Friday, September 12, 2008

I'm voting for Obama, here's why...




I have multiple posts in my drafts/deleted folder regarding politics. RNC week had me pretty keyed up and most of them are not very nice. They may find a place on my blog in the future, maybe when I get around to cleaning out the drafts but for now they'll remain hidden away, my secret shame. This one hopefully won't be quite as offensive. Here goes..

-If John McCain is elected President he will most likely appoint another supreme court justice. This in short means the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I think abortion is a personal choice, not a choice I would make for myself but a choice that women everywhere should be allowed to make for themselves. Old, rich, white men should not be making this decision for them.

The way to stop abortions and unwanted pregnancy is education. Abstinence only doesn't work. Thanks to Sara Palin for making that point with a sledgehammer.

Outlawing abortion would not stop abortions. John McCain himself actually said it rather eloquently in 1999 "I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force thousands of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

But today, of course he would overturn it. He has to pander to the right. Can you say flip-flop?

-My favorite lesbians are just that, lesbians. They have the right to get married, be at each other's bedside if one is ill and get health benefits. When you can give me one valid way in which my lesbian/gay friends and family are harming the sanctity of your marriage, actually don't even bother, there is nothing valid in that argument.

-We are losing a war in Iraq while Bin Laden hides in a cave (maybe?). We are fighting a war agains a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, spending tens of billions of dollars a month with American and Iraqi casualties climbing every day. It's time to end the war we shouldn't be fighting in the first place.

-I have one of the most amazing nephews in the world. He has brown skin and white parents. I want him to be able to look at his President and be inspired, I want him to know that he can be anything he wants to be, President or if he has his way an actor.

These are a only a few of the reasons I will be proudly voting for Barack Obama in November. More to come (like a whole post on Sara Palin). Enough for tonight though, I'm already pretty fired up, politics does that to me, so I'm now going to have to run off some of the anger and my dinner.

1 comment:

Guitar Ben said...

All those are great reasons. The economy is another one.

Reagan is credited with starting "trickle down" economics -- the theory that the best way to help average citizens in this country was to offer huge tax breaks to large corporations. The logic goes that those companies would use the extra money to create more, better paying jobs for Americans, thereby allowing the money to "trickle down" to us, the American people.

If the last 8 years have proven anything, it's that this economic theory is a sham. It's nothing more than a very thinly veiled excuse for the richest Americans to increase their personal holdings while shipping our jobs overseas in order to -- you guessed it! -- increase their personal holdings.

Lower taxes are important. But the poorer you are, the more you need a tax cut. That's why Obama will dramatically CUT taxes for everyone making less than $226,981. If you make more than that, up to $603,402, then congratulations! -- you are doing well in this great nation and you will see neither a decrease nor increase in your Federal taxes. If you are one of the exceptionally lucky 3 or so percent of Americans who make $603,403 or above then you will see a tax increase. I'm sorry, I know you really wanted to re-do the third-floor bathrooms in the Maui house this year -- but we're fighting an expensive war and people are losing their jobs and homes so it'll have to wait a couple years. Get over it.

The thing that cracks me up is that even for the CEOs trickle down economics ultimately sucks. The 95% percent of us who get screwed by giving all our tax money to CEOs are the ones who drive the economy. Those fat cats just kept taking, and taking, and eventually found that the consumers for the products that their companies built were all broke. Same for the folks paying the mortgages on the homes bought with loans from the fatcat's banks.

What good does your huge corporate tax cut do you if the bank you own is sitting on 10 billion dollars worth of loans that can't and won't be repaid?

Obviously the CEOs have golden parachutes and will retire to their yachts and Italian villas.

As for the rest of us? Were left to pick up the pieces.

How do we start picking up the pieces?

First: If a guy says we need to cut taxes for corporations in order to revive the economy -- DON'T VOTE FOR HIM.

Whew! I feel better now. Back to work.