BUSH CAMPAIGNING FOR MCCAIN

The half-whit is hitting the fundraising trail for the AZ senator, which is funny as they were rivals a decade ago. I wonder what he can say aside from keeping the White House in Republican hands, anything else would point out that we probably would have been better with a McCain presidency than a Bush presidency. As a matter of policy the AZ senator will uphold the same military policy as the idiot, so what will make a McCain presidency any different from a third Bush term, something that Bush is basing his campaign strategies on.

I hope that Bush continues to campaign for McCain, and does so visibly so as to turn off conservative voters. This is critical to cause the country to realize its failure to envision and protect its own prosperity and future development. We cannot continue to operate under the assumption that there is the possibility of infinite expansion, as past imperialism led us to believe. That will be a danger as we move into the future and nations such as China, which have enormous growth potential, have already invaded and secured large portions of our own consumer markets.

All of these things are up for change in this election, but its our responsibility to realize exactly how much corporate interests and money are going to be filtered into the Republican campaign, and how much influence, or ownership, it'll have over our future president. McCain is the candidate of corporations, including those owned partly or wholly by foreign powers. If we don't want China and other countries who already work against our best interests owning our president, it's important for people to realize that voting for McCain is voting for George Bush's shadow.

ANN COULTER IS A FILTHY HYPOCRITE AND WHORE FOR THE RADICAL RIGHT

First and foremost I want to present my opinion in a way that is succinct, clear, and intellectually valid. Ann Coulter is a filthy hypocrite because she takes advantage of every opportunity she has had as a wealthy well-educated woman in the US and turns it into a contradictory, self-righteous shock pundit who panders to the conservative extremists she identifies with. Her opinions are based on broad and outdated generalities, and she puts to use all of the progress made by women to gain access to education, equal representation and civil rights while bearing none of the responsibilities for helping to uphold those rights and freedoms. She's an educated woman who does nothing to advance the discourse on women's rights here in the US or around the world and instead occupies the office of the angry golden daughter of the radical conservatives.

Also: while she demands attention for her ideas and expects to be taken seriously as a political pundit, when she appears on television she is often dressed in tight, revealing outfits with makeup and hair that looks like she just got home from the party, at 7am. Basically she dresses like a whore when she goes on television in an attempt, I can only assume, to sex up the image of her radical politics, and or give it an image of hip and sophisticated modernism. Her image is one of when she isn't on her back for the white men of the Republican Party, she's backing them up in the bar fight.

HEIRS TO A FREE SOCIETY...SHUT UP GEORGE BUSH

In his speech today at Arlington National Cemetery, George W Bush said that the veterans buried there had created a legacy which allowed for the continuance of a "free civilization."

But who is this society free for? And what society is that?

After almost 8 years of war against a diverse group of culturally supported enemies, we have managed to alienate ourselves from everyone in the world except those countries economically or militarily dependent on us and nations which have abhorrent records of human rights violations. These are the nations we choose to ally ourselves with more out of corporate interests than any interest in a strong long-term economy here in the US. It is also a war instigated and led by an infantile child of a president in part to make up for his father's failings and in part to satisfy his friends in executive offices. That is after the people of the US made clear statements of their stance against the war, a stance ignored by a wealthy president too concerned with his own power than fulfilling his sworn duties to the people of the country he leads.

So in the end, are those people who died fighting for a society where a president ignores the best interest of the nation in order to solidify his power and pander to his corporate friends, and in which freedom is defined more by our choices in consumer spending than our support of quality public education, a healthy environment, equal rights, an effective widely available health care system, etc etc? How free are we when our civilization is defined by major periods of war rather than intellectual advancements or by innovations in raising the quality of living for the majority of our own citizens, much less the globe? Or where we are free to express our opinions and yet a vastly diverse gathering of a million citizens is ignored or invalidated as radical when they march on Washington to stand against an unjust war?

Today's Memorial Day, and George W Bush has personally added more than 4,000 men and women to the National Cemetary, in addition to tens of thousands of unacknowledged others in graves across Iraq and Afghanistan.

ILLEGAL IMMAGRENTS/ILLEGAL WORKERS

If we have companies that are hiring 'illegal' workers who are undocumented workers with significant numbers of illegals employed, then why are we not making legislation that would allow those businesses to host and sponsor those workers to get work permit and starting their citizenship process rather than keeping them as illegal workers. Wouldn't that be an acceptable way of documenting and incorporating those workers into our workforce?

HOW IMPORTANT IS GAY MARRIAGE?

The title of this post isn't because I'm flippant about the subject, I think that it is somewhat important. I guess that I've moved away from gay marriage and to topics that are more immediate for me, like poverty, health care, and environmentally responsible consumerism.

California ruled it's unconstitutional to deny marriage to gays and lesbians, especially since the state already recognizes civil unions and domestic-partnerships, and that makes sense when compared to constitutionality. If you recognize something as valued, stable and lawful, how can you keep it from just being the same thing and allow gays to marry.

For some it seems a consuming issue, I guess, but when I look at the faces of the people trying to get married I don't see activists, I see a lot of middle to upper-middle class mostly white people, not hippies or people who truly push social boundaries. I think what I really come away from the ruling with is that the dialog has at least been moved away from the crazy conservative place it has been in since Bush took office and before.

