An interesting interview just given by Bill Moyers on PBS discusses what both presidential candidates fail to recognize: the lower class. McCain hasn't even acknowledged any classes in his campaign, and Obama is sternly focused on the middle class. But what about the lower class, the poor, those who are struggling to provide adequate food, housing, and a decent standard of living for themselves, because gas prices are so high, food prices are rising, credit is untouchable, and housing and rent costs are through the roof? It is blatantly obvious that no political member in the United States knows how, or should it be said wants to recognize a huge amount of people who have no influence on America's rudderless leadership, other than the fact that they are just ever-present.
How does such a lower level economic mass begin to effectively be a player in the political realm of government? In the past, revolutions seemed to have been the only means for poorer classes to force recognition upon their leaders, or in fact turn over the ruling institution, and grab hold with their own structures of economy and rule. The one thing the United States is missing since its inception is a revolution of sorts, one in which has completely turned the governing structure on its heels, and replacing it with what is necessary to make the populace feel secure in the way they can effectively, and efficiently get through life under a governance.
The United States, is in a sense revolution-proof. A large part of the lower class in America is partially informed, but not what most would call educated about how they're governed. Entertainment has replaced informative news at this level, because it is not only simpler to digest, but also quicker, and much more pleasing to absorb. How many people, lower class or not, actually spend the time to watch a Congressional hearing on C-Span, or actually read longer articles in a newspaper about current affairs (other than sports and entertainment related articles), or the economy? For one, they are complicated to understand, and often time overwhelm the reader with verbiage that is written by intellectually elite journalists, who are reluctant to inform at the level of a high school graduate. Granted there are some really great Internet resources available that scale this information down, but they still don't get the message across, because it's simply not interesting. Look at shows like John Stewart and the Colbert report, that do in fact give the average intellect an informed perspective of politics, government, or economy, but yet because it is satire, it leaves out all the questions, or the arguments of political perspective. So, for the most part, information in this country, and the ability to make an informed decision about your quality of life is basically removed via pulp entertainment.
Even the news in some cases is pulp entertainment. All major networks pretty much cover the same issues with slightly varying points of view. So the headlines are packaged into quick and easy relatable stories, without substance. Take for instance, the economic bail out of $700 billion being granted to financial corporations. Yes, it gets the people worked up, but because there is no points or counterpoints provided by the news networks, people won't despise or protest what they are hearing about, because they don't fully understand the reasoning behind it. They simply cannot understand, once they revolted, the arguments for changing it. In the same interview, as mentioned above, Moyers asks, Michael Zweig, that you can have a journalist relate this news to people, and have a professional economist advocate for them, why is there no unions, or other representative institution in place to provide a movement for these people to gather muscle to get the government to listen to them, and Zweig's response is, that they do in fact exist, but the problem is they are, if not weak, simply not active, and if after the presidential election they don't come to muscling up, there is a need for organization to "come from below". He even has tried to go to these organizations and have them gather their members, in an effort to educate them on how to get a better footing in the current economic struggle. Informing the masses simply isn't happening in the news, and these folks are not getting the information they need from anywhere else.
Showing posts with label presidential race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidential race. Show all posts
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
What You Want to Hear Comapred to What You Should Know
Last night's presidential debate, though in most of media's opinion was pretty bad as far as structure, but the content is a great reflection of how much the balance of truth in the U.S. is so lopsided, that it doesn't seem that American's know what to ask themselves what they expect of a leader. Instead, Americans have always lumped all the failures of the government on the shoulders of presidential candidates, in hopes that they can solve all their problems.
That's a huge responsibility to expect of two people, and is not even close to being reasonable. On the Republican stance for smaller government, if we look at the government's disposition under a Republican leadership, the government is huge. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the government's employee count comes in at 1.8 million employees, and that doesn't include the postal service (Federal Government, Excluding the Postal Service). With 488 congressmen, and 15 cabinet member within the Bush administration, there is apparently a large amount of government presence. The point here is presidents are not the sole solution to the country's problems. They only manage, and if they manage instead of controlling the government, then they can indeed solve all the nation's problems.
