Two religious topics before I move on to the debate. First off, I saw a news segment about a female minister in the Baptist Church and the backlash she's receiving. Now, usually I don't care what any church is doing, let alone the Baptists, but I have a thing against this whole new Southern Baptist movement. This is the same movement that has generated the Westboro Baptist Church, who rally at the funerals of victims of tragedies like 9/11 and the NIU massacre and say that these events are god's punishment for America's acceptance of homosexuality. Well, now that Baptist movement is standing in the way of women's progress within their own church, as leaders and parishioners, mostly none in the general vicinity of the actual church, protest vehemently. If you want to practice as you please, fine, but when you attack other churches for being progressive you embarrass yourselves and expose your own antiquated ideals, and refusal to even recognize those who don't agree with you. This is the 21st Century, it's absolutely ridiculous when a woman cannot choose whatever profession she wishes without coming under constant criticism and religious ostracizing. People going public and saying she is going against god's will is a complete failure of the church to be accepting of different beliefs and exposes the prejudices that run deep in some people's hearts.
Next, there are a few churches that are using a religious platform to rally people to political causes. Not only does this seem to me to be a complete conflict to what religion is all about, but it is also in direct conflict with the way our political system is set up. These churches have a tax exempt status so that government cannot unfairly impose sanctions against them for political purposes, a status that hopefully will be dropped if they continue to preach politics from a political platform. That is the line drawn in the sand: government cannot discriminate against religion and religion cannot try to force its way into government. Religion is becoming way too large of a force in today's government. Religious people scream discrimination, they try to victimize themselves over Roe v. Wade or when a law permitting gay marriage is proposed. I couldn't overstate the hypocrisy in that situation if I tried. What people have to realize is that this is a shared society. It is no more right for people to try to reject equal rights to homosexuals than it is for government to shut down churches for preaching the wrong message. Churches in this country enjoy one of the freest platforms from which to preach, especially Christian churches. To go beyond that, to demand their values be imposed on society through government, is an abuse of the freedom and toleration they have been granted in this country. On a bit of a side-note, there was an excellent book published in 2004 about how Republicans appeal to moral issues to gain support, and how people will vote against their own economic position because of it. It's called, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank. I highly recommend it.
One last thing I'd like to touch on is the impact of race in this election. Wow, there's a lot to get through here. I'll start right at the top. The AP recently released a poll on the very subject of how race affects voters in this election, and the results were pretty disturbing. The poll itself is a very interesting read, I suggest checking it out in full here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26803840/from/ET/
The general idea is that race is enough of a factor that it may cost Barack Obama the election. The poll indicates he could lose up to six percentage points. For those of you not keeping track, the final difference in the 2004 election was two and a half percentage points. People like to think that our society has made it very far, that we've made monumental progress in acceptance of not just blacks, but other minorities as well. It doesn't matter if we have actually made the type of progress they imply we have, as long as we think we do. It's not easy for a lot of white people to face their own history, to face the atrocities their ancestors committed, but it is something we must do. We cannot keep ignoring the race issue and saying we're an accepting society when we're really not.
One phrase that has come up a lot since this poll was released is the Bradley Effect. This term is used to describe a situation where the polls show that a black candidate has the lead going into the election, but still loses. This is a result of white voters being afraid of being perceived as racist, despite having racial misgivings about the candidate and ultimately allowing that to decide for them. It is named for Tom Bradley, an African-American candidate for the position of Governor of California. He lost his race to white candidate George Deukmejian despite showing a significant lead in the polls. Since the phrase has been brought up in relation to this election, many Republicans have tried to discredit the argument. Newt Gingrich commented that he didn't think the effect existed at all for the simple fact that not every election involving a black candidate has seen a similar effect. This gets back to whites needing to accept responsibility for the unfair treatment African-Americans have, and continue to receive. The Bradley Effect has a significant amount of documentation behind it, and it does exist. Whether or not it will effect the election significantly cannot be known until election day, but awareness has to be spread. Barack Obama already could lose 6 percentage points due to the color of his skin, and who knows if and how many more percentage points could be lost due to the Bradley Effect. This is a matter of social responsibility, we cannot stick our heads in the sand any longer.
