politicalsoup

I don’t think there is anything that shows the meaning and the power of this momentous evening than looking upon the faces of Rev. Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey and seeing them stained with tears of joy.  To see the faces of young and old people, both white and black, too, with tears across their faces.  To hear the roar of Grant Park and the chants of “Yes we can” from the hundreds of thousands on hand.  To see people posting comments to YouTube, from other countries, showing *their* excitement and appreciation that we have elected to office a man who will hopefully repair not only this nation but help to knit the pieces of this world back together that have systematically been shredded by eight years of poor judgment. 

And yes, while there are still those out there who are griping on Facebook, those who booed the name of Barack Obama as Sen. McCain gave a speech in Arizona, those who are using slurs and spewing hate in the comments of YouTube, hanging on to their bigotry and hatred that has tarnished the good face of this nation since its inception and beforehand, I am happy to bask, at least in this moment that perhaps things will indeed change and change for the better.  For one night, hope has defeated fear and hate.  That we can come together and rise above the differences that divide us and help to make this nation a better place for tomorrow than it was during today.  Perhaps it sounds unreal, a fantasy, but it is the notion that Barack Obama had inspired across this nation to ask them to rise up and bestow the honor of the highest office in this nation upon him.  He campaigned under the word hope, and its a word that we can all embrace as we look toward the future and believe that things can improve.

We have placed our trust in your hands to help lead us to that better place.  Please do not drop what was so generously given.  Help us to realize our true potential and we will raise you up and thank you for it.

I leave you with the lines from the “Yes We Can” speech, the words that every time I hear them as I watch the will.I.am Yes We Can video on YouTube send a shiver up my spin and bring a smile to my face and I whole-heartedly believe them every time they cross my ears.

“We have been asked to pause for a reality check.  We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.  But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” - Barack Obama

I think the one thing I’m going to miss most are the idiots who make comments on political stories. So while I’ve been off the last couple days - I want to leave you on election day with the thoughts of the brilliant majority who make posts to the usaelectionpolls.com stories:

From Nigger0:
“I want a president who doesn’t want to take MY MONEY and give it to a bunch of ignorant NIZZLES in the ghetto to buy thier complacency.”

From Joe the Beekeeper:
“Why do I have to put up with these loud mouth negros and all their filth?”

More from Joe the Beekeeper:
“It shows how easily the Media can manipulate the minds of our citizens and nothing more.
There is nothing to be proud of in getting conned by a black con artist and scumbag like Obama!”

From No-Damn-Nizzles:
“No-Damn-Nizzles in the WHITE House!!!”

From JRP WV:
“Looks like we can get ready for Islamic Law and Courts in the good ole land of the former free, land of the former free.”

From Gay Democrats:
“Let’s face it the Democrats are made up of predominantly homosexuals.
What is shocking is that so many gays are permitted to coexist in our society as these do.”

I am saddened that in a nation that is supposed to be the greatest in the world, some of these people are worst than the scum who perform genocides and systematic rapes in Africa.

However I do find it sort of ironic, looking at the Islamic courts one above, a tight-fisted Islamic fundamentalist rule would be right up the alley of most of these whackjobs. Just think, if they could ride through the streets toting their assault rifles, their women would be forced into subservient roles, abortion would be abolished because women having premarital sex could be lit on fire in the town square, and God would be worshipped everywhere with an insane fervor lest you’re accused of being an infidel and shot in the street, and we could just be completely intolerant of everyone who doesn’t fall into that acceptable mold. So yes, if American is going to become an hyper-conservative Islamic state, why are the hyper-conservatives complaining? I suppose they just disagree with Islam, that’s why they prefer the Christian fundamentalist rule instead.

Christians are manning the suicide effort, advancing with no shame whatsoever to murder the Obama campaign in the final days of the season.  I read through an AP article about their newest attack campaign including the “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America” which supposedly claims such events transpire as four terrorist attacks against major U.S. cities, Russia reclaiming all of Eastern Europe, Israel obliterated by nukes and gays marrying everywhere.

Petty, sad, and just flatly ridiculous.  It’s time like these that I’m glad I don’t believe in organized religion.

The Letter from 2012 makes me laugh.  Let’s go through point by point and attack the points brought up in the AP article:

Terrorist attacks - I don’t know the details, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these crazies associate Obama and Muslims and Terrorists in this claim.  Somehow I doubt that Obama is going to soften up on terrorism or national security when it’s still a major concern across the nation.  And let me recall, wasn’t it John McCain who said in the town hall debate that we are going to do our best to “kill Osama bin Laden and crush al-Qaeda?”  Oh wait. . . no, it wasn’t.  That was Obama, while McCain floundered worse on the question than Palin asked to name a newspaper she reads.

