Days of The Dragon

John McCain, and my country cannot afford to be beaten down anymore by having you be President.

I’m sure this will piss off some of my readers – and that’s fine. This blog is for me and for Parker – a way for me to keep a record for myself. It’s not meant to win approval from anyone. So, I invite you to just stop reading if you think you may be offended by anti-McCain/Palin talk.

I don’t disagree with everything McCain says he stands for, and I don’t agree with everything Obama says he stands for – but, I certainly have more respect for Obama and I agree with many more of Obama’s positions than I do McCain’s.

- Stop avoiding answering questions by simply stating that you were a POW and hoping that that somehow distracts from giving a substantive response. I certainly thank you for serving in our military – but, please stop denigrating our military by shamelessly using your service as some kind of excuse for not having substance, or not having an answer that the public will like. I’m sure being a POW was a horrifying and terrible experience that we hope no American ever goes through. However, being a former POW does not make you more or less qualified to be President. And, why do you constantly refuse to vote for legislation to support our troops when they come home – with healthcare, mental health services, and education/job assistance. If you support our troops, then you give them everything they need while serving and while at home – everything!

- You have changed your position on a woman’s right to privacy and choice, apparently just to appeal to the far-right of your political party. In 1999 McCain said, "But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations." – now, suddenly he supports overturning Roe v Wade. How politically expedient of you, John, to throw women’s health and privacy under the bus just to pander to the Taliban-esque wing of Christianity. Being anti-choice and anti-privacy is not an American principle. According to the current Republican party, a woman does not own her own body. While I firmly believe in a woman’s right to choose, I also strongly feel that abortion should be as rare as possible. Why not try to reduce accidental pregnancies and increase natal care so that fewer and fewer abortions would even be considered.

- Please stop trying to convince people you are somehow going to change Washington or politics or anything else. You’ve been part of it all for a very long time, and you have supported the current, defunct, immoral, and un-American administration more than 90% of the time – how does that bode for your claim to want to or even know how to “change” things? Let’s see – not well – it means you’re just a liar, John, a big liar.

- Your judgment is severely lacking. You supported a war that should never have happened. A war that the Bush administration lied, knowingly lied, in order to perpetrate. You said that Afghanistan was “won” years ago – when, even now our top military commanders say Afghanistan is on the verge of crisis (nearly 150 US soldiers killed this year there). If we don’t win in Afghanistan then the Taliban will come back to power – and you will have played a part in that. You and Bush have let Bin Laden off the hook – you talk the talk about the “war on terror” – but, you don’t actually do anything useful. At a time when world affairs are changing so quickly and much of the world is in chaos of some sort, you chose a running mate with ZERO foreign policy experience – that’s insane. There are many other Republican women who would have made a much, much better choice – like Senator Olympia Snowe, perhaps.

- Drilling for more oil will not solve our problems with importing foreign oil. You can build a million new oil wells around the country, and you’ll still need to import a lot of oil – the US simply does not have the reserves needed. Not to mention that even if you start drilling today, it takes on average 8-12 years before you get much usable oil from your wells. We can’t wait that long, John. My son needs cleaner air now, not 15 years from now. I’m ok with increasing domestic production of oil in areas where drilling is already allowed, but it’s just a poor and incomplete stop-gap measure. We need to be moving as quickly as possible to renewable sources of fuel – be they wind, solar, hydrogen, nuclear, etc…

- John, you’re old. You’re out of touch. While age is generally not something we should ever use a reason to keep people from doing something – but, for the position of President, it is a very valid concern. The average man lives to age 76 or so – could McCain even finish out his first term? We don’t need ideas that are stuck in the 40s or 50s – America desperately needs new ideas to keep moving forward. If we want to continue to be the best country on earth, we cannot go backwards – we have to lead the charge to a better world.

- McCain has no plan based in reality to help resolve our health care crisis, and it truly is a crisis. Our nation’s care system is crumbling, and more and more people are falling by the side – not receiving the care they need. He even thinks that if you are lucky enough to receive health care benefits that you should then be taxed on them – that is just dumb, and will not only raise taxes but will reduce healthcare access.

- Education under McCain will suffer, just as it has under Bush. No Child Left Behind is an abject failure. You do not develop minds and great thinkers by teaching to a series of standardized tests, and cutting funding for schools every chance you get.

- Poverty in this nation is out of control. Poverty rates have increased nearly every year that Bush has been in office. Nothing will change under McCain – he’s so disconnected from the average American that he thinks being wealthy means you make over $5 million a year – and, can’t keep track of the 7 or so homes he and Cindy own. Where are your ideas that will help the working poor to pull themselves up? You’ve given no answers on what you will do about the continuing foreclosure and liquidity market crises that are plaguing our economy. Your economic plan sounds eerily familiar to that of Reagan – just let all the money trickle down from giant corporations and the super-wealthy – and hope that it somehow lands in the pockets of average Americans. Well, that doesn’t work, it’s never worked.

- McCain and Palin both support abstinence-only sex education. It’s a crock. It doesn’t work. Teens will be teens, and some of them will experiment no matter how many times you tell them not to. So, the message should be to not experiment, but if you do, to PLEASE use a condom. Maybe if we educated these teens on how to put a condom on a penis (and how important it is to do so), there would be fewer teens getting pregnant by accident. If we empower teen girls to believe in themselves, respect their body, and to stand up for themselves, they might have the wherewithal to insist to their boyfriend that he wear a condom or it’s a no-go. Teaching girls and women to submit to men as “less than” is wrong.

