Tomorrow

There have been 3 elections in my adult life that have been super important--1980, 2000, and now. 1980 ushered in the era of Republican Party rejection of our country's struggle to improve our general economic well-being while paying heed to the environment, instead focusing on robbing the nation of both our natural resources (remember James Watt?) and selling off our assets. Lowering taxes on the rich led to us going from the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor in a matter of months while increasing the disparity between rich and poor for the first time since the Great Depression. 2000 resulted in finishing us off as a viable world power economically; we no longer "control our own destiny", to borrow a sports phrase. Not only has our debt risen to such heights that it threatens our very ability to pay it off properly, but the open greed and rapacity of the conservative movement has also diminished our standing in the company of nations. We are not envied or admired any more, we are despised throughout the entire world. The litany of lies and deceptions the Smirky Administration has perpetrated on us has reverberated around the world, making the United States of America the first superpower in history to be so reviled. (Other empires were feared or resented, but mostly they were grudgingly respected for a century or more until they could be overthrown by the locals wanting self-government. We didn't even last 60 years before becoming so hated as to encourage an attack on our own soil that was cheered on by many.)
The difference between the election tomorrow and those two was that this time, we know how high the stakes truly are. Ronald Reagan was seen as a joke by most people, even after he became the Republican nominee, except for the people of California, who had had to endure his term as governor--they knew what was coming. And Bush was even more of a joke; his only success in his entire life was in being elected governor of a state where the governor has no real power. The true horror of both those presidencies came in retrospect. What Reagan's presidency initiated, and Bush's finished, has been the almost complete dismantling of our system of governance.
Taxes, which are the primary method by which our government pays for what it does, have become so disdained that politicians fear to even say the word out loud, even when it is obvious that our fiscal standing is precipitously poised to collapse.
Trust in government at any level has eroded to the point that the Bush Administration, which by any measure is the most corrupt and venal in the history of the country, can do anything it wants without most people even noticing. Approve the torture of US citizens? Oh, gee, Clinton was worse. (Somehow.) Make up "facts" to convince Congress and the public to assent to make war on a country that did not attack us? Who cares. Launch a countrywide assault on the mechanics of elections themselves in order to cheat the actual will of the people? Wait, is that Paris Hilton over there?
The vaunted power of the press to curb any excesses of the three branches of our government has been either neutered or co-opted, first by the Reagan-era elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, which allowed for the creation of TV and radio stations which have no desire to even fake objectivity, and secondly by the similar neutering of any oversight bodies, which allowed for an egregious consolidation of media outlets. We no longer have much of a press, let alone a free press, in the US; less than a handful of companies own the vast majority of newspapers, and ownership of our broadcast media is even more concentrated. And all of these media are owned primarily by conservatives singularly uninterested in anything but the bottom line.
We may have already lost the battle to save our country, but one thing is for sure: if John McCain is elected, it is entirely possible we will have lost the last chance to do anything about it. This election, we know what is at stake. Does anyone truly believe that if McCain is at the helm, China and the other countries that own the paper--literally--on our country won't simply call in their loans, devastating us financially? Why wouldn't they, given McCain's unstable character and hawkish tendencies? They could do so simply as a means of protecting themselves from military attack! Does anyone truly believe that if McCain is elected, the crimes of the Bush Administration won't be erased even more completely than they have been already? Does anyone truly believe that if McCain is elected, the machinery of governance will not come grinding to a halt as a Congress that has just enough obstruction-minded conservatives left in it becomes unable to pass any worthwhile bill whatsoever that has a chance of being signed into law? (Since 2006, we've already seen how that will look.)
More loftily, though, this election is about the mindset of our country. The contrast between the two candidates could not be more stark. Barack Obama, to all but the most cynical or deluded, really does operate from a worldview driven by hope and pragmatism, while John McCain, to all, sees only scary things in the world that need to be suppressed. Do we want to continue on the same path that gave us Iran-Contra, Fox News Channel, Florida 2000, 9/11, the "War on Terror", the Terri Schiavo mess, waterboarding and Abu Ghraib, the mortgage bubble/collapse and our current economic meltdown, and Sarah Palin? (I know, I know, Bill Clinton had oral sex. The Horror!) Or do we instead want to try and fix some of the things that Republicans have done to us? I don't know if it's at all possible for Barack Obama to "change" much in the time he may have, but I damn sure know that McCain isn't going to do anything I want done.
Hope v. Fear: that is the storyline here. I hope that Obama can help, and I am deathly afraid of John McCain.