The New Soviet Union - When Russia got physical with Georgia, maybe Obama didn’t do the greatest job responding to the attacks, but he wasn’t puny either.  Foreign policy is one area he’s weaker in, but he’s got Biden to back him up.  And frankly, it’s not the role of the U.S. to keep Russia from taking over Eastern Europe.  While the U.S. is still a major influence in the world scheme, the power of the U.N. is more likely to prevent such a collapse.  And for Obama, who seems more willing to open diplomacy over McCain who doesn’t seem to be too keen to meet with any hostile party unless their kissing his ass (note: Iran and North Korea), it doesn’t sound to me that the world would be any better under a McCain administration if Russia gets tough again.  I’m sure his response would be: “Well, I’m not going to talk with Russia until they cede those lands back, completely disarm and kneel and kiss my ass in the Oval Office.”

Israel obliterated:  The entire world is closely watching the nuclear situation in the Middle East to make sure this doesn’t happen.  The difference maker here is Obama is willing to talk to Iran, without preconditions, while McCain is not (see example of McCain’s policy above).  Conservatives are blasting Obama for his stance on diplomacy, but to me, why SHOULDN’T we make the effort to improve relations with other nations, especially if they’re not friendly with us?  Let’s use an analogy.  You’re in a relationship.  You (America) get in a fight with your girlfriend (Iran) about something - to make it parallel in this situation - maybe she absolutely can’t stand your best buddy from college (Israel) who you always stick up for.  Now if you want to try to fix your relationship with your girlfriend, which sounds more likely to work: tell her you’ll talk with her if she cooks you a nice dinner and gives you what you want in bed OR tell her you’ll just talk it out with her?  Doesn’t it seem like the other side is going to be more open to negotiations if you’re not forcing them to do something they’re resistant to?  Not from the conservative side - they say your girlfriend better get on her knees and give you some lovin’ before you even consider talking with her.  Make sense to you?  Not me.  Besides, with the global community having stakes in Iran’s nuclear programs, like with Russia, it’s not on our shoulders alone to regulate what they’re doing.

Gay marriage: Last I checked, Obama supports civil unions that grant equal civil rights to gay couples.  He’s not trying to tell the churches they have to marry people.  Somehow I think conservatives are confused on what “gay marriage” is compared to “gay civil unions.”  Democrats aren’t trying to tell churches what they have to do or how they have to define marriage.  I support gay unions - however, I don’t support gay marriage.  If a church or religious group thinks marrying gays is against their core beliefs, that’s their decision.  I don’t think it’s right for government to force a Catholic church to marry two men or two women.  However, I do think it’s right for gays to enter into a union - same as a guy and girl eloping at the courthouse - to obain the same rights and privileges of married peoples.  I am friends with a lot of gay people and I can safely say their sexaul preference is NOT a lifestyle choice, so therefore I believe it’s wrong to disallow them to pursue happiness.  They can’t help being gay any more than some people can help being ugly.  To me, not allowing unions between two gay people would be the same as not allowing unions between brunette people.  So Christian conservatives, if you can supply me with the answer to where Obama is saying he’s going to override your rights and beliefs, I’d definitely like to know.

Now that I’ve broken down these points, I want to touch on something else in a semi-rant style.  Maybe it’s just me being disillusioned with organized religion - but I wish religions would stop poking their damned noses where it doesn’t belong.  Last I checked, religion is the cause of more problems in the world than it helps alleviate.

Government and religion are separate entities, or are supposed to be in this country.  It makes me wonder why eveyry political season a candidate’s religious affiliations are mentioned.  So what if Mitt Romney is a Mormon?  So what if Barack Obama actually WAS a Muslim?   It’s a shame that in a country that is supposed to tout religious freedom and expression, people across the nation get so tied up on how Candidate X worships or believes in a deity.  My belief is that at the top levels of government, religion plays a minimal role in the decision making process anyway (unless you’re George W. Bush).  The president is not able to fly off the handle and make decrees based on his faith because he’s checked by the other branches of government.  And considering that most Christian denominations follow a nearly identical set of morals and values, it makes me wonder why people get so tied up on the issue anyway.  Shouldn’t pretty much everyone act on the same set of religious principles?

“Nobody is pro-abortion” is perhaps the best quote I’ve ever heard on a political trail in an often religion-fueled argument.  I don’t particularly think the idea of removing fetuses is very appetizing, however, I do think the Supreme Court has it right in Roe v. Wade on a very hot button issue.  Would I like to see less abortions in the country?  Sure, and I’m not even religious and I can say that.  Do I think the decision should be overturned?  No, of course not.  I’d like to believe any decision that is limiting a person’s personal freedoms - such as seeking an abortion - is a bad idea.

And let’s not forget that through religion, which is supposed to encourage that “love thy neighbor” philosophy and bring out the best in people - how often is it used to promote evil, hate, and prejudice?  How many people use it to harness control of others rather then to use it as a guide to better living?  And how many people use it to spread fear rather than promote hope?

