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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
Today's Note From a Madman
June 4, 2008
McBush's McChange
The word "Change" has become the single most powerful word in American politics.
After seven-plus years of the Bush administration's damaging policies geared
towards making his "base of haves and have mores" become "have even mores", our
nation is in need of "Change" - real "Change". Barack Obama's message during
this whole campaign has been "Change", and he has ridden it well.
Other Democratic candidates have attempted to adopt the "Change" mantra, albeit
too late. Former Senator John Edwards was the first to do so after Senator
Obama, followed suit by Senator Hillary Clinton. However, the word and the
message remained Obama's
And now it's Senator John McCain's turn at the Changing table. McCain, the
presumptive Republican nominee has decided that the "Change" message is
universal. McCain is now telling anyone who will listen that he is the candidate
of change.
In McCain's congratulatory remarks to Obama (more backhanded words were never
written or spoken), "The Maverick" used the word "Change" (Changed, etc) some
thirty-three times.
The only thing McCain doesn't change is his vocabulary.
The first reference in his speech made in Louisiana was this:
"This is, indeed, a "change" election. No matter who wins this election, the
direction of this country is going to change dramatically."
-McCain
But how will John McCain separate himself and become that "Change" candidate he
so wants to be known as?
McCain was first elected to the US Congress in 1982 and he became none other
than Barry Goldwater's successor when elected by the people of Arizona in 1986
to the 1964 GOP Presidential candidate's seat. In all, McCain has spent more
than a quarter century at the top of the US political food chain known as
American politics.
The only real "Change" John McCain has come up with in all of that time is the
pocket change he has managed to put in his pocket. In his twenty-six years in
office, McCain has become one of the wealthiest politicians inside of the
beltway.
Congratulations, Senator Maverick!
One might remember Senator McCain as a member of the Keating Five. Although he
wasn't one of the US Senators who lost his seat because of the scandal which
bilked many an American out of their hard-earned savings and loan dollars,
McCain was complicit with his "friend" Charles Keating.
But McCain's life has been full of second chances. Prior to his second chance
after the Keating Five scandal, McCain got his first second chance as a war hero
shot down over Viet Nam.
Another second chance came after his divorce from his first wife to marry his
current wife Cynthia, an heiress to a beer distribution fortune.
And now the big second chance: After being called a "Manchurian Candidate" by
then-Governor Bush's supporters as the two battled over the 2000 GOP nomination;
and after numerous phone calls, a.k.a. "push polls" informed South Carolina
Republican primary voters that Cynthia McCain was a drunk and her husband, the
Manchurian Candidate himself, had fathered a child out of wedlock with an
African American hooker, George W. Bush gave McCain a second chance at being his
successor.
What a guy, huh?
And McCain has "Changed". He has gone from a Senator known for crossing the
aisle when necessary to one that is now in lock-step with a Bush administration
that has done the kind of damage joked about as a worst case scenario prior to
his taking office in 2001. McCain has promised to keep the policies of George W.
Bush in place and to "stay the course" in Iraq for up to an additional one
hundred years.
Even said in jest or anger that is a dangerous statement that no parent wants to
hear.
Even on issues which McCain stood firmly on the right side of, like the terrible
tax break for that Bush, now McCain "base of haves and have mores", he no longer
can take credit for. he now supports even more such tax breaks. Additionally,
McCain (McBush, as he should now be known) wants to create a health care system
that gives some Americans tax breaks without figuring out a way of paying for
them. His health care proposal will cost in excess of $700 billion per year
without a promise of insuring even one more poor person or middle class worker
who lost his job. after all, tax breaks are only advantageous to those who pay
taxes and so many on the lower end of the American economic scale simply don't
make enough to pay those taxes.
How are they supposed to pay for their health care?
McCain also wants to lower the meager taxes which global corporations pay to the
American taxpayer. And, again, he offers no way to pay for it.
In the end, the only kind of "Change" McCain-McBush will make in Washington, DC
will be his address. And that's a chance we simply cannot afford.
-Noah Greenberg
If Only They Had Oil
Someone ought to tell George Bush that there's oil underneath the soil in
Myanmar. Maybe then those people in desperate need of help would actually get
some of that aid which they so sorely lack.
The ruling military junta is looking at their citizens as disposable. they don't
seem to care that so many have died, nor do they seem to care that so many more
will die in the days weeks, month and maybe even years to come.
It's estimated that more than one million people in Myanmar lack food, water,
shelter and any of the other necessities to get them to the next day. It's more
than a struggle. It was hard enough to reach many of the affected and inflicted
on a daily basis when things were "good in that nation, but now it's nearly
impossible.
And with the Myanmar government refusing to allow rescue workers the kind of
access which most nations would welcome with open arms after such devastation,
it makes it so much worse.
Think of it in these terms: The worst natural disaster to hit our shores was
Hurricane Katrina. The aftermath of the cyclone which hit Myanmar, in cost of
lives, will be hundreds of times worse.
Much in the same way President Bush offered nothing but rhetoric and "stern
warnings" to the Janjuwee in Darfur as they kill their people in a fight for
water and culture, he offers nothing here.
George Bush is the worst President in my memory, but not just for us, but as the
leader of the free world.
"If we were in a normal response by week four, those affected should be working
toward recovery. They would be in a position perhaps to think about what they
need to restart their lives. But we know people on the ground don't have food to
eat."
-Sarah Ireland, regional director of the British aid organization Oxfam
Oxfam still hasn't gotten clearance to help most of the people in Myanmar.
A search of the White House's website offers nothing on the devastation in
Myanmar. The latest "news" was a picture of Laura Bush, Senator Kay Bailey
Hutchinson (REPUBLICAN-TX), Senator Mitch McConnell (REPUBLICAN-KY) and Senator
Diane Feinstein (DEMOCRAT-CA) with the caption below reading:
"Mrs. Laura Bush is joined by U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, left,
Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, right, as she arrives to
attend the Senate Women’s Caucus Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at the U.S. Capitol in
Washington, D.C., calling for the unconditional release of Nobel laureate and
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi."
-http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/images/20070523-4_p052307sc-0109-515h.html
similarly, a search of yahoo.com and google.com also yielded little from The
President:
"Let the United States come and help you,"
-President Bush
That's it. He must have had a drive to make.
-Noah Greenberg
McCain's Insane Speech
First off, McCain assures us that he really isn't just like Bush. Then, he runs
off at the mouth about "success" in Iraq; three troops were killed just this
morning. What was that green background anyway? Is this a subliminal hint that
McCain is "good" for the economy; he has the lowest rating of any Senator, James
Inhofe (R-AR) included, on environmental issues from the Sierra Club.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/03/the-lime-green-monster-mc_n_105044.html
-Robert Scardapane
In response to "Rice, Iran and the No-Talk Mantra", Kelly Taylor writes:
It continually ENRAGES me that we tell other countries - like Iran - not to
develop nuclear weapons when:
1- The US already has them, and more outrageously, and
2- Congress has been trying to fund the RELIABLE REPLACEMENT WARHEAD which is a
new nuclear weapon! (Ain't this the pot calling the kettle black??)
Fortunately, the House defeated it, but it must still be voted on in the Senate.
This country so bites it!!!!!!
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-Noah Greenberg