If you still think race isn't that much of a factor, if you still think we have come a long way, guess again. The media has picked up the vehement and violent remarks made at McCain rallies directed towards Obama, but I'm not sure the coverage has shown the worst of it. It is hard to get much worse than chanting, "kill him," although those comments don't seem to phase America's favorite hockey mom. Sarah Palin, when speaking at these rallies, has moved right along and ignored them when they come up. How callous is that? You're not going to stop, show some leadership and some responsibility, and chastise people who make these types of remarks? I wonder what would happen if Obama supporters started chanting, "kill Palin?" It would be a conspiracy with Obama at the head, backed up by Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers. Some sort of ethnic cleansing with hockey moms being targeted. That's the Republican strategy: always the victim, never the perpetrator. Had Obama supporters become violent, and I think it bears noting that they have neither shouted slurs nor responded in kind when McCain supporters did, would the Republicans remain quiet? I doubt it. I doubt there would be anything less than as big an outcry as they could muster.
Let's look at some of the comments being shouted with regularity at McCain rallies. "Kill him," has become the focal point, but unfounded accusations such as, "treason," and, "terrorist," can also be heard regularly, and are echoed in the inflammatory speeches of Sarah Palin. Not only is she not stopping her supporters when they cross over from ignorant to extreme, she's building an environment of hatred and intolerance by attacking Obama personally at any given chance. Why wouldn't you expect your supporters to be calling for a man's head when you yourself accuse him of being a terrorist?
Obama isn't even the only victim. After Palin launched an attack on the so-called liberal media, something that I will get to later, a crowd of her supporters starting yelling racial slurs at members of the news media. This is where the politics of the Republican Party, that have been in use since Nixon, invariably lead. One word can be used to describe them: divisive. McCain and Palin are losing on the economy issue, so what do they do? Incite hatred. Yes, McCain condemned his supporters, during the debate. At no point during any of his rallies has he tried to curb the racist remarks. Palin is worse, not making any attempt whatsoever to inspire some common decency among her supporters. They also would like you to believe they are not at fault, that they can not be held accountable for their supporters' action. Yes they can. There will always be these types of people, but candidates do not have to encourage them. They do not have to go around emphasizing Barack's last name in an attempt to unfairly link him with Islamic militants. They do not have to insinuate that an Obama presidency would be lenient and even supportive of terrorists. Even attacks not directed at Obama; attacks directed at the liberal elite, the liberal media, those people with college degrees who can't understand the working man, how long until this misdirected angst turns into misdirected violence? For over 40 years the Republican Party has built its platform on feeding rage, discontent, and animosity, why should they be surprised when it all finally comes to a head? They paint sections of society as aggressors, they make the educated seem arrogant, they make the media seem predatory, they try to tell Americans that these groups are taking advantage of them. This is divisive, this is not the way to lead a country, and McCain should not be at all surprised that these tactics have ignited this wave of deplorable behavior from his supporters.
Yet somehow that's far less worse than being associated with a prominent figure in state education, at least according to the McCain Camp. I'm speaking, of course, of the connection with Bill Ayers that he has been so eager to highlight. He says that Obama pals around with terrorists, and that Obama hasn't divulged the full extent of his relationship with Ayers. Let's start debunking the Ayers myths. First off, Obama has been nothing but forthcoming about his relationship with Ayers. Bill Ayers is a prominent figure of education reform in Illinois, and also a college professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Obama, during his time as a neighborhood activist, worked with Ayers on an education reform project. Ayers is just as much of a figure in Illinois education reform as McCain is in Washington campaign finance reform. Obama dealing with Ayers is no different than McCain dealing with any number of politicians and lobbyists that he deals with on an everyday basis.
