why should I wear a pin to support their lying, thieving, murderously false vision?

This is the one thing Obama has said that has really impressed me.

But Edwards wears that Outward Bound pin in tribute to his son.

Edwards talks about what America needs to be paying attention to -- in the 30 years since Reagan's "Morning" dawned in America, look what we the people have given up (not voluntarily!)

We've lost our peace. When Reagan took office the US was not at war. When Bush I took office the US was not at war. When Bush II took office the first time the US was not at war. We have been fighting two wars for more than five years now. In the loss of that peace, we have lost more than 4,000 Americans -- armed services members all, men and women who believed in the ideals of America enough to lay their futures, their fortunes, their limbs and lives on the line. In the five years of the Bushwars, we've been robbed of peace; robbed of mothers, fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles, brothers, sons, daughters, friends, loved ones -- and for what?

We've lost our futures. Children of more than 80% of the current working population of this country (those whose parents aren't pulling down six figures apiece) are being shut out of more and more opportunities by the rising cost of books, tuition, room and board, transportation -- and by the lowering bar of NCLB.

We've lost our jobs. We don't build cars in America anymore, or car parts. We assemble stuff that comes in from overseas. Our faithful generations of workers, farmers, teachers, tailors, freighters, railroad engineers, brakemen, conductors, factory workers, butchers, bakers, jewelers, programmers, mapmakers, photographers, newspaper reporters, proofreaders, editors, sound engineers, what has become of their children? They're fighting for temp spots as telemarketers, these days, because corporations have chosen not to honor the contracts they bargained for, chosen not to continue to pay the wages the American worker earns (or the Mexican worker, or the Guatemalan worker, or the Venezuelan worker, or the Micronesian worker!); the corporations have chosen not to allow either their workers to have access to a single-payer healthcare system (what, you don't think BCBS and Kaiser don't know that single-payer would wreck their stock profiles?)or to provide real healthcare for those same workers and their families; and the corporations whine about healthcare costs now, too.

We've lost the law. We can't go to court for justice any more. The corporations have bought and paid for "tort reform" to ensure that only those who can afford the level of lawyers corporations routinely retain against possible need can stand up to the long-drawn-out process that has replaced civil justice in this country. Criminal justice? Yeah, right.

We've lost our way as a nation, in the odious rantings of Coulter and Malkin, Hannity and O'Reilly, and most of all in the noisome Rush.

On the morning of 9-12-01, the whole world reached out to us, not to give us a hand out, but to offer us a hand of friendship, a gift of brotherhood, a pull back from the brink of horror and madness.

Our government spat on that hand.

It is long past time we called our government to account for its arrogance, its deliberate incompetence, its obstreperousness, its unconscionable corruption -- not just of our politics, our voting, our national discourse, our Constitutional governance, but its fundamental greed-based crookedness.

9-11-01 didn't change a damn thing.
We have let the Bush government do what the terrorists never dreamed they could achieve.
We have let Bush destroy our Republic.

How long do we just keep doing nothing?

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

on my personal Candidate Preference scale. Taking that pin off--when it's like it's become a fucking holy relic--took guts indeed.

In fact when I had just seen the headline about it but hadn't read his explanation yet, the first thing that went through my mind was the old story about the custom at speeches given by Stalin.

He'd finish up and everyone in the crowd would of course leap to their feet and commence to clap. And minute after minute would go by and they would continue to clap. Half an hour would pass and people would begin to faint from sheer exhaustion. But everyone else would keep on clapping ...because they were afraid to stop. The first person to stop clapping would be noted by observers who were stationed around, and that person was not likely to ever be seen again afterwards.

Stalin was of course as bored with the clapping as everyone else was, but that wasn't the point. The person brave enough to dare to be the first to stop was showing independence of thought, and that made him a threat. He had to be eliminated just for the sake of the example.

Obama just stopped clapping. Huzzah. More power to him.

I've really been going back and forth as the Media For Hillary Juggernaut has been building steam. As long as Edwards is in the race he's my choice, but should he drop out by the time the TN primary comes along, which way do I go? As of right now (subject to revision by future events of course) I think I know which way I'm leaning.