THROW ASIDE THE CURTAIN

September 18, 2008

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
~from the Wizard of Oz movie

So much is being thrown at us every day – every minute of every day – on the internet, radio, television, emails, magazine articles, newspaper stories and opinion pages. As I observe America rapidly sinking into the gutter - the Stock Market plunging, the National Debt mounting, Gas Prices bouncing, food prices growing, global warming causing one catastrophic storm after another – I watch and wait for the next big news story, and I study our Presidential candidates. I am hoping they will put it all into some kind of perspective for me. I am looking to them for guidance, for vision, for a plan that will lead us away from some unknown disaster. Instead, they seem busy trying to define each other in some way – usually negative – for me. As if I am not intelligent enough to see and understand for myself, who or what they stand for and capable of making my own decision.

As I see it, at this moment every single one of the candidates is wearing some kind of mask. Either they have donned it themselves or the other party has thrown it on them. Our job, the job of the American electorate, is to lift those masks and try to find the real person who is under there. The person who is going to actual be setting the vision, making the decisions and running this country as President of the United States for the next four years. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we must ignore the warnings and fling back the curtain to reveal the human being controlling all the smoke and mirrors – the person under that mask.

I am finding that discovering the truth is the best way to educate myself regarding the candidates. The following websites have been extremely informative. I encourage you to educate yourself by visiting them:

• The Fact Checker: maintained by the Washington Post as a “truth squad” for the 2008 election.
• Factcheck.org: An excellent site to find out whether or not that ad you just saw was accurate or not.
• Politifact.com: An amazing site with wonderful graphics illustrating whether the claims and counterclaims from both sides are true or false and just how much so.
• OpenSecrets.org: Everything you ever wanted to know about campaign finances but were afraid to ask. Did you know that the candidates in this election have raised over $1 Billion dollars!?
• OntheIssues.org: Just exactly how did those candidates vote on all of those issues? Find out here.
• RealClearPolitics.com: A collection of the weeks best commentary and more.

If all of this doesn’t make you an enlightened voter, I’m not sure what will. Please, let me know if there are other websites, blogs or information out there that I should include on this site. Thanks for reading.

Kathy B.