Palin: So evil that even a Republican is calling her on it

Sarah Palin's speeches have been so hate-filled (and both Palin and McCain have allowed the most vile epithets to be yelled at their rallies without garnering rebukes) since her debate that even a Republican Representative has asked her to stop. Granted, he's from Obama's home state Illinois, and he's retiring, so he has nothing to lose by being human. But still . . .

McCain shooting craps

Most people who know me know I love to hear the phrase, "Do you know who I am?" come from self-important celebrities trying to get out of something (or get something they don't deserve). It's a classically bad form of arrogance and entitlement, and I love hearing stories where it gets used and fails. Well, here's one about our buddy John "I'm unhinged and losing it" McCain. The beauty of this one is that it involves my favorite table game craps, and one of my least favorite people in the world behaving like a total freak. I especially like the part where the pit boss had to get involved (which only happens when something questionable is occurring, and their word in a casino is pretty much the final word you will hear before being tossed out in the street); McCain throws the line in his face as well, unsurprisingly.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Jerk.

McCain: I can't compete, so I'll do this instead

McCain's latest stunt--and that's what it is, folks, I assure you--is to "suspend" his campaign because "it's time for both parties to come together to solve this problem". That would be an admirable stance, except for the fact that every major economist on record, and a majority of both parties (at least) seem less than convinced by Treasury Secretary Paulsen's panic attack on us that the sky really is falling. McCain has missed the most votes of any Senator in the current session, so one has to wonder why this problem, and why now?
Could it be that his numbers are plummeting, his campaign is starved for cash, his previous stunt of naming Sarah Palin as his running mate has run its course (at best--she's now acting primarily as an anchor, from what some polls [here, here, and here] are showing), and he has a debate coming up on Friday? Mmmmmm?
Clearly, the man is either a) incapable of doing more than one thing at a time, or b) disingenuously using this occasion to try and avoid making even more of a fool of himself and his party. So why should anyone trust someone like that to be President, exactly?
UPDATE: Ok, there is another possibility. McCain is: c) trying to get the Biden/Palin debate canceled entirely--I'm sorry, "rescheduled for a date yet to be determined"--so as to prevent his running mate from displaying her complete and utter incompetence in front of the entire nation!

McCain, foreign relations "expert": Spain = Mexico. No, seriously.

A new day, a new "Oh. My. God." moment. John McCain, in an interview with a Spanish--from Spain, is that confusing?--reporter, repeatedly answered questions by referring to Latin America and Mexico. Spain, which is in Europe and is not Mexico, for those of you not paying attention, must be wondering what on earth is going on (or not) inside anyone's head who thinks this guy isn't either senile or massively ignorant. Well, to be honest, so am I . . .

McCain's healthcare advisor: Emergency rooms = insurance!

Oh. My. God. John Goodman, who "helped craft" John McCain's health care "policy", is whacked. He seemingly honestly believes that because people can go to any ER and get treated, they have health care insurance. (Um, Mr. Goodman, what, exactly, can an ER do for someone who has cancer? Or cataracts? Or diabetes? Or any other systemic problem that needs ongoing or preventative treatment?) His ignorance and/or apathy to the plight of anyone human, though, goes far beyond that bit of stupidity. In a statement given to the Dallas Morning News, Goodman goes on to explain how we can eliminate the problem of the "uninsured"--this is real, folks:
"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.
"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."
This is the attitude of the Republican Party, guys and gals, in regards to all your troubles. It's just a rarity that anyone is actually bold, er, classless enough to state it for the record.
Grrrr.

