When
I was in elementary school they talked about elections, and had us make
signs for our desks saying who we would vote for (if we were old
enough). For some reasons, I knew I wanted to vote for Jimmy Carter.
Maybe it was because of the defaced newspaper
that arrived on our porch which had a picture of Ronald Regan with
horns and the word "War" written on it. Maybe it was the plexiglass
paper weight, in the shape of the U.S. with a brass peanut in it, that
my grandfather gave me from his trip to Washington. I know my parents
were not the influence, I don't remember them ever talking about
politics. I only know that Julie McNivens, who used to stab me in the
leg with a pencil, picked Reagan because she thought Jimmy Carter had
big teeth. This, I knew, made her both mean and stupid. So I made my
sign. On it, I wrote "Jimmy Carter" and I also drew a picture of a
little blonde girl with a comb in one hand and a pencil in the other,
saying "Blah, Blah, Blah." Of course there was a meeting with my parents
over this.
It
is only in hindsight that I look back at Jimmy Carter and realize what a
man of integrity he was. The last president to encourage families to
save money. The man who was sourced to stop a nuclear disaster at 3 mile
island. The man who installed solar panels on top of the White House.
The one who negotiated a middle east peace agreement. The one who goes
around building houses for the poor. Worst president? Not by a long
shot.
The
thing she often gets blamed for, the energy crisis of 1979 and the
hostage crisis were both a result of the Iranian Revolution. blow back
from our over throw of their democratically elected leader Mohammad
Mosaddegh in the 1953 - because he had nationalized their oil fields and
wanted to audit the books of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company now known
and BP. The Shah, our puppet leader, was deposed in 1979 and replaced by
the current government of Ayattolahs.
The
problem with Jimmy Carter is that he was far sighted, and we are a
nation of amnesiatic people who look no further than the present for the
cause of our miseries. We will therefore, inevitably fall prey to
deceitful politicians who will seek to exploit this weakness.
