Tag: John McCain

I live in Leiden, one of the smaller big cities in The Netherland’s (NL) most heavily populated region, the Randstad. I am learning, or trying to learn/understand/speak/read the Dutch language. As it turns out, Dutch is considered by many as the second toughest language to learn… after Chinese! Holy moly.

However, I have learned one thing: politically, the Dutch are as tough as their language. It is a complex mix of parties that fosters ever-shifting coalitions among its liberal, conservative, socialist, green, and religious members.

Along that spectrum, there is, according to local papers here, a place for GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin: seems a small minority have adopted Gov. Palin as a role model for Dutch womanhood.  However, most of the Nederanders I know will be stunned if Senator Barack Obama loses to Senator John McCain on 4 November 2008.

cross-posted at dkos

A post excerpt (reprinted by permission) from our managing editor at THE ENVIRONMENTALIST:

John McCain missed the single greatest opportunity to address his most dangerous supporters directly and to repudiate their threats of violence after Senator Obama brought up the threats in the debate. McCain chose not to do so, calling them “fringe” while lauding ALL his supporters as “patriotic.”

This came after Senator John McCain made a point during the debate that Barack Obama should repudiate John Lewis’ Wallace comparison, which Senator Obama had done already, while pointing out that Lewis’ concern about violence, given the congressman’s first hand experience, was a valid consideration.

Senator McCain was not impressed. Nor was he impressed when Senator Obama directly brought up the vitriol from McCain and Palin’s rallies, citing words like “terrorist” and “kill him,” which John McCain dismissed as coming from fringe supporters, after which the Republican senator went on to laud all his supporters as “patriotic Americans.”

More below the fold…

The spin machines work long and hard and fast nowadays. Email boxes around the country are filled with “fact sheets” and other material from campaigns during presidential debates and in the hours afterwards. Among other things, the Obama campaign produced “John McCain’s 26 Lies Tonight“. Lie #16:

RENEWABLE ENERGY: McCain claimed to support renewable energies, but his record shows otherwise. He has voted 23 times against investing in renewable energies and opposed a bipartisan effort to remove tax breaks for oil companies in order to invest in renewable energy.

23 times? Wow, that seems pretty bad … except that the real story is worse than that. On at least 50 occasions, John McCain voted against clean energy or (14 times) simply didn’t bother to show up.

Okay, yes, I’m gloating. I admit it. I own it. But after eight years of the GOP running this country into the ground a bit of schadenfreude is cathartic. For background the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief, see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K…

Denial:

In a phone interview before headlining the Indiana Republican Party’s fundraising dinner in Indianapolis on Thursday night, Graham said Hoosiers are too smart to vote for Obama.

Democrats, he said, “can’t win fairly out here.”

Asked whether Democrats could win without cheating, Graham said, “No. They can’t win fairly out here ’cause their agenda is so far removed from the average Hoosier.

“We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it,” Graham said of Indiana’s 11 electoral votes. “I think the only way we lose a state like North Carolina or Indiana is to get cheated out of it.”

link: http://www.journalgazette.net/…

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Also available in teal.

I was browsing the ‘net looking for political videos when I saw a couple that use fear to try to sway opinion.  The first, from the political right, is a McCain campaign ad against Barack Obama.

None of what is in the ad is even remotely true; it uses fear and lies to try to cement in the minds of voters that because the Democratic presidential candidate has an Arab-sounding name, he must therefore be a terrorist or someone with ties to terrorists.  The second ad is a creation of the left, used against Republican John McCain.

Now, most if not all of what is in this video is undeniably true; McCain supports and promotes the lies and imperial policies of the Bush-Cheney regime, and his dictatorship would continue them on what perhaps would be an even larger scale.  Nevertheless, the video still uses fear in an attempt to dissuade voters from casting their ballots for McCain.

Webster’s Dictionary defines terrorism thus:

the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

Just some food for thought.  Enjoy Columbus Day.

Five weeks before I was born, a handful of blocks away from my parents’ apartment on Conneticut Avenue in Northwest Washington D.C., terrorists detonated a car bomb.  The bomb killed Chilean national Orlando Letelier and his assistant, American Ronni Moffitt.  This act of terrorism was a part of Operation Condor, a campaign of political repression carried out jointly by the military and intelligence services of eight South American nations, which took place with support by the United States.  No one is certain of the total number of victims of the campaign, but all estimates confirm that thousands were killed.

From Politico:

As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign.  What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history.  Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate.  George Wallace never threw a bomb.  He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights.  Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.  They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy.  We can do better.  The American people deserve better.

link: http://www.politico.com/arena/…