Something that really stood out last night, was McCain pointing out that Obama was wrong about the surge in Iraq. Well, he wasn't wrong. Yesterday afternoon, General Petraeus talked about the future of U.S. Central Command, addressing the Association of the U.S. Army, and he mentioned the surge, and stated that the surge was in fact not the reason for success in Iraq. So would you believe a presidential candidate or the general who is running the war? Obama wasn't wrong. To add to this, Obama wants to deal with fighting al Qaeda in Pakistan, because that's where they are. They are not in Iraq, and Afghanistan is not the frontier of this war. Currently the U.S. military is carrying out military attacks within Pakistan's border, and this is all while George W. Bush is in office calling the shots. Which leads into the next point.
McCain also accused Obama of not understanding national security issues, and that if Obama was president, there would be no time for "on-the-job training". First off, neither candidate has any experience with contending with foreign threats, outside of making ineffective votes in the Senate. Both candidates supported a war in Iraq that was a pseudo-declaration based not on intelligence and fact, but based on suspicions. Because, when the Bush administration went to the United Nations for the case to go to war in Iraq, Bush expressed a need to go to war based on the suspicion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, not a fact. No one in the intelligence sector felt that was an adequate truth, and it “was [now] a guiding principle of the U.S. government that suspicion was an adequate threshold for preventative action." (Suskind, Ron (2006). The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. (pp. 170-171) New York. Simon & Schuster.) No one needs training to be a fear mongering, and suspicious character, or a leader that cannot responsibly deal with foreign policies.
As far as the economy is concerned, which is a very heavy issue right now with Americans, both candidates were a bit weak, and there was no real backbone behind their statements in dealing with economic issues. But Obama constantly gets slammed for wanting to raise taxes. but, there was a statement made by a CNN correspondent, who said that McCain has an axe chop when it comes to dealing with the economy, where as Obama uses a surgical knife to cut away taxes, and dealing with budgets. Currently we don't need a president who uses volatile policies on a volatile economy. Obama wants to increase taxes for those who bring in more than $250,000 a year. There are billions of people in America who don't even bring home over $100,000 a year. It seems that Obama is more aware of the economic make up of the U.S., and McCain is so far out of touch.
Consider these points! Also remember these are issues that the candidates support, but will not directly have control over. It must be realized that they will only steer the policies into the direction that the people see fit. The president only has as much power as the people sacrifice to him.
Get out and vote, and don't leave the control of your future in the hands of leaders who won't listen.
That's a huge responsibility to expect of two people, and is not even close to being reasonable. On the Republican stance for smaller government, if we look at the government's disposition under a Republican leadership, the government is huge. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the government's employee count comes in at 1.8 million employees, and that doesn't include the postal service (Federal Government, Excluding the Postal Service). With 488 congressmen, and 15 cabinet member within the Bush administration, there is apparently a large amount of government presence. The point here is presidents are not the sole solution to the country's problems. They only manage, and if they manage instead of controlling the government, then they can indeed solve all the nation's problems.
Something that really stood out last night, was McCain pointing out that Obama was wrong about the surge in Iraq. Well, he wasn't wrong. Yesterday afternoon, General Petraeus talked about the future of U.S. Central Command, addressing the Association of the U.S. Army, and he mentioned the surge, and stated that the surge was in fact not the reason for success in Iraq. So would you believe a presidential candidate or the general who is running the war? Obama wasn't wrong. To add to this, Obama wants to deal with fighting al Qaeda in Pakistan, because that's where they are. They are not in Iraq, and Afghanistan is not the frontier of this war. Currently the U.S. military is carrying out military attacks within Pakistan's border, and this is all while George W. Bush is in office calling the shots. Which leads into the next point.