MCCAIN AS BIG OF AN IDIOT AS OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT

John McCain thinks that 12 years after twelve years of war we will for sure have our victory in Iraq. It will just take courage, resolve, us electing him president and a full term, but by 2013 he knows it'll happen.

I think he's making the perfect choice to tailor his rhetoric and policies after George Bush's, especially since Bush has become a mockery of a modern leader, lost almost all credibility, at least in terms of Iraq and foreign policy, among American voters, and is generally seen as only slightly above a 9th grade reading level.

Keep it up Johnny, it's exactly how we like you!

PRIVATIZING HEALTHCARE IS BULLSHIT

One of the things I hate most about the Bush administration, and about Republican political objectives in general, is this notion that our current health care problems would be fixed by further privatizing health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Why do they think the system is fucked up already? The reason why there ARE people on those social programs is because the private insurance providers are under no restriction as to whom they will or will not cover. Thus you have older adults who have Medicare to pay for most of their medical bills because most insurance companies won't cover them. You have people with severe managed health issues needing public health care options because they can't receive affordable options through private companies, and may or may not be eligible for insurance through their work.

Ultimately the problem isn't too much tax money to help people who need it and a broken public health system, it's the trillions of dollars in private health industries that refuse to work for anyone but those who are already able to pay and healthy.

GAS PRICES!!!!! AAAAAAHHH!!!!

Oh JESUS! The gas prices are so high and they aren't going to be going down. By summer they will be over $4/gallon and while this isn't nearly as bad as it is in the Europe, they don't have nearly as far or much to drive as we do in the US. What is the biggest problem? If you work anything of a 'typical' work day, 9am-5pm, you are going to end up sitting in traffic and using some of those precious gallons of gas just sitting on the highway.

I love it how there was a big mess in the news about high gas prices and how oil execs were posting record profits and paychecks. That they were then brought before Congress for a day or two of hearings and then no one was indicted is a crime. how is the working class supposed to survive when the prices of food are escalating, the prices of gas is continually rising day by day, and the rate of new jobs created and people hired continues to proportionally go down. You cannot have an economy that bounces back or has any hope of surviving when more and more people are being put into poverty and unemployment while every aspect of living costs skyrocket.

Meanwhile our half-whit-in-chief talks about taking measures to curb rising gas prices by getting Ethanol to wider markets. Meanwhile Ethanol is incredibly cost-ineffective and is causing the change of cash crops in countries around the world to switch from rice to corn for ethanol while most of the world is starving for and paying record prices for the rice they depend on as part of their diet.

It's a good thing all those truck-drivers with their 'support the troupes' and American flag stickers on their trucks voted for George Bush. I hope they suffer the most.

Homeless and the Public Anxiety

We as a culture like to keep poverty and suffering at arms length, making poor and people begging on a corner invisible and seeing them as unfortunate but ultimately unpleasant and dangerous. Homeless people then are forced to remain away from the public eye, spending their time in alleys and under bridges, alternating between being harassed by the police for loitering and being ignored by the general public. What are we afraid of though? Why do we feel the way we do? is it because we feel guilty for the things that we do have when we are reminded of those who are less fortunate? By making them invisible are we justifying our better clothes, expensive shoes, our desire for expensive cars? Or are we feeling anxiety that we are not doing enough to help?

Either way, I've seen the same group of homeless people hanging out in and around a park near where I work, just off of a fairly poor area which I am sure has either or both of a soup kitchen and shelters. One day I saw them passing around a single bottle of cheap vodka as they sat outside on the grass, another time I saw them under a bridge, sitting in a cluster, probably for safety. Why people are homeless is a mystery to me, but I can see that there isn't a single reason and most of the time it isn't by choice or by their own fault. I just don't understand how we are such an advanced society technologically and economically, yet we can't seem to find ways of housing people despite the fact that more and more homes are standing empty.

Single-Payer Nat'l Healthcare

Even many doctors are advocating that the only system that will be comprehensive in addressing the horrible situation that we have with uninsured or poorly insured American's is a single-payer national healthcare program. This would be similar to Medicare except it would cover everybody. I think it is the only way to go in providing all people in the US with good health care and the ability to cut through the insurance nightmare currently faced by this country.

George W Bush and all those others who advocated privatizing Medicare and Social Security are lying when they don't acknowledge that they are giving more kickbacks to the insurance companies by the fees and coverage costs they'd charge insurers that otherwise would be covered by Medicare. That is how banks make all their money, on fees, and that is how insurance companies make all their money as well.

Iraq and the Presidential Contenders

The presidential contenders seem to be laboring under the false pretense that ANY strategy that doesn't involve the immediate withdrawal of troupes from Iraq and some accounting for the troupes remaining in Afghanistan will be acceptable to the majority of Americans. For that matter they all want to redirect their statements to incorporate the possibility that we can't pull out of the Arab Peninsula or that we will have to retain some troupe presence.

If Iraq cannot stand on it's own with the amount of governmental infrastructure in place, that is their fault. We should not have to support a nation that is supposed to be receiving billions in aid, and ps, where is the oil money that is supposed to be flowing from that country? If the people are suffering from lack of electricity and lack of flowing water, where is the money going to? I think that it is about time that there is financial accountability for ever dollar being sent, and to bring the troupes home in honor and dignity.