After this election, I would just like it if America changed one thing about our mentality about ourselves- the idea that race should no longer be a "hush-hush" issue that people live in denial about and suppress the first person to mention it in conversation, the topic of severity of dealing with how race affects our social behaviors and everything that grows from that root, and the notion that because we choose not to talk about it, it is okay and we have "progressed."

This is my first presidential election, and I'm glad to take part in this living history that has been taking place, and I am not dismissing one social ill from another when I say this, but, I'm glad Barack Obama running and with a high percentage chance of succeeding to get the Presidency that people are finally beginning to examine their own prejudices dealing with race, racism, and how issues affect race parlay into our everyday lives.

I can say personally that since Obama put his hat in the presidential ring that I've had to examine my beliefs and opinions about how progressive my values really are, and that through the fires that this election has put me through, I passed the test and feel better about my values. But, with every white person that tells me : "We've progressed, race doesn't have anything to do with this election" or something along that line, I am bothered at the denial of obvious reality, the blissfulness of being addicted to the illusion, and the fact that people are afraid of their own prejudices. Why do we find comfort in the illusions that lie to us and hurt others in the process?

I'm a white male, yes, but I have enough race consciousness to know we can do better in this country. That by accepting the realities we don't want to accept we can therefore use that as a springboard for great social change. I know I will be inheriting the previous generations' messes, but I also know that I will be inheriting the previous generatons' triumphs and progressions too. The truth of the matter is that we all suffer under the ills that plague our society, whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, and whether we like to accept it or not. I am speaking for myself here, and I just want to state that in case it looks like I'm patronizing people I do not mean to patronize. I may belong under many social categories that society doesn't particularly favor, but at the end of the day, the fact that I am conscious about the things that give me unearned privilege like the fact that I am white and male, then I can use that to bring to light several injustices and be taken seriously on the matter, even if it's undeserved attention.

Honestly, all social ills are the same, their only difference is who they are illed against. What makes the social ills equal is that the person and people maintaining the ill fall under the same mentality: " This person is different from me, that is wrong and they should be punished."

After this election, not only can we raise ourselves up from the ground regarding the issues that are being discussed, but we have a chance of beginning to raise ourselves up from the ground about the issues we don't discuss, and we can start by discussing them.

I can not stop yelling at the TV, and all it is is policy. Sure, the fact that I have been spreading a rumor that Sarah Palin eats babies is a little sexist, but when it comes to debates, it is policy.

Sarah has tried to seduce voters into her ticket by throwing her vernacular euphomisms ( "darn it!") annd hockey and soccer moms, but, from someone who has been there, I feel like I am being talked down to and I know that as an Ohio voter, I am not stupid. Ohio voters might do stupid things sometimes, like the past 2 elections, but we are not stupid. Stop feeding these populist lies Palin, it doesn't work.

You talk soccer moms and Main Street when you live on a mansion on a hill looking down on what was once a peasant community. You talk respect of women's right when you sold your ovaries to the state and to G-d with your victim-pays rape kits, your disrespect of the right to privacy and Roe v. Wade and I could go on.

Sure, you have been in VP for the past 5 weeks, but how can you say you believe in global warming when you said you didn't just the other day? How can you promise change when you are funded by the status quo. The McCain-Palin campaign management, at least financially is run by oil company lobbyists. You talk energy independence when you are funded by people who expect dependence for 100 more years. You dismiss a reasonable, pragmatic call to withdrawal our troops from Iraq and let Iraq become Iraq, because we can't surrender now. Wait until your son comes back in a body bag and if alive, wait until he develops PSTD. You talk working class when you only care about that 1% you belong to. You have scripted substance, but that's it. You still can't answer the questions.

We are not stupid. And there you go with your vernacular! G_D!

In regards to the "No" vote on the bailout, I have to side with Congress on this one because Bush's plan was only a bandaid. Would you put a bandaid over a failing kidney, or would you rather prefer a surgeon go in there and do their very best to fix it?

