Why not McCain

I'll try to write something positive, pro-Obama, but I think the first, essential piece of the arguement is "why not McCain?"

Why not McCain? We don't need four more years of a president who places war before peace, and who has never needed to understand the lives of ordainary Americans. The man has no idea how many houses he owns (I lost track after 6), and he obviously has no idea how the economy works. Politicians like to talk about Band Aid solutions, but it seems that McCain doesn't know if Band Aids are more suitable for headaches or cuts. He can't even begin to try.

Obama has often said that we don't need eight more years of the same policies. You know who agrees? My Russian host mom. Putin is her sweetie, so she's obviously no leftist or communist, and she likes Obama, rates him as a decent human being who may not be like other politicians. Also, my Arab-American friends (who are Christians, as if that matters) are high on Obama and dislike McCain, because they and my host mom see in Bush and McCain the same things--the embodiment of reckless American arrogance towards the rest of the world. When Egypt and Russia are no longer abstract places, policy has a concrete meaning, and these boms and guns and aid are affecting places and people that you love.


Why not McCain?
The National Socialists are reporting that membership in their party is increasing, because his most ardent supporters have the look of a mob about them, not caring about the racism that they are spouting, and maybe even proud of it. For the first time in a long time Americans are voicing actual racist thoughts, everythng they've kept shut about is now coming out of their mouths. And they're unashamed about it. I saw a video clip where a "values voter" said that she would never vote for someone named Obama, and no Christian would have the name "Obama". This is disgusting. Does she also think that Desta, Eyasu, Sameh, Pei-Wei and Sung-Han are not names Christians can have? Her view of Christianity is narrowed by race, and you can see that in this election that it isn't just her. The woman at the McCain rally who said that Obama couldn't be trusted because he's an "Arab" (scare quotes for obvious misinformation). And you can read Palin's speeches about the pockets of "Real America" that apparently proping up our country. What she's talking about is the "invisible republic", the "old, weird America " (both terms are Greil Marcus') and somehow this forgotten conscience of the nation is pushing itself through. How? But through the rascist chants that can be heard at McCain/Palin rallies. But Greil Marcus was talking about an underside to the nation, a subconscious memory of the old days (and new days) that isn't part of the American dream, and it's place where Americans can see the ghost of Tom Joad, and where Dock Boggs is singing "O Death." The place whence Flannery O'Connor found her anti-heroes and they found their Revelations. It's a place between heaven and earth and life and death, and where we are no longer thinking about two cars in the garage and a chicken in every pot. In Palin's mouth and hustled by her hot air voice this America is the mad house with the shut in Klansmen, stuffing their slave picked cotton into their ears the moment they hear the strains of "Swing low sweet chariot, coming forth to carry me home, swing low..." And the moment the repentant trader begins his song of amazing grace. Palin is speaking of a place where there isn't grace and their isn't merit either. Only the pure power of birth. The only thing She and her hubby have been using to attact Obama has been his birth and ancestry and the possibility that he's a "Secret Muslim." They're resorting to the school yard insult of calling the fatherless kid a bastard, a son of a bitch, a son of a whore. This is disgusting.

Of course, not every McCain supporter is some kind of racist, and I'm not trying to suggest that. A number of people that I know who do support McCain do so because they think that he'll overturn Roe vs Wade (quick poll, what did Roe vs Wade actually decide?), and so throwing them together with these racist hooligans is nonsense.

I only want to ask one question: do you want your vote to be swept up and counted and tarred with the votes of these thugs? Is this something you really value?

If you're going to talk integrity and doing things the right way and living the right way and no comprimises, do you want your vote to be compromised in this way?

In the song "When the Ship Comes in" Bob Dylan painted an apocalyptic scene of both triumph and despair, and towards the end of the song he sings
"Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin'.
And the ship's wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin'."

Once again the whole wide world is watching, and do you understand what they're seeing?