My step-father is one of those guys who knows a whole lot about a whole lot but has never been to college. He's a retired sheet-metal worker who spent two tours in Vietnam as a Seabee and raised five kids, with an assist on two more. He is as optimistic as he can get after all the shit he has seen.

He understands that Barack Obama is our last, best chance to start delivering on the founding documents, which explains why Colorado is trending blue these days.

He is also more than a little pessimistic. He has seen his generation squander and lay waste the country they were given to protect. He has seen the middle class systematically squeezed as pensions were raided and jobs shipped overseas. He has lived with the pain of injuries suffered while fighting OUR country's war in Vietnam, pain that we failed to fix when he managed to make it home alive.

He has seen every promise broken by our government that it has ever made. Worst of all, he has seen the change in our government as his generation inherited the mantle of power from the World War II generation and promptly turned it over to corporate America, a trend that started with Nixon's election in 1968. He has had a front-row seat for this takeover.

Yet he remains hopeful because of the next generations coming up - Generation Jones, Generation X & Y, Millennials - are poised to move into positions of greater responsibility and have been challenged to get involved by a charismatic and transformational leader.

That is why he is still hopeful.

As we had this conversation the day before the most recent primary (he predicted a loss for Obama, but hoped it would be small) I realized that the only reason we are even in a position to make this country work for all people is because of the lessons learned at the knee of the Baby Boomer generation. Many of us have Boomers for parents. Many of us were raised on protest songs and stories about a more turbulent time. A time when rights were being fought for while a peaceful center had been found as well. We were raised on dreams about a City on a Hill, of a utopia that can exist if we all care enough to make it happen.

We were taught that we could create reality, but to never trust the government.  Everything we see today shows us they are right - we can create reality and the government can't be trusted. 

This was a nice line of thought for me, because the Boomer generation has also been the one that hastened our destruction and allowed (in fact propelled) our government to evolve into a fascist state, corporate-controlled and bottom-line focused. That is also their legacy. A mountain of debt and a plan for the future that has no strategy. Tactics that concentrate at the ground beneath our feet instead of goals seven generations out. That is their legacy as well.

They created a reality that is demonstrably monstrous.

I wonder what my generation's legacy will be. So far Generation X has been trying to do good by most people. We also have our ruthless capitalists that are squeezing every last dime from whatever advantages they can exploit. I think it is a smaller percentage in Gen Y, my little brother's generation. They are starting to think in terms of ecological and sociological capitalism - doing well by doing good, for profit and for benefit.

This sustainability trend is picking up steam across the current generations.

Our defects, as a species, seem to be fixing themselves quicker than they can kill us. Just when we couldn't wait another moment for a solution, we have back-to-back-to-back generations who are more capable and willing than ever before to take on the challenge. If we can continue to evolve at the rate we have seen recently, it is hard for me to not hope that we can in fact achieve all those pretty words that Thomas Jefferson used to define our nation in the Declaration of Independence, before the compromises of his day turned black Americans into 3/5 of a human being.

At the end of the day, the Boomer legacy is one of starting us down a path toward change. They saw an opportunity to turn our country into something drastically better than what they would be given by their parents. In large part, they have been very successful. The job hasn't been completed because it was always a multi generational effort to get over 400 years of national disgrace and a bloody past.

I guess all I have to add is: Thanks!

In the interests of keeping things civil, I would like to ask all of Hillary's millions of fans to remember that my opinion of her is no reflection of my opinion about you. 

I don't even know you. 

I may use harsh words, depending on what is being discussed, but I certainly have no reasons to feel have the same negative feelings about you as I do about Hillary Clinton.  She has a long record that I was  obliged to examine when she decided to run for president.  I cannot and will not vote for her based on that record. 

Our difference of opinion about candidates doesn't mean we have differing goals with regards to most policy decisions. 

Don't take my poor opinion of Hillary Clinton as an indictment of you, your relative level of intellectual capacity or as somehow being reflective of Barack Obama.  My obviously "flawed" opinion notwithstanding, Barack Obama has never failed to be a gentleman toward Senator Clinton.

So, having said my piece about both Clintons with what I felt was appropriate and fact-based language, I don't see any reason why we can't all be friends no matter who we support or who we will or will not vote for in the general election.

I will try to keep my criticisms focused on specific incidents rather than general impressions.  I will save my harshest words for only those most persistent and stubborn Trolls, whoever they may represent, but at all times will do my best to be as even-keeled as I am capable of being.  Still, subjective metrics will never be absolute. 

We all deserve a better country, but must make due with what we are able to create.  I think we can create something wonderful if we maintain this current momentum beyond November.

I agree that it is all my fault if Hillary's supporters agree to not desert their democratic ideals should Barack become the nominee. 

Taking full responsibility is as much of an apology as I am able to muster. 

After a year and half of campaigning, I officially hate Hillary.  I am neither proud of that fact nor willing to let it change my tone, but I am done giving her the benefit of the doubt.  I am done with the idea of ever voting for her for any position at any time for any reason until the day I die.  I would feel dirty and less human if I cast a vote for her.  The depth of my disgust is really too deep to ever impart on a blog. 

Maybe when I get my radio show going that will help.  I love to talk.  

This morning on CBS at 7:02 eastern, I saw a woman who was clearly insane.  The female equivalent of Nicholson's Joker in Tim Burton's Batman.  Minus the make-up job and over-the-top acting.  Hillary's make-up is clearly better than Jack's, and she is playing the role of a life-time.  The acting job Hillary is pulling seems transparent to me but is clearly Oscar-caliber for many democratic voters this year. 

I started off as an Obama supporter but moved to Kucinich as his platform was much closer to an America that I would love to live in, though wasn't all that likely in the short-term.  I like an underdog, so he got my support.  That he was a scrappy dude and brought things up that needed discussing was enough for me. He initially got my time on the blogs and my money.

However, I always knew that I would be back to Barack as the only realistic choice for president.  His history and background makes me feel he is every bit as progressive as Kucinich, but Barack knows instinctively that he can't run that way and still expect to win.  Not this year.  This year he needs to tread a very fine line indeed.  Angry Man of Any Color doesn't get elected president of the United States in 2008.

That an angry Hillary has gotten as far as she has despite the utter tragedy that is her campaign team and its ham-fisted strategy is something I wonder about constantly.  I amazed at the bold idiocy that somehow never leads to ruin.  The things that she has gotten away with are incredible.  The things her husband has gotten away with are equally without compare.  

Hillary has run like a neocon (I call her a neolib, the opposite side of the same filthy, fascist coin - government of, by and for corporations) and a good portion of the Democratic Party were (and still are) completely fooled.  The same way they have been fooled since 1992 when the DLC took over.  All an enormous lead did for Hillary was make her loss take that much longer.

I fell in love with Philadelphia this weekend as I visited the birthplace of our nation and saw a TON of Obama support. 

I sure hope Pennsylvania will put us out of Hillary's misery today.