Let's talk, for a minute, about the Weather Underground, who conducted bombings when Obama was only 8 years old. Bill Ayers and the Underground supported social justice in creed, were opposed to the war in Vietnam, and wanted to establish a classless society. They conducted bombings, mostly directed at the destruction of property. One such bombing was of a statue commemorating police officers who forcibly put down labor riots, a bombing in which no one was harmed. Another bombing was on the U.S. Pentagon. Again, no one was harmed, but they caused enough structural damage to cause a disruption to operations in Vietnam. Ayers has opposed the label, "terrorist," as he says he never targeted civilians and his agenda was never to kill people in order to inspire fear. The McCain Camp has taken out of context a quote of his saying that he does not regret what he did and wishes he could have done more. McCain outright said that Ayers said he wanted to bomb more and take more lives, although Ayers never said he wanted to bomb more. When asked about the quote, Ayers replied, "The one thing I don't regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being.... When I say, 'We didn't do enough,' a lot of people rush to think, 'That must mean, "We didn't bomb enough shit."' But that's not the point at all. It's not a tactical statement, it's an obvious political and ethical statement. In this context, 'we' means 'everyone."
Not only is McCain trying to paint Obama as a terrorist by association, he is telling outright lies about Bill Ayers to make him look like more of a criminal than he really was. Ayers turned himself in to the authorities and was never brought up on charges. Today he is a respected member of academic society. He is not a radical, not a terrorist, but a man looking to reform his government through more passive means. John McCain's propaganda is almost completely an outright fabrication.
Now I'd like to address a term which has seen very prominent use in Republican rhetoric over the past 20 some odd years, and one which I particularly resent: elitist. First off, I'd like to examine the idiocy of its application in the political arena. The term is often leveled at liberal candidates, and often tries to associate them with things such as drinking lattes, an interest in European culture, and living in particular segments of the country. In case you couldn't tell, those are all bad things. If you live in Seattle, California, or New England, more than likely you're an elitist. If you have a taste for good wine or cheese, elitist. If you drink a latte, elitist. Yes, if you fit any of these descriptions or others, you are arrogant, disconnected, and self-absorbed, at least according to the droves of right-wingers who are so quick to level this accusation. And candidates who fit this description, well look out because they just might be card-carrying commie pinkos. The funny thing, though, is who's leveling these accusations. Most of the time, these accusations come from the middle or lower class. They come from farmers, homeowners, people struggling to pay bills, and so forth. What's funny about that, is that these so-called elitists, more often than not, are running on economic platforms that HELP the middle and lower class. Republicans have fought to repeal the estate tax, undo New Deal programs including protection for unions, cut taxes for the upper class, and re-organize agricultural laws in such a manner that HURTS farm owners. All the while, these latte-sipping, hybrid-driving, elitists are doing the exact opposite, and fighting for economic policies that help groups that are in need of help.
Elitist is a fundamental failure in the workings of democracy. Elitist is a state of mind. Elitist is apathy, misdirected contempt. Many of those who yell the term also associate it with the college educated. When did education become a bad thing? Why are people supposed to be ashamed of education? This is what bothers me the most about the term, why I cannot stand it. What message is a parent sending to their children when they call someone an elitist? That their children should be contemptuous of the educated? If that's the case, isn't the message you're sending one that says, "education is a bad thing?" Please, let's not aspire to further education, to try and move up in life. Don't ever try to hold yourself to standards, that's elitist. Don't try to be well-read, objective, and insightful, that's Un-American. You see, good Americans don't educate themselves on political issues, they sit around all day and talk about how all politicians are bad and just using the system to their own advantage. Good Americans don't care if a politician supports a tax increase that seeks to raise the standard of living for the poor, they just know that any tax increase is a bad tax increase. Good Americans don't think about the accusations they make and if they're valid or not, they just spout off and expect people to take them seriously. And God forbid (capital "G", because every good American knows that's the way it should be) that you try to point out the flaws in their arguments, that you ask for a little accountability, because every good American knows that's elitist talk. Call them communists, call them terrorists, call them whatever the hell you want, but God forbid you have to back up what you say.