McCain also accused Obama of not understanding national security issues, and that if Obama was president, there would be no time for "on-the-job training". First off, neither candidate has any experience with contending with foreign threats, outside of making ineffective votes in the Senate. Both candidates supported a war in Iraq that was a pseudo-declaration based not on intelligence and fact, but based on suspicions. Because, when the Bush administration went to the United Nations for the case to go to war in Iraq, Bush expressed a need to go to war based on the suspicion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, not a fact. No one in the intelligence sector felt that was an adequate truth, and it “was [now] a guiding principle of the U.S. government that suspicion was an adequate threshold for preventative action." (Suskind, Ron (2006). The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. (pp. 170-171) New York. Simon & Schuster.) No one needs training to be a fear mongering, and suspicious character, or a leader that cannot responsibly deal with foreign policies.
As far as the economy is concerned, which is a very heavy issue right now with Americans, both candidates were a bit weak, and there was no real backbone behind their statements in dealing with economic issues. But Obama constantly gets slammed for wanting to raise taxes. but, there was a statement made by a CNN correspondent, who said that McCain has an axe chop when it comes to dealing with the economy, where as Obama uses a surgical knife to cut away taxes, and dealing with budgets. Currently we don't need a president who uses volatile policies on a volatile economy. Obama wants to increase taxes for those who bring in more than $250,000 a year. There are billions of people in America who don't even bring home over $100,000 a year. It seems that Obama is more aware of the economic make up of the U.S., and McCain is so far out of touch.
Consider these points! Also remember these are issues that the candidates support, but will not directly have control over. It must be realized that they will only steer the policies into the direction that the people see fit. The president only has as much power as the people sacrifice to him.
Get out and vote, and don't leave the control of your future in the hands of leaders who won't listen.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Just Shut Up, and Vote
You know, when I people tell me, "Why should I vote? It won't matter.", I consistently tell people they should, because if you don't it really wouldn't matter. Especially when we are having so many critical things to consider, like whether we should continue being at war, what we should do about our corrupt and dysfunctional economy, and placing people in leadership who will fix the broken system we call democracy.
Whether your candidate wins or not, it is not just about who the next president is going to be, but a number of leaders lower on the rung, like your state senator, representative, circuit court judges, mayors, supervisors, councilmen, or propositions on bills that will closely effect your life. If you don't believe me, go to http://www.smartvoter.org/, and search by your zip code. I would be more than willing to bet that you would find a large amount of things to vote on, and you would end up spending well over an hour in a voting booth deciding over what to vote on, because there is so much to vote on. So there is no excuse not to vote. By saying that your vote doesn't matter is just as ignorant as saying that there's no sound coming out of your mouth when you're speaking.
In all reality, I would think that a person may be semi-correct in saying that when voting for president, let's say, the vote may not directly matter, even though it does, because of the complicated structure of our nation's government. There is a lot that goes on when a president makes a decision, but due to our system of checks and balances, technically your choice for president doesn't effectively mean that all your needs matter. But when you consider things like propositions and state offered bills that you can vote on every November (not just every 4 years). These items on the ballot directly effect you, because they are laws that will be put into place immediately based on the popular vote. For example, in my state, they have a legislative proposition concerning the fostering of the renewable energies sector. Whatever I choose to vote on this proposition, I know that it will go back to my state legislature with my direct opinion on how legislators should handle energy matters that are directly effecting me. If you consider this, if the presidential candidate you are choosing, leaned in favor of a legislative bill like the one I just mentioned, your vote would in fact not directly matter, because the president is an executor of the law, and can only make a decision on legislative propositions that are brought forth by Congress.
I suggest that if you don't think any of the presidential candidates matter to you, fill in the blank under the candidate's names with your name, and vote on the other matters that really effect you closer to home. Your vote does matter, so shut up, and fill out your absentee ballot, or get down to your local polling place. Go here first http://www.rockthevote.com/rtv_register.html
Whether your candidate wins or not, it is not just about who the next president is going to be, but a number of leaders lower on the rung, like your state senator, representative, circuit court judges, mayors, supervisors, councilmen, or propositions on bills that will closely effect your life. If you don't believe me, go to http://www.smartvoter.org/, and search by your zip code. I would be more than willing to bet that you would find a large amount of things to vote on, and you would end up spending well over an hour in a voting booth deciding over what to vote on, because there is so much to vote on. So there is no excuse not to vote. By saying that your vote doesn't matter is just as ignorant as saying that there's no sound coming out of your mouth when you're speaking.
