Political Build-Up

With all of the cries of "socialism" going around, I sure wish the right wing could explain to people what their version of socialism actually is. They never explain it, and their supporters only know that they're supposed to foam at the mouth whenever anyone mentions the word. The fact is, there are countries in the world who have democratic socialism as a basic, and those people are laughing at the inability of the United States to take care of its own (I know, because I get emails from those countries telling me just that).

Is Canada or the UK evil for nationalizing health care? If nationalized health care is so inefficient, why aren't all the Canadians dead? If it's so inefficient and wrong, why do government employees like John McCain, cancer survivor, enjoy it? Is Scandanavia wrong for giving employees 30 days of vacation a year? Yeah, socialism is just awful. Who wants a free college education when you can spend the rest of your life in debt?

Give me a break.

Is the system we have now really so great? I mean, BushCo just nationalized most of the financial sector. So where's your rock? It's not McCain; he voted for the Splurge, so he supports socialism, too. So does Sarah Palin. As Governor of Alaska, she redistributes the wealth of oil profits directly to citizens. Alaska is one of the most socialist states in the union. You want to talk Marxist terminology? Palin is the governor of a state that practices collective ownership of natural resources. And Alaska spends more tax per capita than any other state. Of course, it helps that the population of Alaska is the size of a small Midwestern town.

McCain said a while back that Obama's tax plan was socialist because Obama wants to give you tax credits. Meanwhile, McCain wants to give you tax credits. Obama is going to raise taxes on rich people who can afford to pay more (something McCain once publicly advocated, back when he was running in 2000) and lower them on people who are already being taxed too heavily. McCain wants to lower taxes on the rich and raise your tax bracket by taxing you on your health benefits. Yeah, if you make less than $250,000 a year and vote for McCain, you're a fucking idiot. Sorry, no time to mince words for the stupid to feel good about being stupid. They already feel good enough. That's why they don't know when they should be embarrassed.

By the way, groups of socialists don't think Obama is a socialist.

And you could easily call McCain's tax cuts for the rich welfare. He's a big advocate of corporate welfare, as Bush has been. Their economic policies are the same. If McCain is such a friend of the worker, why does he want to reward corporations that ship jobs overseas for slave labor and maximal profits with another tax break? Obama wants to reward corporations who keep jobs in America. How does that make Obama unpatriotic?

You know, the RNC bought Sarah Palin a $150,000 makeover. Do you consider that a better use of money than giving children health coverage? And did you know that the Splurge was roughly eight times more expensive than national health coverage would be for a year?

People just don't seem to understand how taxes work. My dad always says to me, when I talk about the need for national health coverage, that people in Canada pay much higher taxes for it. Well, you know, taxes pay for government services. That's how they work. Just look at the magic Bush worked on the economy when he decided he could cut taxes on rich people and fight two wars at the same time. Jesus Christ, America, you're already paying for government health care, you might as well be able to have access to it.

I think the fact that McCain is holding up Joe the Plumber as his major tool regarding the economic prosperity of his tax plan is the most laughable thing on the planet right now. Under McCain's tax plan, an average plumber would get 0.004% tax relief. Did you see the interview with "Joe" the Tax Evader on Hannity and Colmes, where he said that welfare was unfair to people who pay their taxes (something he doesn't know much about) and then went on to talk about how his parents were on welfare during hard times? Can this Joe the Plumber bullshit get any more ridiculous? Oh wait, it can. Because McCain has used Joe the Plumber as a foundation to claim he's a friend of small businessmen. Businessmen like J. Robert Long, whom McCain called "Bob the Boat Builder." Long's small business used to be Wellcraft Marine, which made $67 million last year. Oh, and apparently Cindy McCain is a "small businesswoman" now. I guess because Hensley & Co., worth $200 million, is only the third largest beer distributor in the country.

Do you really understand yet how out of touch McCain is when it comes to the small town "real" Americans and workers that he claims to love so much?

I mean, he does want to send more of them to die in Iraq, so I guess he does care about them on that level. Oh, and with his belittling of women's health issues, he also proved he cares about unborn children. See, mothers, it's not that he doesn't give a shit about any problems you might face. He just wants to force you to pump out more units even if it kills you. Which would be too bad, since he doesn't want the socialist welfare system to care for that now-motherless kid. No, this kid's got to be tough and live the American dream. And since he won't ever make enough money on his own to go to college, he'll have to join the Army instead, where Bush's McCain-supported 100 year war will welcome another sacrifice to American oil control. See how that works? McCain needs your infants for the infantry. And if that kid survives, he'll get to come home to crappy veteran care and a crappier privatized health care system that will refuse to treat him without immediate payment. And should he grow old, well, McCain plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security probably won't exist anymore (it'll all get lost on the market thanks to privatization and deregulation). But, you know, he can always die in a ditch somewhere, proud of having defended the American dream of wealth and prosperity for the top 1%. And won't he just be a proud American then?

