Indebtedness 101
Who Owns the Candidates?

This has long been an issue for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain ... and now attention is being focused on Barack Obama for that issue.

- The unanswered questions about Hillary and Bill Clinton are legend - and fill volumes - Whitewater, Travelgate, Bimbogate, Filegate, Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City bombing and even the current questions about why Hillary refuses to release her income tax records, the lists of contributors to the Clinton foundation or presidential library.

- The questions swirling around John McCain and his indebtedness to his wife's Budweiser Beer company, the Keating Five scandal, and his supposed "war against lobbyists" when his own campaign is headed and run by 59 lobbyists.

- The Rezko affair and whether it touches on Obama, as well as Obama's alleged "favors" to Exelon in watering down nuclear regulations, and his wife's Chicago hospital employer.

These are all legitimate questions ... and yet, one must also realize that the very art or business of politics is founded on compromise. There is no stark black and white divide in the real world we live in. Without compromise, our nation would be in a constant state of gridlock internally and, externally, war on two dozen different fronts - Iraq, Iran, Syria, Serbia, Russia, China, Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, Ecuador - the list could go on and on.

One sorry reality is that one cannot achieve a career in politics or public service without "playing the game." In the current Rezko trial in Chicago, it's aptly called "pay to play." This state of affairs is what poisons our democracy - and it is bigger than any one individual. We have to change the game before we can expect the players to change.

The reality is that one cannot pursue honorable and noble change without getting elected to a position that carries the power and authority of change ... and you cannot get elected to that position without at least to some extent compromising your principles. It's like a teenager's dilemma in getting a job - you can't get the job without experience, and you can't get the experience without the job.

It's a Catch-22 situation.

One factor, which gets little attention, but which is of growing concern to both the left and the right (NAFTA is a good example) is the growing trend toward an unelected world government (George Bush the 1st called it openly "the New World Order") which has total global economic, social, political and military power over all nations of the world.

This is a movement which has been openly and enthusiastically endorsed by both political parties for decades, but we need to stop and ask whether it is really in our best interests to be forced to sink to the lowest common denominator of nations in areas such as wages, food safety, health care, etc.

For many years, it is a question that has been asked by both the "extreme right" and the "extreme left" - without answer from the so-called middle.

But now, as American jobs disappear, as our nation is flooded with illegal immigrants, and with terrorists, as it becomes more and more controlled by huge global conglomerates with no respect or concern for the workforce or consumers of nations - this question must take on new urgency.

Few could argue over the need to address global problems on a united global scale as we face the growing probability that one day soon we will encounter advanced civilizations beyond our own planet and that we will be forced to speak and act as a planet, not just a fractured globe of feuding nations.

None of us should believe we must live in a world in which millions of us will be slaughtered in the name of religion. But is a single "world religion" really the answer? Are we not mature enough to learn to live in peace and in respect of the individual right to believe in a religion of their choice?

We live in a world where we are already starting to see armed conflict over something as basic as water, air and even sunlight - this is a growing issue even within our own borders.

If we are ever going to find the "Promised Land" we have to realize it is not a piece of real estate. We have to grow and mature. We really have no other choice but a slow (though accelerating), painful and hideous extinction of self-destruction.

The question here, my friends, is not whether a candidate has "compromised" but whether he/she has sold out - and whether their "compromises" were a matter of principle, pragmatism, logic and reality - or whether they made compromises based on kickbacks, bribes, campaign contributions, cronyism, blackmail or extortion.

Let's look at where some of the money comes from - note that Goldman Sachs is playing all three candidates:

PACs and "527" Committees

What you need to know about PACs and "527" Committees

Hillary Clinton

Google search terms for "Hillary Clinton political favors"

Google search terms for "Bill Clinton political favors"

Barack Obama

Google search terms for "Obama political favors"

John McCain

Google search terms for "McCain political favors"