ranting again

i have been out here now for 9 days in southern indiana and northern kentucky, bloomington and louisville and some small surrounding towns. i have seen HUNDREDS of obama bumber stickers and NO mc cain stickers. both indiana and kentucky are historically republican states so draw whatever conclusion you may.

as a side bar: of all the people who have said to me that they are going to vote republican none of them had anything good to say about senator mc cain, their reasons were always something or another against obama. most of those "somethings" were just a repeat of the rush/savage/o'reilly mantra of the day. last night i got an email from a entertainment agent in l.a. who said he was going to vote republican because obama is a marxist. now, i know this man and know him fairly well and have known him for 20 somewhat years and i can guarantee that he has NEVER READ A SINGLE PAGE OF DAS KAPITAL. he could no more explain marxism than he could explain quantum physics but there he is stating, AS A FACT, that senator obama is a marxist. i wrote to him and told him not to forget that senator obama is also a muslim terrorist who will drain our precious bodily fluids.

another thing that is amazing in it's stupidity is the statement mouthed by many that they are not voting for senator obama because "they know nothing about him." have you heard that? they say it and others nod knowlingly. ye gads. senator obama has written TWO BOOKS. senator obama was in TEN (or so, i don't remember the exact number) DEBATES with hillary clinton, joe biden, chris dodd et al. senator obama has a website where he outlines each and every position he advocates. HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM UNLESS YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TRIED TO FIND OUT? it is all out there and has been for quite some time. what they are saying is just another repeating of that right wing propoganda mantra.

if you are for mc cain what are your reasons? if you are against obama, just what is it you disagree with?

oh, and if you are going to say that obama is "going to raise taxes" that would be true if you are a multi millionaire. if you are middle class he has stated he is going to lower yours. he is going to repeal the billion dollar tax breaks for the oil companies and he is going to repeal the tax breaks for the ultra rich that bush put in. so, if you are an average joe or jane and are not an oil company, your taxes will go down. ah, but why bother with facts when you have rush to tell you what to think and how to vote?

actually, i would be for the candidate that said, "look, we are in deep shit here and we need to raise more revenues or our country is going to go broke." every time the republicans get into power they run up huge debts and always leave the country in a bind when they are finally voted out of office. reagan did it, bush I did it and now gwb has done it. they all lowered taxes on the rich and said that the benefits would "trickle down" but, as i have said before, no benefits trickled down to you and i; we were just pissed on.

if you are a woman let me ask you this: do you think it is YOUR decision as to whether or not to have an abortion or do you think that the government should have the right to tell you that you cannot have an abortion? senator john mc cain, who at one time supported roe v wade, now wants to repeal it. senator obama is unequivically in favor of roe v. wade.

let me clarify my position on abortion. i do NOT believe that life begins at conception. i believe that LIFE begins when that fetus could LIVE on it's own and until then it is part of the woman's body and it is her decision and her decision alone to do with HER BODY what she wants. it is NOT some old man's decision to make, it is not a courts decision to make, it is not the governments decicion to make...it is, to repeat, her decision. (if men had babies abortion would be not only legal but free)

senator obama wants a national health care plan. senator mc cain wants to continue our present course. and just what course is that? each and every year health care costs raise much more than overall inflation. we spend more on health care than any other country in the world and we, and we alone, are the only first world country that has MILLIONS OF CITIZENS UNINSURED. the insurance companies and the hospital conglomerates are making millions and we are being buried under health care costs. remember IT IS NOT THE DOCTORS AND NURSES WHO ARE GETTING THE RAISES!!!! we are already paying for health care for others. if you have health care, you pay for it and then you pay for someone else's care every time you buy a product or service. each company that offers health care to their employees adds that cost to the product they sell and that cost is passed on to you and me. a large product such as a car, has dozens of suppliers of parts included in the overall price and each and every one of those suppliers added on their health care costs so you end up paying for dozens of companies employing hundreds if not thousands of people health care costs. if we had a national health care all those costs would be eliminated and therefore costs of products would go down and that would more than offset the small tax increase it would take to fund national health care.

i have traveled to europe, canada and australia and they all have national health care and i never met a citizen of those countries that would not want to have it available for them and their family. not a one. go ask for yourself. you have a computer, you can contact people in other countries. educate yourself. once you really see it, you will be all in favor of national health care. a single payor system. it will work and it will save us billions of dollars. (some insurance companies are going to go under but they have been raping us for decades) doctors and nurses will rejoice because they can go about their business of providing care and no longer have to worry about some insurance company looking over their shoulder quibbling about cost.

(incidently, i do NOT like senator obama's health care plan but it is a step in the right direction. the scare tactics that have been used against national health care for decades has made it very difficult for us to have an open debate on how to move our country into the 21st century as far as taking care of the health of our citizens)

another thing: since when is it some kind of negative for people overseas to actually LIKE our president or presidential candidate? the right wing made much ado about how much europeans liked senator obama. would it be better for us as a country if other countries liked us or would you rather they hated us (as they do now)? co-operation among nations is crucial and we would get much more of it if we were to get rid of the neo cons, which include mc cain, who have been running our foriegn affairs. or is it ruining our foriegn affairs? bush is hated and feared world wide and mc cain would be just more of the same. we need to show the world that we are not the war mongers they think we are. we need to show the world that we want to be part of the solution and not be the fucking problem. an obama presidency would raise our stock world wide while a mc cain election would say to the world that we are going to continue the disasterous policies of george, the decider, bush. which would you want? a world that hates us and refuses to co-operate with us or a world that looks at us as a positive partner? your choice. our choice. let us not fuck it up.