Times just keep on changin’, yet people stay the same

IDS Opinion Columinst Chase Cooper wants us to think that a vote for Barack Obama, and likely a vote for any Democratic candidate, is a change for the worse (“Keep the Change,” Jan. 29). On the contrary, I can’t by any stretch of the imagination conceive how the nation could change for the worse. In the eight years since Bush took office, our government has grown bigger, more expensive, more invasive and more secretive, and our president has failed to deliver any of the things he promised us. Our generation stands to inherit the massive failures of the Bush administration. Our economy is in a sinkhole only months after oil companies posted record-shattering profits, and Bush continues to rack up our national debt as if it doesn’t exist. While our country’s CEOs are wallowing in money, many people are forced to leave their homes because of the subprime mortgage crisis. Social Security is still broken, despite our president’s many guarantees that he would fix it. In the most developed country in the world, more than 40 million people can’t get access to the basic health care they need. While Bush claims that we’re “addicted to oil,” we remain the sole developed country in the world to not endorse the Kyoto protocol. He also proposed the solution of drilling in Alaska, rather than developing a comprehensive energy plan with incentives for developing new technology that will benefit not only our environment, but our economy as well.\nSo while Mr. Cooper is afraid of the change that Obama presents, I welcome it. In fact, I believe that, in part, it has already arrived. I’m proud that in my lifetime, I witnessed a party have a woman and an African-American as its two main candidates. But while this prospect is exciting, the opportunity is nothing if we don’t elect someone who represents a real change from our present course. My advice to Mr. Cooper comes from the poet-laureate of rock, Bob Dylan:\n“Your old road is\nRapidly agin’.\nPlease get out of the new one\nIf you can’t lend your hand\nFor the times they are a-changin’.”