In all reality, I would think that a person may be semi-correct in saying that when voting for president, let's say, the vote may not directly matter, even though it does, because of the complicated structure of our nation's government. There is a lot that goes on when a president makes a decision, but due to our system of checks and balances, technically your choice for president doesn't effectively mean that all your needs matter. But when you consider things like propositions and state offered bills that you can vote on every November (not just every 4 years). These items on the ballot directly effect you, because they are laws that will be put into place immediately based on the popular vote. For example, in my state, they have a legislative proposition concerning the fostering of the renewable energies sector. Whatever I choose to vote on this proposition, I know that it will go back to my state legislature with my direct opinion on how legislators should handle energy matters that are directly effecting me. If you consider this, if the presidential candidate you are choosing, leaned in favor of a legislative bill like the one I just mentioned, your vote would in fact not directly matter, because the president is an executor of the law, and can only make a decision on legislative propositions that are brought forth by Congress.
I suggest that if you don't think any of the presidential candidates matter to you, fill in the blank under the candidate's names with your name, and vote on the other matters that really effect you closer to home. Your vote does matter, so shut up, and fill out your absentee ballot, or get down to your local polling place. Go here first http://www.rockthevote.com/rtv_register.html
Thursday, September 25, 2008
You Can't Run, Then Don't
Granted there is a major crisis occurring in the U.S., but McCain's move to suspend his campaign, and bypass the presidential debate is in very bad taste, as far as leadership is concerned. How about, when you become president, and we go to war, you just suspend your presidency when you see fit. Mr. McCain, we want to hear what your thoughts are on topics, especially now, in a time when a firm sense of leadership is most important.
These days, I wouldn't think that a politician in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, could not correspond with Washington via email, or phone, or Blackberry device. But, oh yeah! I forgot, McCain, can flip barbecue ribs, but he can't click send for an email. (watch this!)
On a separate note, regarding the financial crisis. Have you ever experienced trying to contact congressional members online. I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon, submitting messages to congress via web forms, and more than three quarters of them were restricted by zip code. So, in other words, if you don't live in that congressional district you can't inform members of Congress of anything. I don't desire a response, so there is no taxpayer money going into dealing with my email, and it cost near nothing to receive an email. So, why is contacting our government so restricted? The email address of a Senator or Congress person is not private information, and should be made readily available for any American citizen.
So what I was forced to do was look up the coverage area of each member's district, locate a city, and find a business address that was located within this district, and use that zip code. I had to reference three separate sites to do so (conservativeusa.org of all sites; good old faithful, Wikipedia, the U.S. Postal Service, and lastly, Google maps). The first site, lists all the Senators and Representatives of the current Congress. In Wikipedia, you can search for a state's district, simply by putting in, for example, "Alaska's 1st congressional district", and it will return a plethora of info, and a map. From there I picked a city name, and went to Google maps to find a business that was located in that district, copy and paste it's street address into the USPS's zip code finder, along with state and city name, and it will return a proper zip code for the congress person's district. Sorry folks, spamming is nearly impossible, but if you have the time, I would definitely follow through with some emails to the only people in our government who can actually listen to us.
Okay, so back to my rant on McCain. Bush made the request to have McCain and Obama come back to Washington to has out some ideas on moving Paulson's grand scheme to save our economy forward. This is the most absurd political maneuver I have ever witnessed, and not only is it disruptive to the process of selecting a new president, but it is evident that Bush, and McCain, are completely incapable of running a nation based on slew of mixed messages, unstable political stances, and the inability to aptly inform the American public what their true intentions or plans are. In an interview with Katie Couric, Palin, stated, "'America may find itself on' the road to 'another Great Depression.'" (Couric, Letterman too much for McCain and Palin). Then last night with McCain, when asked about Palin's statement, he responded, "I, I don't know if, if, if it's exactly the depression...". Come on! What the fuck is going on here? Do these candidates even communicate with each other? I, mean, really, if they did, maybe they could actually get their stories straight, and deal with the real issues, not ones that don't even exist.