How about you field THOSE questions for me Christian right-siders?  And I’d prefer a letter within the next week or so, none of this post-dated garbage from four years from now.

“McCain says Obama will ’say anything’ to win”

The headline came from the Yahoo news feed that I look at in my e-mail. Maybe it’s just my Obama-love playing into the equation, but somehow, doesn’t it feel like this is a backward statement. To me it seems like, of late, it’s McCain and his campaign that have been “saying anything to win.” Let’s lay down a few examples:

“Palling around with terrorists,” “that one,” “spreading the wealth,” and “welfare.” Many of these statements have been skewered to death my the media, but to me it seems like when it comes to “saying anything to win,” it seems like the McCain campaign is more likely to throw out the random, perhaps somewhat irrelevant comment in order to play on peoples fears and prejudices (see yesterday for more information on that topic).

And it’s getting so confusing out there that I can’t even tell what the lead is anymore. The AP swears that things have pulled within 1 percent nationally (though perhaps they’re just drumming up the figure to generate more news - which would be morally wrong of the media too), while other polls are showing Obama maintaining his 5-8 percent lead, with some polls showing as much as 10 percent plus. Looking at state by state polls and the CNN election center, to me it doesn’t look like anything’s changed that much. It still looks like unless McCain is going to hold all the states he’s challenged for, win all the swing states and steal one or two larger Obama-leaners, he’s going to lose.

Surprisingly the election could be made on the west end of the nation - where Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada are must wins for McCain. I don’t buy that he’s going to steal Pennsylvania or New Hampshire, which means if he doesn’t hold those three western states, the Ohios and Floridas won’t mean a damn. And it’s still looking like he could even lose in a red state, like here in Indiana, where Barack was speaking today. His ads are EVERYWHERE - I can’t log onto a Web site or turn on my TV without catching an Obama ad. McCain is sending his lipsticked pit bull to Fort Wayne on Saturday, and she was here last Saturday, but otherwise their campaign seems to be pretty confident they’re going to hold the state. Where I once thought that was impossible, some polls I’ve seen have been showing it dead-even or Obama advantage. And I know with major college campuses like IU and Purdue boasting massive young-voter turnouts, my home county of Lake being a Democratic monster, and Indy - it could be enough to vault him to victory here.

Again, maybe it’s just me being somewhat blinded to one side of the story. But I’m sitting here and from what I’ve heard off the national wires and elsewhere, it’s the GOP that’s “saying anything” right about now. Sadly, whether true or not, it appears to be working. I read an interesting syndicated column yesterday that compared the latest “welfare” comments from McCain to Reagan’s use of the same term, which helped to drum up support among whites against blacks. If there’s truth behind that - which I’m going to believe, since at least in the household I grew up in, my parents are dead sure that the welfare and aid programs in this country are broken because blacks abuse it - that’s type of low tactic that McCain and his campaign are accusing the other side of doing.

If that’s true, you better put a leash on your pit bull too, John, since she’s spewed more garbage than anyone in his campaign. You might consider getting her to talk about the issues. . . oh wait. . . she’s inexperienced and more or less clueless on those, right. (Alright, alright, I’m getting out of hand, time to back it off).

Well then McCain, perhaps the greatest addage on the topic comes from the elementary school playground - “takes one to know one.” Check your strategies before you fly off the handle with a comment like that in the future, please. Let’s try to be civil about this.

Oh wait, it’s election season - I nearly forgot.

I get election poll updates in my e-mail every day and I look at how things are shaping up and the stories that come along with it. But perhaps more than that, I love to read the comments attached to these stories to get my daily dose of how ignorant, stupid, racist, sexist, and uninformed people are in this country. To think that these people’s vote has the same power as mine is offensive and disturbing, something that can make anyone crawl up into a little ball and cry.

Don’t believe me? Here’s today’s most egregious gem. This is straight quoted from a post by “Jerry” on usaelectionpolls.com about Obama:

“HE IS THERE BECAUSE HE IS THE RACIAL CANDIDATE ! THE BLACK ONE and his entire campain is trying ton play on WHITE GUILT ! I HAVE NONE ! I WAS NOTE INVOLVED IN SLAVERY BUT GIVEN A CHOICE I WOULD HAVE !”

Wow.

I mean, where do I even begin to try to attack the millions of things wrong with this statement. While this was perhaps the most jaw-dropping of all the things I read attached to this story - along with Palin being called a “doofus,” people back and forth about ACORN and stealing their vote back, Bush-bashing, and liberals telling conservatives to go to their KKK rally instead of the polls on Nov. 4 - the civil and halfway intelligent comments posted happened to be overwhelmed by the flowing idiocy. And sure, while poll-tests were used primarily to discourage blacks from voting during the civil rights area, perhaps it’s not a bad idea to bring them back to try to keep people like these from having any say in how our government is run (alright, that’s my obnoxious, civil liberty-stripping comment of the day, now back to business).