A prime example of what type of person this environment produces is Joe Wurzelbacher a.k.a Joe the Plumber. You see, Joe makes a lot of claims and accusations that he can't back up. He says Obama's tax plan is taxation without representation. He says Obama is trying to re-distribute wealth. He says he plans on buying the company that he works for, and that Obama's plan would make it impossible for him to do so. Well, Joe, guess what? I'm not a, "good American," I do believe in accountability, so I AM going to hold you to what you say. If that makes me an elitist commie pinko, well so be it.
First off, taxation without representation. Christ, Allah, Buddha, Ganesha, how did our education system go so wrong? Seriously, who taught Joe history and why were they allowed to teach in the first place? Let's go through a review of some things most Americans SHOULD learn in grade school:
Taxation: The imposition of taxes.
Representation: The action of one person standing for another so as to have the rights and obligations of the person being represented.
Without: Used as a function word to indicate the absence or lack of something or someone.
Now, you see, there's this little thing called government that we have. There are three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The executive branch is made up of the President and his staff. We vote for the President because we believe that the candidate we vote for will best REPRESENT us. The legislative branch is made up of two houses of congress. The senate is comprised of two senators from each state, each one voted in by the citizens of the state to REPRESENT them. the other house is the House of REPRESENTATIVES. They are chosen to REPRESENT a certain portion of each state's population, and are voted into office by the portion of the population that they REPRESENT. For a tax to be imposed, it must pass both houses of Congress and a potential veto by the President. That is the definition of taxation WITH representation. My head is seriously going to fucking implode trying to figure out how Joe figures that Obama and congress raising taxes is taxation without representation. Five times, FIVE TIMES I said the word, "represent," in this paragraph, where is the lack of representation? Anybody? No? Okay, moving on.
Now, Joe claims that he is planning on buying his company and that by doing so, he would be moved to a higher tax bracket. What he didn't say was that he wasn't planning on buying the business alone. He plans to go into business with the current owner, Al Newell, and become a part owner, a move which would make both men not only fall well below $250,000 net income, but be eligible for a tax CUT. Tax officials also doubt that the business generates as much as Joe says it does. They say is estimate is very high, and is not representative of the business' actual NET income. One distinction many Republican supporters fail to make when analyzing Obama's plan is that of gross income and net income, the latter determining tax status. Joe admits to not knowing a lot about the finances of the company, despite not being shy about making whatever claim he feels like about the company's finances on national TV. What did I just say about accountability?
Another thing Joe refuses to tell anybody is that he isn't really a plumber. Early reports showed that he was working without the liscences required to operate as a plumber and/or contractor in Toledo, as is his boss and only other employee of said plumbing company, Mr. Newell. Joe has said he applied for apprenticeship with the local union, but the manager of the Toledo Local 50 has said that Joe has never held the required liscences and has never applied for apprenticeship. Joe also owes a lot of money in back taxes, at least $1,000. Let's see, he's opposed to taxes, he sees it as unfair, and he doesn't pay the taxes he's expected to pay right now. Why wouldn't you expect someone like him to oppose taxes? What does he think generates revenue required for the country to operate? Where does he think federal funds come from? Does he seriously believe that taxes are optional, that he can live and work in this country and not contribute his share to its operational expenses? How would Joe like it to be done? He's obvioulsy an expert on socialist and capitalist principles, as he's been very vocal about throwing the term, "socialist," around, so please Joe, enlighten us.
Of course, Joe the Plumber has refused most media contact, accusing the media of, surprise, surprise, being liberally biased and unfairly thrusting him into the spotlight. Guess what, Joe, you thrust yourself into the spotlight the minute you started your little publicity stunt and decided you were going to run around screaming, "communist," like it was February 9, 1950 all over again. As for being liberally biased, why? Because you are completely vague in your accusations and they want clarification? Because what you say contradicts the facts that they have been able to dig up and they want to hold you accountable? What is it Joe? Do you want to be honest and forthright with the media and the public, or do you just want to stir up a bunch of baseless sentiment in favor of the McCain campaign? Do you really care about the tax issue, or do you just not like being part of a functioning society? Are you a concerned citizen, or are you a propagandist?