The bandaid is Bush's bailout. The surgeons are Congress who are skeptical and doing their job right. Now, if only we had a leader who is willing to work and get his hands dirty for the American people. Thank G-d for early voting. And it's a horrible shame that the economy had to sink so low to get people to wake up.

http://www.sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-09-25.gif

I'm not a big fan of presidential debates, especially in the past few years. I understand their importance. I understand what they are to the uneducated voter who looks to these as ways of being educated about the candidates. I understand to some voters who are conflicted in where they channel their support, these debates finalize who they are voting for. I know, because I once felt like I was in those latter realities.

As a voter who gets his own education, currently free of media bias and social influence, about who the candidates are and how they campaign, the most I can say regarding why I am not a fan is simply because in modern time, these "debates" aren't really debates. "Debate" is just the polite term used as a cover while two opposing politicians go at each other in every way, shape, or form they can in verbal discussion. I know I'm speaking the current " old school" politics, the "more of the same" of the current debating strategy, but I think that it is true that "debate" is now the formalized excuse that the media and to a certain extent, the politicians, give while they duke it out for two hours.

In light of this current reality, I know how ugly these "debates" get. My definition of "ugly" in this circumstance entitles the condescending way an opposing politician can make his "debate partner" look inconsistent and stupid no matter how intelligent the opposing candidate to said politician is. The opposing politician currently brings up fear-based rhetoric to reel the uneducated voter in, if not already manipulate a fear to his advantage in one form or the other. How does one address this? If my chance one or two Obama advisors reads this today, the best suggestion a constituent can give to Senator Obama is that be blunt as possible when criticizing this tactic directly. To some, it may make you look high and mighty, but, if enough people clue in and tone in to the way it is approached, it may win a few more votes and steer more people your way.

Connecting these dots to the ultimate, basic, "problematic".... the issues. No one focuses on the issues at these things. It used to be issues was all its about, now it is just personal quibs with the excuse of criticizing record and vice versa. To some, those are "issues" enough. Sure, people may like to see Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck go at it on the View and look at it like they are digging at each other personally, but, the general impression I get from the media is that they care more about the fact that they got into a fight rather than discuss what they are fighting about, which is mostly the issues. And, maybe the View is a bad reference to this, or maybe it isn't.

The issues really matter in this election, because more and more people are beginning to realize how what plays in Washington is reverberated throughout the country. Yet, we have one politician who would rather brush it off and talk like an eltist trying to convince the "stupid" masses that it is okay if the U.S. government screws its constituents over, that it is good while he profits from it and another politician, Barack Obama, who knows America from the ground up because he's been there and still is there, knows reality well enough to confront it and speak truth to power. Who doesn't believe his constituents are stupid, and is looking for no financial profit that involves dirty dealings. Of those two, WHO is more likely to talk about the issues tonight? WHO is the one to refocus the "debate" so that issues are all we talk about?

This election calls for an honest discussion about the issues and the real, most pragmatic way to handle them honestly and upfront. It calls for someone to speak truth to power. That, comparing this to surgery, someone who would actually go in there and fix the broken organs themselves rather than put a band-aid over it because it's cheaper to do so and costs the Hospital Administration less, taken the Hospital Administration only gives a damn about the Hospital Administration and not about the patients its services are there to serve to their fullest extent.

Talk issues
Speak truth to power


Yeah, I'm not a big fan of presidential debates. I already know who I'm voting for, I don't even know whether I should watch the debates or not. Should I, or shouldn't I, considering these factors?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22observer.html?th&emc=th

We already know how historic this presidential election has been, we've seen history being made and progress becoming a reality with the road to the nominations. Yet, I wonder in the face of progress, will America prove itself to be the great place it is or, in the midst of depressing factors, continue to side with status quo simply because of comfort?

Of course, if America chooses status quo it will be like giving an alcoholic who is going to AA meetings alcohol and asking them not to drink it, when we all know they will. Why do we find comfort in the things that hurt our country so?