- Geez, McCain, stop trying to use your daughter as a prop. How many times do you need to remind people that she was adopted, or that she was adopted even though she had a special need? Adopting is NOT a charity act. Kids in need of homes do not need our pity, and they are not props for you to parade around to try to show how great of a person you are for taking in this poor this child. That’s not even close to what adoption is about.

- You, too, Sarah! Stop using your daughter and her pregnancy as a prop to claim what great family values you have. That’s creepy and disrespectful. And, why did you slash funding for homeless teen mothers earlier this year? That’s just a perfect example of what Republicans call “being compassionate”. Sarah, you’re just full of values – the wrong values.

- You picked someone for your running mate who knows less about foreign policy than most peoples’ family pet – and, then the idiots in your party claim she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is near Russia – um, that’s just stupid. I guess since I have been to Taiwan, Haiti, Viet Nam, etc…that I, too, am a foreign policy expert. Hey, I’ve been to a bank, so I must be qualified to lead the federal reserve! Move over Bernanke, I’m headed up to take your position! Oh wait, I drive by churches every day – maybe I can be the next pope.

- Palin’s church is anti-Jewish, or at least is open to having anti-Jewish speakers and guests. At a meeting that Palin attended, it was claimed that terrorist attacks on Israel are justified as simply being god’s revenge for being Jewish. That’s just gross – despicable.

- Palin is under investigation for unethical behavior regarding firing a former family member from his police position. She was accused in the mid 90’s of the same thing, but it was never fully investigated. This time the Alaska legislature did decide it was worth investigating. In addition, the state of Alaska shut down a business that she and her husband owned a 40% stake in for improper business practices like not filing required documents with the state.

- Palin thinks creationism should be taught in schools. Um, no. This is the USA – we do not teach religion in public schools – ever. If you want that, you can move to Iran where religion is taught in school. Creationism (also known as intelligent design) is nothing more than a myth, a cover to teach religion to students. It has zero basis in fact or reality.

- Palin is ignorant of American history. When she was asked if she supported the phrase “under god” being in the pledge of allegiance, she responded by saying that since it was good enough for the founders of our nation, it was good for her. Um, the pledge wasn’t written until the late 1800s – over 100 years after the nation was founded, long after all the founders had died. And, the phrase “under god” was not added to the pledge until the 1950s.

- Palin is a liar – plain and simple. She claims she works against unneeded spending, and claims to have opposed the infamous “bridge to nowhere” that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. In September 2006, the Ketchikan Daily News ran a story with this little section that exposes Palin as a liar.

"Palin said Alaska’s congressional delegation worked hard to obtain funding for the bridge as part of a package deal and that she ‘would not stand in the way of the progress toward that bridge.’"

- Both are anti-gay, and do not support equality (marriage, adoption/fostering, tax law, employment, military service, etc) for gay or lesbian Americans. I don’t care what the basis for this hateful position – it’s wrong, it’s un-American. All Americans are supposed to be equal under the law – period, end of story – no debate needed.

- This isn’t really about either Republican candidate per say – but, about the party as a whole. The Republican party is so white. I mean, it doesn’t reflect America’s racial or ethnic makeup at all. Only 36 of nearly 2400 Republican delegates are black. The numbers for other minority groups are just as disheartening. It tells me that my son, who is Vietnamese, likely has no place in the Republican party simply b/c he isn’t white and he isn’t Christian. The Republican party is just completely out of touch with so much of America. But, it’s not unexpected when the party is anti-immigrant and often openly hostile to non-whites (like how John McCain thinks using the word gook is just fine). I mean, this is a party that still thinks flying the confederate flag is somehow good. The confederate flag stands for slavery, it stands for the idea of breaking America into two separate countries – it is not something to be honored. If people want a flag that represents southern culture, then create a new one – don’t use one that has such negativity associated with it.

- Republicans often question other Americans’ patriotism if you disagree with them. She and many other Republicans like to say that Democrats want to “lose in Iraq” – which is just a lie first off, secondly it is a way of saying that Democrats are unpatriotic and don’t love the USA. Well, once again Republicans are simply wrong – I love my country so much that I don’t want thousands of our soldiers, fellow Americans, to die in a war that never should have happened. I don’t want our country’s moral or military standing in the world damaged by the reckless acts of the Bush administration.

- Why would Palin attempt to belittle Obama for being a community organizer in Chicago? Anytime someone gets in the trenches and tries to empower their community members to build better lives for themselves is a good thing. Perhaps Sarah just really has no clue what it means to truly serve one’s country.

- Palin is a good speaker, though she comes off as sarcastic and petty at times. Her speech at the convention was more of the same that Bush has been giving us the last 8 years; it was divisive and lacking on any kind of policy information. Republicans know that to win they must pit American against American – they pedal cynicism and an extremist form of Christianity – and little else. So much for those claims of change.

This is way long enough – and there’s still so much more to say. You could write a book about any one of these issues, but these short paragraphs will have to do.

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