Mar's program.  Imagine the thrill of the average American, hungry or not, of witnessing such a stupendous technological accomplishment.  If we are sufficiently fortuitous, we might encounter hostile aliens who would force us to spend more on defense again.

Food and water are basic human rights not commodities and people should not be subject to fluctuating prices and supply in the privatized, unregulated, profit-oriented market that benefits investors and multinational corporations.  Treating food and water as commodities is the quintessential example of profits over people.  It makes no sense to allow one group to earn profits at the expense of another group's ability to feed itself.

As rising gas prices, sub-prime mortgages, and nascent credit card disaster impose severe hardships on over 90% of Americans, public discourse focuses on the energy crisis, global warming, alternative fuels, bailouts, interest rates and the attendant economic woes.  As the economic, political, and cultural elites hypothesize over the causes and solutions to the nations problems, they deliberately ignore the real problem which has been the shift over the last 40 years from a Keynesian to a free market economic model.  Whereas Keynesian economic theory embraces the principle of some redistribution of wealth and a major role for government to provide basic programs and services, free market economics embraces the principle that the market should make all economic decisions and government should not interfere and distort the natural priorities attained otherwise.

George Bush's true legacy may not be truly understood for many years.  Domestically he will be remembered as the president who severely weakened the economy, undermined civil liberties, and removed the foundations of democracy.  But it is on the international stage where George Bush will some day be compared to a gunslinger in the old West who shot up and practically destroyed two countries while the local sheriff and his deputies trembled in their boots at the thought of trying to stop him and the local judge supported him.