I know that as a human being, it's hard to ask for an ideal to be realized, it's also hard to live with high expectations of a particular ideal for which to perceive others by, but, for once, I would love it if America finally lives up to its ideals with its real results.

WHich, is why I don't get, at least in my home state of Ohio, why people find security in John McCain. According to a recent poll( who of which I am starting to be skeptical about), John McCain leads by 6%. 6% compared to Barack Obama. I know the demographic factors behind this, and this is why I am writing this.

We as Americans are used to being handed information about people and politicians on a silver platter. Though a recent political culture trend, how can we make an educated choice when we are too lazy to do the work? There is nothing wrong nor is it time consuming to go to the politician's websites, read their literature if they have written any, pay attention to their speeches, you get the picture. It's not as time-consuming as it looks. The most it could all take is 2 hours of your time if you choose to do so collectively. Still, in the midst of this possible reality, people still depend on other people to tell them. Sure, Barack Obama may give speeches, but he doesn't have time to sit down with every American and talk to them about who he is, where he came from, what his policies will be, that is for the voter to find out for themselves. We seem to have another dependence not just with foreign oil, but with our mainstream news media to tell us how to think. FOX is the leading example, but, other media outlets do the same thing as well. We are being told to think because after 8 years of a man who can't, the media, which is mostly funded by conservative Republican backers, makes up for that by dumbing us down. The media may antagonize us by telling us of a "race war" between white and African Americans regarding prejudice for example( as they show you on Yahoo today) for example. It may be true, but it's probably more likely to be false. What is the goal of this news story? To blame African Americans for causing white Americans to rethink "values" they find so comfortable, even though those "values" are racist to say the least. Why must the "minority" be blamed for the "dominant" group's fault? Especially when the fault is not theirs to begin with.

Yet, here we are, at the brink of real change and progress, positive to say the least. The players of status quo have nothing to go on except the same old, fear-based rhetoric that has become commonplace. in American political culture. The level of comfort is as stable as Rush Limbaugh without his oxycontin. Not that he is stable with it either, but you know what I mean.

Right now, this country as a whole is between Barack and a hard place, and I'd rather be with Barack than in the hard place McCain and Painin' Palin would put us in.

It seems that this is the argument every time a Democrat takes political office: " I'm not voting for him, he will raise taxes!" or something like that.

We are used to have things fed to us on a silver platter. We are used to a black-and-white view of the world and of our country. I know a good some of us see the world and our country in living, real color, to know otherwise.

But seriously, McCain and Palin must be crazy to use the same ole Republican tagline that has been used since 1980- " Don't vote Democrat... they'll raise your taxes!"

Since the Republicans are famous for deregulating and making the government smaller, more exclusive, and lazy in its participation with the people, does it not make sense to raise taxes to sustain our government? Does it not make sense to complement the lazy, ineffective Republican mandates with active, effective Democratic initiatives?

I have been reading the news about the fragile state of our economy. I've read about the Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, ALG, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae, and the 790 point loss on Wall Street. To add to that the leftovers of Ike, Hannah, and Gustav scraping our gas dependency, amongst other resources we use and abuse. Honestly, raising taxes would be the right idea to raise America off it's own two feet right now. Seriously, it is the only way we can revive this economy. It's the only suggestion I could think of.

And, when Barack Obama is in office, the raised taxes will be only for the 1% of America who hasn't experienced the squeeze. Yes, they are wary of the assets they want to protect, but, even those assets are losing ground and economic credibility. The people who have been experiencing the squeeze will get the break they need. It may take a while, but it'll be worth it.

Today, I finally started phonebanking today, and I felt great. At first I felt nervous and filled with questions about the who's its and what's its, but in the end, it was worth it. I felt like I actually helped Barack Obama get elected.

Vounteer in your area, you will feel GREAT afterwards!

Today is the 7th year anniversary of the events of 9/11/2001.

