2008 Elections: A Summary of Facts, Part II

Heeeeere's Johnny!

Today, we continue with our point-by-point examination of the Palin/McCain campaign platform, in brief:

• You say, with regard to "the sanctity of life" — a phrase which appears to mean the sanctity of zygotal life rather than, say, the lives of adult human women — "During more than five years as a POW in Vietnam, John McCain experienced the worst assaults on human dignity imaginable."
  
  Gee, John, how many sins will your POW status cover? You've already flogged this goddamn meme to death, guy. If there is anyone left on the planet who doesn't know that you were a POW, we're willing to bet that said individual has no TV, radio, telephone, computer, or access to the internet; does not read the papers or is both blind and deaf, in addition to never having learned braille; and lives in the middle of the Kalahari or the Gobi desert.
  
  At least you didn't say "I was tortured." Because, as you well know, having voted to allow the CIA to use torture, what the Vietnamese did to you did not qualify as torture, according to the Bush administration. And you support Bush. You voted for him 95 per cent of the time in 2007.
  
  You go on to explain: "Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned [...]." Do the women who plan to vote for you know this? Do they know that they will be condemning themselves, their daughters, and their granddaughters to back-alley abortions? Do you really want to see this happen again? Your response to women's right to choose if they will carry a pregnancy to term is to repeal Roe v. Wade and turn the decision over to state law, with the understanding that you will then "find new ways to empower and strengthen" the anti-choice movement on the state level."
  
  You don't want insurance companies paying for contraception. You won't fund programs that will keep teenagers like Bristol Palin, your Veep candidate's daughter, from getting pregnant. You won't fund sex education for teens. It's almost as if you want to treat all women as breeding sows, John.
  
  And what will you do with all those unwanted children, John? You either failed to vote or voted against all these programs that might help young parents of an unwanted child, or the child itself. So, you want to force their mothers to birth them, but you don't want to give their mothers any insurance for them, or help them heat their homes, or give their moms and dads a little help with unemployment insurance. But you voted FOR "welfare reform," which is another way of cutting down help to poor people who might have children.
  
  You claim adoption is the solution. Yet, with so many American children awaiting adoption, you and your wealthy heiress wife went to Bangladesh to adopt, and have only adopted one child, when you could easily adopt a dozen more without feeling the pinch.
  
  And you say "Decency, human compassion, self-sacrifice and the defense of innocent life are at the core of John McCain's value system [...]." Where's the decency in bringing unwanted children onto an overcrowded planet, John? Where's the human compassion in cutting off funding so the parents can't afford to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, or keep their children warm?
  
  As for self-sacrifice — your Veep candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, just recently attacked community organizers. According to the media, she's a Christian. Perhaps you need to remind her, John, that Jesus was a community organizer — and Pontius Pilate was a governor.
  
  
• On the issue of energy, you say "John McCain will establish a market-based system to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mobilize innovative technologies, and strengthen the economy."
  
  John, we're not stupid. We allowed deregulation of the financial markets and a "market-based system" approach. Look where we are now. We allowed deregulation of the food and drug markets. For at least two years we've had nonstop horror stories about the contamination of our food and drug supply. We know you've never held a real job in your life, John, so let us explain a few things to you.
  
  Businessmen go into business to make money; not to improve the health and welfare of their fellow citizens or fellow humans. A market-based system rewards the most rapacious businesspeople, not the most careful stewards of our resources. We have already caught you and your fellow Republicans out in some dreadful lies regarding the advantageousness of drilling in our beautiful coastal waters and nature reserves. You want nuclear energy. Can we put nuclear plants next to your multimillion dollar homes, John? If not, where can we put them? In the gated communities of the rich? Or in the vulnerable communities of the poor?
  
  Have you forgotten Three Mile Island, John? Have you forgotten Love Canal? Nobody wants nuclear plants or the resulting byproducts in their neighbourhood, John. If you'll set an example of that self-sacrifice you praise so highly by putting a nuclear plant next to each of your homes, maybe others will agree to do the same. Right now, John, your energy plan is based on giveaways to big corporations and gouging the poor and working people of the country.
  
  
• On the issue of ethics, you say "America needs leadership devoted to the public interest, not the special interest [...]."
  
  That's nice. That's what we'd all like to see. So, how come you had 60 lobbyists raising money for you in January? And look how many of them are actually working for your campaign! Even while you were calling lobbyists "birds of prey," you had 160 of them working for your campaign.
  
  Now, because you've never had a real job in your life, John, having lived off first the taxpayer, then your rich wife, let us tell you something. Nobody gives anybody anything for free. Especially not businesspeople. If a businessman gives you a penny he expects two to five pennies in return. So these 160 lobbyists who are working to get you elected? They want something back, John. Salaries are not enough. So what are you planning to give them, John? Because if you're sitting in the Oval Office, whatever ROI they're getting is not coming out of your pockets but ours. We the people. We the taxpayers.
  
  It sure doesn't look like these lobbyists are trying to get you elected for the sake of the people. They have a stake in this. And from here, it don't look good.
  
  In the meantime, could you speak to Ms. Palin about "the willful setting aside of taxpayer dollars for the pet projects of special interests"? Because there's a certain bridge in Alaska that she was supporting when she ran for governor. And now she's saying she was against it. But she kept the money for it anyway.
  
  And then there's that stadium she got the city of Wasilla to agree to build, for which she raised the sales tax, but due to her failure to do her homework, she left the city $20 million in debt. And that was after hiring lobbyists to get the city $27 million in earmarks (or "pork," to use your favourite word, John). For a town of 6,000 people? $47 million dollars? Sounds a lot like pork, John.
  
  
• As for natural heritage, you say you have a "commitment to clean air and water, and to conserving open space," and that you have been "a leader on the issue of global warming with the courage to call the nation to action on an issue we can no longer afford to ignore."
  
  Is that right, John? Because at the RNC, all we could hear was "Drill, baby, drill." Or perhaps those drunk Young Republicans were referring to your Veep candidate. In a non-sexist manner, of course. How do you reconcile clean air and water with offshore drilling, John? Remember that week you were going to make a speech on an oil rig, and then Hurricane Gustav warnings forced you to drop that photo-op? Or maybe it was the oil spill on the Mississippi River?

Sorry, John, and to all our regular readers, a heartfelt apology. Our waders were becoming encrusted with the bullshit through which we had to schlep. We can't read this crap no more.

Final word to John: Frankly, we think you picked the wrong Palin.



Tomorrow, we discuss John's Veep pick, with analysis.

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