Speaking of unsubstantiated claims, let's move on to one of the bigger ones John McCain's made this election season. McCain the Maverick, Palin the reformer. John McCain accuses Barack Obama of not being able to break with his party, and keeps bragging that he has been willing to corss party lines. First off, why is it a bad thing to vote with your party, especially on key issues? Isn't that what members of both parties are expected to do? If you're a Democrat and you're constantly voting for Republican values, why are you still a Democrat? Obviously Barack Obama believes in his party's leadership, that's not something to be ashamed of, unless of course your party's leadership right now consists of men with ties to the oil industry who have driven this country into an unpopular war and a recession in order to further their own means.
Speaking of, how many times has John McCain broken with his party's leadership? He voted for four of five of President Bush's budgets, he's voted with the President 90% of the time. He's a maverick, right? He breaks with Republicans all the time, right? John McCain is no more a maverick than Barack Obama is a terrorist.
Their latest line is that one party controlling government is a bad thing, that it upsets the balance of power. It's ironic that a line like that comes from someone who describes the job of the Vice President as presiding over Congress. In actuality, that's a tremendous leap in logic that Dick Cheney took, the same man who's former company received lucrative contracts in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. Cheney stands for big government, for shifting the balance of power towards his side, and it's a philosophy that Sarah Palin seems to share.
Besides, this accusation comes from a party who happily accepted majority control of Congress and the Presidency, who campaigned on the premise that it was a good thing. They don't care about the balance of power being upset, they care about not being in power. They care about not being able to push their agendas through no matter what the people of this country think, as they did with Iraq. The fact is that the Republicans were given free reign of the government, and they blew it. They were told to go ahead, test their policies, and they failed. Now they are still holding on to those failed policies, and they are still asking to be given a level of control despite their reluctance to let go of those failed policies. One party control is not a rare thing, and it's not always a bad thing. The Republican party has problems, their leadership has problems, their base has problems, and they need to face these problems and come up with solutions before we even think about handing control of this country back over to them.
What about the great reformer, Sarah Palin? She's shaking things up, right? Well, she certainly did shake things up in Alaska when she fired her ex-brother-in-law and reassigned a public official who refused to fire him. This goes back a very long way, to before Palin was elected governor. She had made many accusations of her brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, claiming that he was violent and that he had made threats against her family, most of which were found to be untrue. She continued to make unsubstiantiated claims of Wooten threatenting her family with physical harm during her time as governor, even though all witnesses to these supposed remarks either had a conflict if interest or cleared him of the accusations. She then pressured and reassigned Public Safety Comissioner Walt Monegan, who had previously refused to fire Wooten. Palin has also tried to avoid the investigations. After a state-authorized investigation found that she abused her power as governor, she filed an ethics complaint against herself. She did this because now, instead of having a state-appointed investigator, the ethics complaint will be reviewed by a board made up of close friends, people she personally assigned to their positions, and people who donated to her campaign. All this from a reformer, someone who says she's going to SCALE BACK big government.
John McCain has said he isn't Bush, that he doesn't want to be like Bush. There's plenty of evidence against that claim, but none greater than his choice of running mate. Sarah Palin reminds me of George Bush. Hell, John McCain reminds me of George Bush. John McCain says his campaign is the straight talk express. That's very reminiscent of George Bush, who told voters he was going to talk to them directly and truthfully. Many voters swung to his side because of his alleged, "stright talk," but we found out the hard way that it was anything but. The similarities are even evident in the way he addresses the public, "my friends." It's not a very far cry from George Bush's, "my fellow Americans." Sarah Palin operates in much the same way. She says voters should elect her because she's a regular hockey mom, a good American who people can relate to. George Bush ran on a platform of being just a simple country boy from Texas who people could relate to. This is a problem, you don't elect someone because you can relate to them. It's a method of detraction, a way of distracting the people from the fact that they're running on economic platforms that hurt them more than help them, and it works. Since the days of Ronald Regan, voters have voted for politicians who said they could relate to their issues and then turned around and hurt those voters economically. Bush was the final straw, what we needed to open our eyes. We can't vote for people because they're similar to us in lifestyle, or appear to be so, anymore. That mentality led to what will go down as one of the worst administrations in U.S. history. It has been said that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig, and that holds true whether the metaphorical equivalent of the pig is George Bush, John McCain, or Sarah Palin. It's not a metaphor of sexism, it's a metaphor of dressing up a platform to look more appealing than it actually is. The pig refers not to looks, but to the slothful economic policies that have brought this mess down on us. The lipstick is not a part of the double standard that does exists for women just as surely as one does for African-Americans, but is a part of the deception that is used to hide the flaws in Repbulican economic policies. The platform is the pig, the lipstick is the image used to play on people's emotions and discourage them from using their logic, in order to hide the shortcomings of a failed economic plan.