The title of my post was a poster someone made that was put at a vigil area to the victims of that tragic day. It was showcased at the 2002 Emmy ceremony during the closing number. I didn't take the time to watch the broadcast. But, I recall Ellen DeGeneres really made it okay to laugh again. It's what the terrorists wouldn't have wanted, I believe she said.

At the end of the night, a performer came on. She wasn't invited to America: A Tribute To Heroes because producers didn't like " her kind of politics." And, she had something to say. Something our country needed to hear, something I am going to reiterate tonight.

In the past 8 years, what do we have to show the terrorists who attacked us that day? Rather than embrace our freedoms that they don't want us to have, we have been scared shitless into forgetting our freedoms for the sake of protection. The people manipulating our fear for political gain, President Bush and his Administration and the Republican Party. Our hearts were broken...and we let our spirits break by going along with this, because they let us never forget the anger and hurt that came from that day. I don't know anybody who died on 9/11, but I can say, that the victims probably wouldn't want this to happen. They would want us to embrace what we have and say to the terrorists that we don't care that our freedoms scare you, but there is nothing to be afraid of because that is what makes our country so great. The fact that according to the Constitution, we can speak our minds, disagree with each other and not get killed for thinking differently, worship as we please if we choose to worship at all, petition and assemble when a grievance becomes universal. Rather than use our brief unification the days after 9/11, Bush should have used that feeling as means for peace, and not for war. Bush is behind why we have dissected each other to the point of total polarization.

But there is hope. There was hope then too, which is what this performer sang about that night at the Emmys. She was almost suppressed by people who thought offering a message of hope was disrespectful to the victims and disrespectful to the country, but it was needed. It was a message the vitims would have wanted too.

This November, we have an opportunity to lift ourselves up off our own two feet. By voting for Barack Obama, that hope can have a chance to do good for this country by ourselves actively participating in making the country and the freedoms we love as means to finally beat the terrorists, just by having hope as the motivation to change our country for the better. Only then, can we show the terrorists can we refortify the title of this poster.

Because:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFC26mBiEJ8

No articles today. I usually have articles from the New York Times and more recently, the Huffington Post, but today, there is no need to use them for the motivation support.

I was in middle school and high school when George W. Bush was "elected" President. I remember the 2000 election like one would remember what age they had chicken pox.

After Bush was "elected," I really paid attention on how his policies, words, and actions played out for us as a country. How this "uniter" started the absolute, engraved -in-stone division of this country. Earlier, this country was considerably harmonious when it came to agreeing to disagree with each other. Since Bush took office, the division has led to countless battles on the homefront over every hot button issue this side of Baghdad.

I am not writing this to complain, I am writing this so the person we hope and will do our best to get elected will be aware of the work he has to do domestically with complete understanding and know the severity of the experience it has been if you have been a liberal, a Democrat, a pro-choice supporter, a pro-civil rights & liberties supporter, a human rights activist, and the list we all know have been considered the blacklist goes on. Not that I don't think Barack Obama doesn't understand this, it is just, as a direct beneficiary of the previous generation's legacy, I really hope that this gets worked on.

Here is why this needs to happen:

I don't like the idea that its okay that people my age and under are encouraged to be ignorant about politics by media sources and other modes of socialization. Just the other day I heard someone say : " George Bush is a great President. You could party with him" and I practically died a little inside and wanted to say something, but didn't.

I don't like the idea that because I disagree with Bush that I an considered a liberal nutjob who doesn't know what he is talking about. I don't like the idea that other people who think liberally regarding their politics are considered crazy because of it.

