10/17/08

When Will Americans Wake Up? They need more than coffee!

I continue to be appalled by the lies that are spewed by those who covet power. It was so in the days of the Neanderthal - so how far have we come?

Worse than that is the people who listen and believe those lies.

In this cyber age, we have the resources to examine in great detail all manner of information. We have the ability to build our own trail to connect the dots. So why do Americans listen to this rabble and not check the facts?

We are, without a doubt, at one of the most dangerous precipices. The mundane (ingress) charts of America are running in tandem with the mundane charts of France as it mounted the French Revolution. That was certainly one of the bloodiest civil wars in history.

Yet, the people of this country continue to fall for lies. Is the consciousness so low for many parts of this country that they cannot make the transition?

This election, like every election I have ever witnessed in this life or any other, offers no complete solution through a candidate. This is because no candidate can be all things to all people. They have the priorities that their lives have led them to address, they have the issues they must uphold that others push them to address in order to make a mark of leadership.
And then they have the issue of diplomacy where they will have to either leave it alone, or convert, because there are powerful factions in the nation calling for something to change or stay the same.

This is an enormous challenge. To simply define their direction should be their most important message. So why do they resort to disgusting, distractions, which create fear and cause people to vote for them for all the wrong reasons?

Today I heard one of the tapes that Senator McCain is auto-dialing across America and I was stunned with disgust.

This tape alluded to the connection between Ayers and Obama. A connection tenuous at best, that people will respond to because they have not done their homework to examine who Obama is, what he stands for, or how he has conducted his life to this point.

Here is a comment left on the Washington Post's fact checker site, regarding the Obama - Ayers connection:
Six degrees of separation type connection. I have done community work locally with individuals I barely knew and found out later that they had previous criminal records. Now if I run for office will I be guilty by association? With this kind of logic serving diner at a soup kitchen can be politically damning act.
So clearly written.

I have worked with many people in my life. Some even lived in my neighborhood. I considered each as soul in the presence they exposed to me. Good people. I did not investigate their backgrounds before I worked with them. I did not ask if they had committed a felony or been arrested.

Why would I do this? People of faith, are taught to let God lead. They hold in their hearts all the love they pour into their world, and until someone shows them otherwise, they trust.

I am ashamed for McCain in his method of
inciting fear and hatred against Obama, a man who innocently worked for an Anti-Poverty Group for the benefit of his community, and a result of this interaction is being called a pal to terrorists.

I pray Americans will take the time to see the truth.

I am elated that Colin Powell, a long- time friend of McCain, stepped forward yesterday to support Obama. Here is a voice of reason stating many of the things I have said.

Here are few quotes from the General's talk with Mr. Brokaw on Meet The Press:
"In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me, sensing that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made."
"I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian."
But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America. ...."

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions."

You can see the whole transcript at:

http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2008/10/19/transcript-colin-powell-on-meet-the-press-endorses-barack-obama-october-19/



I am in total agreement with Colin Powell, and I personally cannot consider McCain for the presidency for these and many other reasons, and I want to share with you some of them.

His voting record toward Vets is appalling. Yet he has the audacity to say he supports our troops, and wants to continue this war for as long as it takes, even a hundred year, till we win it.

Here are some of McCain's erratic statements regarding the war in Iraq

  • "Because I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women." (source)

  • "We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we're not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies." (source)

  • "But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily." (source)

  • "But I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators." (source)

  • "It's clear that the end is very much in sight." (source)

  • "I meant that there are neighborhoods that are safe in Iraq, and he does go out into Baghdad, and the fact is there has been significant progress..." (source)

  • McCain's escort through Shorja was 100+ soldiers, sniper teams, 10 armored humvees, 3 blackhawk helicopters, 2 apache gunships, predator drone coverage; McCain was wearing a bulletproof vest and allowed to take off his helmet only when authorized. (source)

  • When asked if he had an idea of when troops would be coming home, said "No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq. (source)


    HIS VOTING RECORD ON VETERANS NEEDS IS APPALLING!

  • Voted against extending troop deployment times in the USA to match deployment times in Iraq. (source)

  • Voted against repealing a capital gains tax cut which would have funded soldiers. (source)

  • Voted consistently from 2003-2007 against additional funding for Walter Reed Army Medical Center. (source 1, source 2, source 3)

  • Voted to table a bill that would have provided funding and equipment for Guard and Reserve units. (source)

  • Voted against additional funding for the mental health care of troops. (source)





  • Actively opposed the GI Bill that would increase education benefits to soldiers; was one of three senators who didn't vote on it; one was in the hospital and one was at a funeral; he was campaigning. (source)

HIS STATEMENTS ON THE ECONOMY ARE FRIGHTENING
  • "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." Denied saying this in a primary debate. (source)

  • "The issues of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." (source)

  • Added Arthur Laffer and Phil Gramm to his campaign economics staff. (source 1, source 2)

  • "I don't have the kind of expertise to know exactly whether he has cut interest rates sufficiently or not." (source)

  • Debate question, are Americans better off than they were 8 years ago: "I think you could argue that Americans overall are better off, because we have had a pretty good prosperous time, with low unemployment and low inflation and a lot of good things have happened. A lot of jobs have been created." (source)

  • Wants to cut capital gains taxes. (source)

  • Has 118 lobbyists working for his campaign. (source )


  • Phil Gramm is McCain's man on economic issues. Gramm is one of the most loathesome of the former Republican officeholders advising McCain. He's on the board of Swiss bank UBS and was registered as a UBS lobbyist until April 18th of this year.

    His wife Wendy was on the board of Enron when Enron imploded, stealing millions of tax dollars from California taxpayers. And Phil Gramm pushed legislation that helped Enron steal their money. The Gramms are ... rich from all the corporate money they've been pulling down.




    As Senate Banking Chairman in the 1990s, Phil Gramm authored the bill that repealed the Depression-era mortgage regulations, and allowed basically any kind of corporation to give loans, without regulation, which lead directly to the mortgage crisis. Then he quickly left the Senate and went to Swiss banking giant UBS.

  • Phil Gramm is McCain's chief economic advisor, even though Gramm opposed cracking down on tax havens, like those used by bin Laden, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. (source )

  • Phil Gramm is one of the key lobbyists who fought to deregulate the mortgage market. (source)

  • And, Phil Gramm and Enron were joined at the hip! (source)(source)(source)





I will leave it here for now, but I will be back later in the week to continue, because the reasons I will not vote for McCain are extensive, and it is important that we know the facts before we vote. I pray you will examine them. Ask yourself what is really important to you -
  • Is it your income?
  • Your home?
  • The war?
  • The solvency of our banking system?
  • The increasing number of homeless people?
  • The need for care of our Veterans?
  • Our national image?
  • Our environment?
  • Our failing infrastructure?
  • The issue of torture?

    I will leave you with this last youtube video. But I must warn you, Palin's true brutality is witnessed here, and you may not have the stomach to watch it.

    But this, along with library censorship and witch hunting, is why I could not ever vote for her.