Going back to scaling back, John McCain has said he hopes to repeal Roe v. Wade. Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't sound like scaling government back. in fact, it sounds like exactly the opposite. Roe v. Wade was landmark in that it declared a right to privacy, in that the government did NOT have control over a women's decision concerning her own body and health. Roe v. Wade is the ultimate case AGAINST big government, and John McCain has said he wants to repeal it. Again, why should John McCain and conservative Americans be allowed to dictate the values of this country? Because a select portion of the population believes abortion is wrong, everybody else should live by their values? This is just one example of how John McCain supports a larger government.
He also supports large corporations. He says it would be good for jobs to continue to hand out money to large corporations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't these corporations doing well before this financial crisis? Didn't they have resources available already? Yes, they did, and then the crisis started. Interest rates rose, homes were foreclosed upon, and spending went down. Public spending went down. The corporations weren't suffering when the middle class was well off, they started suffering when the middle class lost the means to continue to purchase their products, mostly because of their predatory practices. And now, THEY want money. Detroit automakers are asking for 25 billion dollars in bailouts because their production is slowed. Their production is slowed because there is no demand for their product. If there is no demand, what good is giving more money to them going to do? What will they do with it? Will they create more jobs? If they do, will they be able to secure those jobs? Is the government going to ensure that they use the money to create and secure jobs? And what happens when they do create a minimal amount of jobs and the majority of Americans still can't afford to support their production? Do we give them another $25 billion? Giving money to corporations is NOT the answer. We've seen corporate responsibility, we've seen how it works. We've seen Enron scam their customers and their employees, we've seen banks prey on people's excitement to buy homes at reduced interest, only to see their interest rates spike and their homes foreclosed. Even Alan Greenspan, the biggest supporter of a free market economy, said that it could not work because corporations cannot be expected to operate as they see please and operate responsibly. We NEED regulation, we NEED oversight. This is no time to get apathetic about our government, not when we need it the most. Corporations have screwed us out of our well-beings, have run our economy into the ground, and McCain wants to give them more money? For what, so they can do it again? It is absolutely insane to want to give more power to the people who are most responsible for the current economic situation. We don't need less government, we need more responsible government.Republican supporters say that the way to stimulate the economy is to lower taxes and give more money to businesses to, "encourage growth." They focus so much on the simple raising or lowering part that they forget whose taxes are being raised and lowered. They get so bent out of shape over so-called socialist projects, well what do you call government buy-outs? What do you call $700 billion bailout packages for one segment of the economy. Now every struggling industry is looking for a government hand-out, isn't that socialist in nature? So let me get this straight, it's socialist to try and provide opportunities for those who aren't born with the same opportunities as the people in the upper echelon of society, that's spreading the wealth around. Putting bailout packages together for companies who practice predatory lending techniques, and companies who are faltering because their customers can't afford their products, that's not socialism, that's not redistribution of wealth? It's redistribution all right, it just runs against every principle that redistribution stands for. Instead of providing opportunity to those who previously had none, it gives back to the people who already have opportunity and privilege, those who don't need it.