I don't like that it is okay to demean, debase, devalidate, and degrade human life if the person you are arguing with is a liberal Democrat, but seek high holy praise if you are a conservative Republican simply because your guy in in the office. And it even reflects itself in the media. "The View" for example: Bill Geddes donates a great chunk of his money to the Republican Party and has very close business ties to FOX News, Rupert Murdoch's love child. When Rosie O'Donnell was on, it wasn't because she had a new perception to bring to the table nor because she is a big name and would raise publicity for the show, but to purposefully make her look like a fool and make a liberal opinion look foolish to have in the first place. They are doing the same thing with Whoopi Goldberg now. It is hard for every liberal in this country since that asswipe took office.

Debate is healthy for a democracy, but recently the current trend is "agree with me or face the wrath of being demonized by me for disagreeing with me," which is EXTREMELY unhealthy. It's practically fascist when you think of it. It seems we can only have one opinion in America, and that is our President's opinion on things.

Now, its not that I haven't called for responsible accountability from others for these actions and words, but, I am almost ( and this is VERY sad) used to getting blamed for other people's words and actions against me than the ideal possibility. Why is it MY fault that YOU can't hold yourself accountable for YOUR negative words and actions against me? SERIOUSLY!

This is EXACTLY why I am asking for a call to end this culture war once and for all. It doesn't require a winner/loser end result, it doesn't require a treaty/negotiation, it doesn't call for the development of an organization with the original intention to stop war from happening ( like the U.N. take the hint). All it requires are enough voices that just say: " STOP!"


1. Tim Collingwood, Boston Heights, OH- "STOP!"

As an English major, McCain could have had a better acceptance speech.

He thinks that if he borrows some of Obama's rhetoric and make it look like the Republican Party has truly been the oppressed party of the past 8 years and that George W. Bush, a self-defined Republican, doesn't have a negative legacy, even though Bush has a negative legacy and the Republican Party has been the OPPRESSOR party.

But, honestly, "partisan rancor?" It's like insulting somebody and saying that they were insulting you. At least Barack Obama stated our country's problem at little nicer, and a little less fear-mondering.

Honestly, his speech is as cheap as a McDonald's Happy Meal.

Was the song Diane Keaton as Annie Hall sang in the 1977 movie, Annie Hall. But, I am not here to talk about my favorite movies.

It does seem appropriate for what I am here to show you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM3oww9Vk-c


Seems the "party of change" is only the party that recycles already rotten tactics.

Surprisingly borrowed from the Associated Press:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform â€" not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state â€" by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right â€" change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington â€" throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

Please Note: The facts aren't "borrowed" from the AP, although they did come in the form of an article within the AP

I just read from the Huffington Post about Palin's acceptance speech, and, honestly, what nerve has she to call Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders in government the "Washington elite?"

What does the elite look like to you Sarah?

I had no idea that people who lost their homes to foreclosure; workers who lost their jobs to outsourcing; families who lost their families to the war in Iraq AND returning veterans who go homeless AND wounded veterans with poor health care to handle the readjustment; people who get arrested without a warrant and call for habeas corpus for politics and just to get inhumanely tortured; women who want the right to make reproductive choices without resorting to a back alley abortion or a wire hanger; GLBT Americans who want hate crime legislation enacted; people who want civil rights and liberties preserved and maintained rather than disregarded for the sake of "protection"; and the list gets longer. I had no idea Palin considers a majority of Americans and the people who honestly stand up and DO THEIR JOBS and represent their constituents are the "elite."

Governor Palin, just look in the audience you are speaking too. Look at those rich, white faces. Have you ever noticed that the audience at the Republican National Convention looks like they are at a business convention? I guess there is a reason why they call it the RNC.

Gov. Palin,

Look at yourself. You are an eltist because you cater to a party that only cares about 1% of America, and tries to keep the rest of us in line by scaring ourselves out of our freedoms and rights.

Sarah,

You are a member of the Washington Elite. Stop peddling that reality into a party that has nothing to do with your group!

I understand how close our troops might be with each other, like brothers and sisters.

And, even though we all know McCain's POW story inside and out, it is kind of well....interesting that a former POW that McCain knew in Vietnam states this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KjsEs46C70


Makes you question his leadership abilities, doesn't it?