Media outlets (of which I fall into that category, though I do not tackle national politics in my small town paper capacity), are trying to focus on issues and report on the latest mud being slung be either candidate. I love that some media outlets take time to fact-check the crap being spit out of both candidates’ and their campaign’s mouths. But really it’s the outside sources, the bigots, the ignorant, and the uninformed that really bring the real magic to the political season. There’s nothing like hearing people spouting on about how Obama the Muslim will awaken all the Islamic and Communist terrorist sleeper cells to unleash massive crippling attacks against the nation. I wonder if it’s some sort of defect in the brain or an actual conscious choice to hear something like “Obama will take 50 percent of your salary to fund his socialism” or “Obama is a Muslim therefore he hates America and all the terrorists are going to blow up everything in America” and believe it. There’s a line between not supporting a candidate and being a hate-mongering animal.

Let me set up an analogy to prove it. I’m a Chicago Cubs fan. Therefore, I am NOT a Chicago Sox fan. As such, I don’t particularly want to see the Sox EVER beat the Cubs in the crosstown classics during interleague play. I laugh at my Sox friends when they lost in the playoffs and likewise they point out that the Cubs were completely lackluster in theirs. Yes, we disagree and want the other side not to do well, but it’s civil. Now if we behaved about Sox vs. Cubs like some people do about Republicans vs. Democrats it would be something more like: “Mark Buhrle uses steroids seven times a day and is also an abortion clinic worker in the offseason and he hates baseball and America because he plays for the Sox! The Sox cheat in every game that they win - they must be paying off the umpires to give them all the calls and are corking all of their bats and juicing all their players! Ozzie Guillen is a slaveowner who likes to fondle white boys before he decapitates them!” And for it to be truly effective, I’d be able to tell another Cubs fan and not only would they believe it, they would tell it to the next person. Now how ridiculous is it?

Politics are important. They play a role in everyone’s day to day lives, yes. You can disagree with a candidates proposals and think your party has a better person for the job. Fine, you’re entitled to that. You can speculate that Barack Obama is paying people to commit voter registration fraud - also fine with at least some scrap of legitimacy to the claim. But when you’re going around spouting off that Obama is unfit to lead because he’s black or because he’s Muslim (which he’s not) is just ludicrous.

It’s sad, very sad, to consider that people in this nation still have such deep seated hatreds and prejudices. The truth is that the color of skin or the belief in God, a god, many gods, or no god, or the genitalia beneath your underwear has NO bearing on whether you’re fit to lead a country. It amazes me that in places people can still not vote for Obama - even if they agree with his policies - because he is black. It’s sick.

This may be an appropriate place for me to say, yes, I do support Barack Obama for president and yes, I tend to lean liberal. Yes, I have been raised by conservative parents - parents who ARE racist and ARE ignorant. Yes I do live in Indiana which is typically a conservative lock.

My beef is not with conservatives. My beef is with idiots. I don’t care if you’re black or if you’re white or brown or yellow or red. I don’t care if you’re man or woman, old or young, Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or atheist. But if you’re able to be mature and civil and reasonable in your beliefs, I will respect them. I will respect my mom when she says she thinks Obama’s health care plan is ineffective and explains why. I will not respect her when she says Michelle Obama looks like a monkey. (Both of which did happen in the last conversation we had)

Why not take an opportunity to quote Martin Luther King Jr.:
People should be judged by “the content of their character.”

I believe in this statement, not just as an argument for color but for anything. I will judge you by the content of your character. Am I wrong to think that I am better than Jerry from usaelectionpolls.com? Perhaps, that’s pride, that’s vanity on my part. But I certainly do judge his character to be reprehensible. I don’t know who you are, where you live, or what your overall beliefs are, Jerry. I don’t know anything about you except your name and your quote. But I am sure that without ever meeting you, that you are horrid and you are despicable. You are what is wrong with this country.

Fixing the economy, fighting terrorism, providing health care - to me, all these are somewhat insignificant compared the the great problem most beautifully exemplified by Jerry. This is problem with this nation that would greater benefit the good of our people and our future if it could be remedied.

Grab a spoon and dig in. This blog will mainly be a place to take a look at the political season in the running now. Hopefully it will skewer some important point or offer some insight into the craziness that is surrounding us until Nov. 4 (and likely beyond).

I’m Steve and I’ll be here to guide you into my world. I hope you enjoy.

As a note I WILL monitor the comments on my Blog, and people who are out of line will be deleted. Yes that is censorship. No, my blog does not come with a bill of rights and personal freedoms. If you want to make comments or add discussion here you will do so in a civil and mature way or you will be removed. This blog is my creation and I am its creator. This blog and the people on it will regard me as its one true God.