John McCain supports that. John McCain claims to want to cut taxes for all Americans, but Americans who will be least affected by these cuts will be the working class, those who need it the most. John McCain wants to cut taxes for large corporations, give them incentive bonuses, give them kickbacks and bailouts, and have no regulation of these cuts. He says governement is too big, and he wants to lessen the oversight on the corporations that have taken advantage of the tremendous freedom granted to them by President Bush, and of the American people. Alan Greenspan said that it is unreasonable to assume that large corporations will act in the best interest of the people. John McCain wants to use money to get large corporations to act in the best interest of the people. His theory is that if we just give corporations more money it will entice them to do so. He is sticking to the same naive policies that created this mess in the first place. He doesn't want oversight, he doesn't want conditions to be laid out before handing out this money. He just wants to give the money out and hope that corporations will act out of good will, the same thinking that the champion of free market economics has personally declared flawed.
There is one way out of a recession, and that is to create growth. That means increasing jobs in order to give the people on whom the economy relies for stability money to spend, to keep in circulation. That means helping those who are stuck with unreasonable interest so that they are able to free up money to spend. That means ensuring their pensions, retirement funds, and social security are safeguarded so that they aren't living in constant fear of losing everything. That means making sure that reliable insurance and affordable education are a reality and not just a dream. Are people going to spend money on new cars if they're worried about losing their retirement savings? Are they going to keep using a car and buying gas if they can't afford insurance? Are they going to spend money on luxury items or impulse buys if they're worried about sending their kids to college? No.
So how do you pay for this? Well, according to John McCain you lower taxes, meaning the governemnt has less money to spend, the middle and lower classes, who are largely unaffected by the tax cuts, are in the same economic situations as they were in before, and the rich upper class has even more money to spend, only they don't ever spend it. Democrats, on the other hand, have many ways to create more money. Many Democrats talk about enforcing regulations on offshore accounts, something John McCain won't commit to. Democrats talk about actually creating jobs instead of just expecting corporations to create jobs. Democrats talk about creating new green jobs. Just this past week former Vice President Al Gore detailed a plan to create a new environment-friendly power infastructure that would create massive growth and allow for exportation of new technology, I highly reccomend checking it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZPDr4v2hds
Green technolgy can turn this economy around, but John McCain doesn't want that, probably because it would upset his base. John McCain wants to drill for oil, even though our reserves would be tapped within five years. John McCain wants to support companies that continue to harm the environment, companies who don't have plans to expand and create jobs and technology like these green corporations do. The Republican strategy is clear: You wash my back, I'll wash yours. It's time for change.
Laslty, I'd like to address the so-called socialist programs Obama wants to run. Let's talk about what socialism is.
Socialism: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.Just because we adopt semi-socialist policies does not make us a socialist society. America stands on a principle of opportunity, that everyone has an equal chance at success. That does not hold true under a total free market economy. Free market economies create social disparity, create a lack of opportunity. In order to not only uphold that vision of opportunity, but ensure that there is a suitable economy to supprt the nation, government needs to ensure that individuals are not allowed to use their advantadges to create social disparity. That's not socialism, that's democracy. We have to ask ourselves, which are we more commited to? Democracy and socialism are not synonymous. Joe the plumber would like to compare socialism to the Aristocracy from which we rebelled, but that could not be farther from the truth. Lassiez-faire economics saw their most prominent use in aristocratic society. Aristocrats are strong advocates of free markets because it allows them to safeguard their wealth and their position in society with little fear of government intrusion. Do we want that? Do we want a spiritual aristocracy under the false pretense of a democracy, or do we want to allow socialist policies in order to safeguard democracy?