McCain: "fundamentals of our economy are strong"

I kid you not; he said that today--Monday, September 15, 2008. How many foreclosures, how many bank failures, how many other financial institutions need to fail, John? Indeed, this is exactly the kind of thing Herbert Hoover was saying after the Wall Street Crash! The point is that the economy is working well--for some. The rich have never had it better, and as we all know, John McCain is in that class. How many houses do you own again, John?
For the rest of us, though, we are heading for some extremely rough waters. The majority of adjustable rate mortgages have yet to reset (meaning that their low teaser rate periods are expiring to be reset at true market value, causing many more people to lose the homes they really can't afford), which will cause another wave of failures to come crashing down on our already beleaguered financial system. Even more catastrophically, Washington Mutual is swiftly collapsing towards bankruptcy, and there are some who question whether the FDIC can afford to cover those losses. This is the nation's 6th largest bank in the US, people!
Thanks to 28 years of vicious conservative leadership--from Reagan to Bush to yes, Clinton, to Smirky, and in cahoots with conservative philosophers/economists/politicians, both in and outside of DC, we are now faced with the near total collapse of our economy. Deregulation of the financial markets, the insistence on "free" trade, the reduction of all of our manufacturing in favor of concentrating on the service and fiscal "industries"--in short, our complete reliance on the Republican canard of "trickle-down economics" has brought us to the brink of disaster unimaginable after the fixes put in place during and after the Great Depression.
And McCain has the gall to claim that we're doing just fine? That is one delusional crank. How on earth can 1/2 the people in the country really believe that he even cares about them, let alone knows how to solve their problems? He doesn't even think that there are any! Scary times.

Olympics, kind of

I like the Olympics. I like seeing people striving to better themselves, and I love watching unknowns or underdogs do well and occasionally even surprise with a victory. I loved the opening ceremonies--I thought it was the best I've ever seen, to be honest (although the Barcelona arrow shot to light the flame surpassed this one). I like the concept of having some arena, somewhere, where at least on the field, the geopolitical world takes a backseat to something else. Something close (or closer, at any rate) to pure.
Naturally, Smirky (with Doll's Eyes) has come along to ruin some of the Olympics games for me. Every event he attends, the director is compelled (ordered?) to show him grinning idiotically and waving to somebody, clearly oblivious to the pain and deaths he has caused so many people. It offends me to see him so happy, so carefree, and so relaxed. The announcers must acknowledge his presence in reverential tones, athletes are summoned for a jocular affixing of nicknames or an attaboy, and we have even been subjected to an in-studio interview with Bob Costas. Even at the Olympics, NBC seems to be in the tank for its Republican masters, regardless of approval ratings (Smirky has been sub-30% for months, marking an unprecedented tenure of dissatisfaction from the country).
To top it all off, if watching live, we are forced to watch the abomination of John McCain's misleading and completely negative ads slurring Barack Obama. I wonder how much of a deal Ol' Wrinkly got from NBC, because his $6 million ad buy is stretching a heck of lot further than Obama's $5 mill, even though Obama bought earlier. For those who are unfamiliar with the process of ad buying, usually the early money gets more bang for the buck, as the growing scarcity of available time causes the rates per minute to rise even though the choice time slots are often taken. From what I've seen, though, McCain's ads have been running at least twice as often as Obama's so far, and I saw only McCain ads during the opening ceremonies, which are the most universally watched part of the Games. (Granted, I missed about 45 minutes, so maybe all of Obama's ads ran from 9:45-10:30. Uh huh.)
Luckily, most of the time the other NBC channels are running events concurrently, so I can switch back and forth to avoid Smirky and Ol' Wrinkly as much as possible. But TBO is not a fan of boxing (which has taken up a lot of MSNBC's airtime in the evenings) or my relentless channel surfing during unpleasantness, so I risk alienating the mother of my child as well.
Grrr.

The self-reflexivity is mind-boggling

In Denver, a 61-year old librarian was cited for trespassing the "open to the public" McCain town hall meeting. Confused? Why should you be? See, she was holding a sign that read, and I quote in full, "McCain=Bush". That's it. McCain's security forces called in the Denver PD to escort Carol Kreck off the premises, and thereby cemented his equivalence to Smirky, or at least his lack of tolerance for dissent.
Irony? Self-fulfilling idiocy? You make the call . . .