Seriously, small town McCain supporters, what the fuck?

McCain's judgment is terrible. Look at Palin. There are so many reports going around now about Sarah Palin being off-script. Like I said before, she's pretty obviously positioning herself for a run in 2012. She's touting herself now, and she's doing it the same way McCain has touted himself--by saying virtually nothing about policy, but talking almost exclusively about how Barack Obama is a terrorist and a Marxist and a lot of made up bullshit that the GOP keeps repeating over and over again no matter how many times they've been disproven.

Seriously, conservatives, you have got to be ashamed of your party's massive leap to the far right. I know a lot of you are frustrated right now. I know conservatives who want to be true to the core values of the party, less government, less taxes, states' rights. I know conservatives who don't care about abortion or boys kissing or the church and are frankly embarrassed by the way neocons have tried to make all of those things key positions of the Republican platform. But why aren't you doing anything about it? There needs to be much more dialogue from the conservatives who are losing their party. Frankly, a lot of them seem to be keeping their mouths shut because they don't want to destroy the party. But that's what John McCain is doing, with his far right rhetoric and his adoption of Rovian politics, and that's what Sarah Palin's doing. Her friends in the Alaskan Independence Party think their policies are going right to the White House through her. And those people are basically Alaskan Klansmen. Yeah, they are.

And for all of the talk that people in Alaska love Sarah Palin (unless they're black or native), the Anchorage Daily News endorsed Obama. So did the Chicago Tribune, which hasn't endorsed a Democrat in its 161-year history. The New York Times endorsed Obama, too.

Less and less people want McCain and Palin in office. Hell, one poll suggested that Arizona might be a battleground state now.

Look at this:

Barack Obama with a crowd of 100,000 people who want to hear him speak.

Now look at John McCain's crowd. Something like 2500 people want to hear him talk. His audiences have been dropping like flies in the last few weeks. And that's even with the campaign lying about the numbers of people who have showed up.

Hey, I heard Sarah Palin recently spoke before a crowd of 500! Yeah, she's popular.

Hell, even Brokaw stopped fellating McCain on Meet the Press and corrected McCain's assertion that Reagan reined in spending by pointing out that Reagan raised taxes right after a recession. That was an embarrassing interview filled with senior moments. McCain also did the current neocon rhetorical argument du jour, which was to imply that facts are something that one can choose or not choose to believe. Screw objective reality if it gets in the way of my comfortable delusions: I'm leading every poll!

And even McCain volunteers in Indiana walked off the job because they just couldn't spew the scripted lies about Obama over the phone anymore.

And did you hear about Joyce and Lillie McCain of Michigan? They're black, so I'm sure they don't hear too much from John. They're descendents of slaves owned by John McCain's great-great-grandfather. They endorsed Obama, too.

And Latinos are turning away from the Republican Party like mad. According to one poll, 75% of Latino voters think immigration is one of the most important issues in this election. Unsurprisingly, McCain's rhetoric is turning them away, and I'm sure Palin's race-baiting isn't helping matters. An enormous number of New Americans, immigrants who have been naturalized or the children of immigrants, are also voting Democrat. I guess they don't see a promise of diversity in the message that Obama is Arab, and that's bad, or in people like Michelle Bachman, who have openly said that diversity will destroy American culture. It would be sad to see so many Republicans so obliviously digging their own graves if they didn't deserve it so damn much.

You just can't deny that McCain did not vet Sarah Palin. From the outside, she looked like the perfect political choice--a woman, a conservative, a populist. But she's been a disaster and she's losing McCain votes. And I don't think it's because she's so horrible. I think it's because she makes it obvious that McCain's judgment is terrible. That he would pick her is a sign of how little he cares about anything but winning. Now they're finding out that the bidding process for her precious pipeline was unfair and unethical and meant to benefit a firm with inside ties to her administration. Sounds like Bush to me.

Oh, and Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was convicted on all seven counts. Gee, now who pals around with criminals, Sarah?

And did a woman really shout "He's a nigger!" at a Palin rally? Palin heard it, stopped, and didn't address it. Keep on truckin', Sarah!

And the top paid staff member of the McCain campaign is Palin's make-up guy? And they still had the audacity to complain about that Newsweek cover?

And that faked attack on a woman who said an Obama supporter carved a letter into her face.

And reports from all over of Obama supporters being blamed for acts of vandalism and even shootings.

The GOP is doing what they usually do: attempting real voter fraud and then dividing and conquering the working class. Way to let them get away with it, McCain supporters. Answer me this: are you voting for McCain because you genuinely think his policies will support you in some way? Please explain.

And to undecideds: with less than a week to go, how could you not have made your minds up yet? Seriously, are you just too racist to vote for Obama and don't like McCain? Just vote for Barr or something and quit pretending this election is going to be a close affair.