The bottom line, there are a lot of lies told about societies, and perhaps the biggest is that America is a meritocracy. In a meritocracy, everyone is responible for their own shortcomings or achievements. We are far from that, and naive to think so. Many people are outraged over Barack Obama saying he wished affirmative action could have spread the wealth around more. It's easy to be outraged if you don't understand where he was coming from. We'd like to think racism is behind us, that even if racism is no longer a major factor in this country, which it is, African-Americans aren't still suffering from years of injustice, and that they are responsible for their own situation in life. African-Americans have never been given a full chance to recover. They were brought into this country as slaves, then told they were free. After that, they worked for slaves' wages because no one would stand up for them and insure they were paid fair wages for their labor. They were given the chance to vote, but it took decades for society to finally safeguard and enforce that right. Even in the 20th century, African-Americans were forced into bad economic conditions because of racist practices. After the war, when both white and black soldiers were coming home from the war, we had the chance to finally create some level of economic diversity. Cheap housing was becoming widely available, and decent loans were being given out to all soldiers, regardless of color, to buy a home. The problem was that African-Americans still had not achieved the same economic status as whites because whites were allowed to use the financial system to keep themselves at the same level of society, and African-Americans at a lower level, for so long. So white people were able to buy housing when most African-Americans could not. If that wasn't bad enough, we institued policies of redlining. When an African-American bought a house, his property value would go down simply because of the color of his skin. As a result, his neighbor's value would decline. White citizens would sell their houses quickly to avoid losing any more money in property value, and black citizens would buy the property at the now reduced value. All the businesses follow white people, the good education does as well, as do the better police and fire services. This creates ghettos, largely black areas with poor economic standing in which residents have no hope to further their economic position, because of the color of their skin. The effects of this can still be seen today in the many urban projects. Someone had an idea that just relocating African-Americans out of ghettos and into projects would solve their problems, but in reality it made the situation even worse. Even today in Chicago politicians talk about tearing down projects and relocating these citizens, but no matter what the scenery is these people have seen no change in economic standing or opportunity to change that standing.
So is it wrong to redistribute wealth to them? Is it wrong to try and undo more than two centuries of opression? Before this country was ever formed, our predecessors systematically opressed black slaves, a tradition we have long carried past the days of slavery, the days of Jim Crow laws, past the days of Malcom X, Dr. King, and the Black Panthers. While the national awareness of these issues has decreased, the issues themselves have continued. Contrary to popular belief, the African-American's plight did not end with Martin Luther King. Their unfair position in society has not improved as much as we would like to think. Is it wrong to redistribute wealth to them after all the injustice they have suffered under our governments? Is it wrong to raise taxes on the wealthy to insure a minimum standard of living for the elderly, or to ensure that every single person in the country receives the same level of medical care regardless of social standing? Is it wrong to ensure that the American dream is attainable regardless of birthright? No, it is most certainly not. That's not socialsim, that's Americanism.
John McCain doesn't understand this. John McCain assumes America is a meritocracy. John McCain thinks that it's OK for people who are born into wealth to use that wealth to ensure that economic mobility is unrealistic. John McCain assumes everything falls into right and wrong, American and Un-American. He assumes that abortion is a simple matter of right and wrong, and not a matter of a woman's right to choose for herself what is right and wrong. He assumes that large corporations can be expected to be responsible even if no one is holding them responsible. Sarah Palin assumes a natural right, that we can trash the environment without repercussion. Sarah Palin assumes that it's alright for government to dictate what's taught in classrooms according to her own Christian values. Sarah Palin assumes the superiority of her beliefs over everyone else's. It is time for a change, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not agents of the change we need. They are out of touch. They think inward, not realizing the needs of the people. It's time for a change in this country. It's time for us to put race aside and show that we have the capacity to elect a black president. It's time for us to trust our government to work for us, and demand that it do so. It's time for us to abandon our 20th century industrial notions and step forward into the 21st century. It's time for us to jump-start education so that we can produce the technology of tomorrow and becom global leaders in something once more. Go out and vote tomorrow, but don't vote because you think you could have a beer with a certain candidate. Don't vote because the candidate promises to legislate based on your values and ignoring other's values. Don't vote because you buy into the slander that's flung around. Vote because you're concerned, and support that concern by being informed. Vote on the issues that matter, on economy, jobs, health care, and creating new industries. Make an informed vote, and vote for the candidate who will not only best serve you, but the American people. And, perhaps most importantly, don't forget to peace out.