Clinton crosses a(nother) line

You all know what I think of John McCain and his disingenuous gas tax proposal. Well, now Hillary Clinton has decided to be both shortsighted and hypocritical, slamming Obama's opposition to McCain's proposal. Clinton is attempting to characterize Obama as unfeeling and unsympathetic to the American public, without noting her own opposition to the exact same legislation only 8 years ago.
I have refrained from caring about the Democratic Primary since my man Edwards dropped out, hoping against hope that neither candidate would stoop as low as any Republican would, thereby assuring our eventual victory in November. Clearly my hope has been misguided; both candidates have sought to disappoint me time after time. Obama seeks accommodation with the Republicans who want to destroy America, while Clinton wants "merely" to tarnish the front running Obama's image in an increasingly vain attempt to capture the nomination herself, apparently regardless of the cost to her integrity, our party, our country, and the world. By the time either of these people reach the general election, they will have ostracized so many factions of the populace that it will be hard to unite them in time to prevent the coronation of another Republican nightmare. Our greatest hope remains McCain's incompetence and truly mind-boggling episodes of mental deterioration--or is it merely convenient forgetfulness, as if that's better?--let alone his ceaseless pandering to the 30%ers still enamored of Smirky and the gang.
And that's sad.

John McCain: Republican garbage

I know the media likes telling the story that John McCain is "a maverick" and "a moderate", but anyone with 1/2 a brain can see that this is utter bullshit. He has been just as much an enabler of Smirky's brand of Republicanism as anyone you can find way out on the right wing. The latest evidence? McCain is brilliantly pandering to the worst instincts of the electorate by proposing a "summer break" in gas taxes. In how many ways is this dishonest? Let's see:
1) The taxes on gasoline go directly to upkeep on our highways and other transportation infrastructure; eliminating them hastens the complete destruction of our network of roads and bridges (remember Minnesota's collapsing bridge?). Heck, the gas taxes aren't high enough to pay for what needs doing as it is! (And here's a start.) But it sure sounds like he cares about us, doesn't it?
2) The likelihood that the oil companies would actually pass on the tax savings to the consumer approaches zero--seriously, does anyone trust them to ever do the right thing for anyone other than their biggest stockholders? The tax on a gallon of gas is 18.4 cents--I'll eat all of my hats if we see a reduction larger than 10 cents, and I would be hugely surprised if we see any reduction at all. When's the last time you remember a change in gas prices at the pump having anything to do with the price of a barrel of oil? So this is really about increasing profitability for the oil companies and reducing the income of the federal government--win/win (if you're a complete right wing rich asshole, that is)!
3) McCain's proposal actively hurts the conservation/green movement by appearing as if high prices are the issue, not our addiction to oil in the first place. Of course, that's because the Republicans are getting absolutely killed on both environmental grounds and charges of being in the pockets of the oil companies.
4) By making this kind of wholly disingenuous proposal, McCain demonstrates that he is just like Smirky, Dick, and the rest of the scumbags who will say/do anything to con the public into voting for them. If McCain truly cared about how much I pay for gas, why didn't he propose this, oh, say, 6 years ago, when prices began to rise precipitously? Or at any other time in his career? Answer: Because it wouldn't have helped him get elected to anything until now.

The problem is that the Republican Party has so successfully tarnished the concept of good government and what it can do to help the country, that few see the benefit in the concept of taxation. We must relearn that taxation is not the cause of any of our problems--it is what the government does with its income that has value (or not). Advocating for the elimination of taxes on April 15 is demagoguery, plain and simple. Anyone thinking that lowering taxes does anything positive clearly hasn't been paying attention, or simply doesn't care about our country. Our economy is staggering on the brink of total collapse thanks to 3 decades of economic irresponsibility, during which the Republicans have held the majority of the reins of power, and it's only getting worse. This is not a coincidence, for chrissakes! It is intentional, and they have been succeeding exactly through this kind of pandering. McCain is nothing but a typical Republican thug; believing anything else betrays the height of ignorance.