The Change We Need

I generally try to avoid politics on this blog. Part of it is hoping to steer clear of interminable shouting matches in the comments, but a bigger part of it is wanting to keep the blog's focus on comics. But the stakes in this year's presidential election are too high for me to remain silent any longer. With the economy in turmoil and war abroad, things have to change. So, yes, I am going to use this blog as a platform to endorse a candidate.

With the financial crisis getting worse and worse and spreading further and further each day, we need a president who understands the complex international interconnectedness of the modern world. We need a president who has a calm, reassuring temperament and is able to keep cool and collected when the pressure is on. We need a president who is able to wade into complex issues and grapple with conflicting advice, emerging with a practical, decisive plan of attack.

With international tensions rising and rogue nations threatening to achieve nuclear capabilities, we need a president who understands how to negotiate from a position of strength. We need a president who is willing to use diplomacy as a tool in order to secure our national interests. We need a president who will do what it takes to capture or kill terrorist elements that seek safe harbor from governments unable or unwilling to hand them over.

With bipartisan rancor at an all-time high and approval of the current administration at an all-time low, we need a president who can bring citizens together and restore confidence in the government again. We need a leader who will inspire faith, hope, and civic pride; a leader who will unite rather than divide.

I know that those who oppose my candidate are trying to sow seeds of doubt about his readiness. There are whispers that my candidate is an outsider, that he's not "one of us," that his years studying abroad have made him a sleeper agent for some other government. These charges are outrageous -- slanderous rumors that attempt to play on people's fear of the "other" in the absence of anything substantive to use against him. It is true that my candidate went to school overseas for a number of years, but if anything, that only makes him a stronger candidate in today's global, multicultural landscape. A candidate who has a first-hand understanding of other cultures and how those cultures view us is better situated to address mistaken notions about our country and convert potential adversaries to political allies.

For these reasons and many more, I truly believe that there is only one candidate qualified to lead our country out of the mess it's currently in, and that candidate's name is Sakuragi Kenichiro.


All images from the awesome and sadly in-licensing-limbo First President of Japan, originally published by the now defunct Raijin/Gutsoon.

Labels: Endorsements, Manga, Politics

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