The only consistent politician in this mess, the only figure who has acknowledged the failures of our current government, and the out of touch ideologies of the Republican right wing, that has destroyed our nation's welfare to thrive, is Obama. It is evident because, McCain, has not only bailed on his constituents, but has advertised himself as a person, who can only get the job done when the circumstances are beneficial to his political needs, and not the needs of the people. The debate should go on. Why would McCain suddenly bail on Letterman, and instead do an interview with Katie Couric? Because, McCain, and his GOP vote thieves, probably thought that since Couric is a morning show host, and most at-home moms are watching at that time, then it would make sense to grab hold of that demographic in the evening, and present himself in a better light, pulling the old female card again. I loved Letterman's reactions. How do you blow off Letterman?
Anyhow, I'm done griping for today. I just wanted to note this mess. You conservative big boys can dodge the truth all you want, but sooner or later it will come to the surface, and people will not tolerate your scheming, the secrecy, and the candy-coated baloney you keep dishing out.
These days, I wouldn't think that a politician in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, could not correspond with Washington via email, or phone, or Blackberry device. But, oh yeah! I forgot, McCain, can flip barbecue ribs, but he can't click send for an email. (watch this!)
On a separate note, regarding the financial crisis. Have you ever experienced trying to contact congressional members online. I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon, submitting messages to congress via web forms, and more than three quarters of them were restricted by zip code. So, in other words, if you don't live in that congressional district you can't inform members of Congress of anything. I don't desire a response, so there is no taxpayer money going into dealing with my email, and it cost near nothing to receive an email. So, why is contacting our government so restricted? The email address of a Senator or Congress person is not private information, and should be made readily available for any American citizen.
So what I was forced to do was look up the coverage area of each member's district, locate a city, and find a business address that was located within this district, and use that zip code. I had to reference three separate sites to do so (conservativeusa.org of all sites; good old faithful, Wikipedia, the U.S. Postal Service, and lastly, Google maps). The first site, lists all the Senators and Representatives of the current Congress. In Wikipedia, you can search for a state's district, simply by putting in, for example, "Alaska's 1st congressional district", and it will return a plethora of info, and a map. From there I picked a city name, and went to Google maps to find a business that was located in that district, copy and paste it's street address into the USPS's zip code finder, along with state and city name, and it will return a proper zip code for the congress person's district. Sorry folks, spamming is nearly impossible, but if you have the time, I would definitely follow through with some emails to the only people in our government who can actually listen to us.
Okay, so back to my rant on McCain. Bush made the request to have McCain and Obama come back to Washington to has out some ideas on moving Paulson's grand scheme to save our economy forward. This is the most absurd political maneuver I have ever witnessed, and not only is it disruptive to the process of selecting a new president, but it is evident that Bush, and McCain, are completely incapable of running a nation based on slew of mixed messages, unstable political stances, and the inability to aptly inform the American public what their true intentions or plans are. In an interview with Katie Couric, Palin, stated, "'America may find itself on' the road to 'another Great Depression.'" (Couric, Letterman too much for McCain and Palin). Then last night with McCain, when asked about Palin's statement, he responded, "I, I don't know if, if, if it's exactly the depression...". Come on! What the fuck is going on here? Do these candidates even communicate with each other? I, mean, really, if they did, maybe they could actually get their stories straight, and deal with the real issues, not ones that don't even exist.
The only consistent politician in this mess, the only figure who has acknowledged the failures of our current government, and the out of touch ideologies of the Republican right wing, that has destroyed our nation's welfare to thrive, is Obama. It is evident because, McCain, has not only bailed on his constituents, but has advertised himself as a person, who can only get the job done when the circumstances are beneficial to his political needs, and not the needs of the people. The debate should go on. Why would McCain suddenly bail on Letterman, and instead do an interview with Katie Couric? Because, McCain, and his GOP vote thieves, probably thought that since Couric is a morning show host, and most at-home moms are watching at that time, then it would make sense to grab hold of that demographic in the evening, and present himself in a better light, pulling the old female card again. I loved Letterman's reactions. How do you blow off Letterman?
Anyhow, I'm done griping for today. I just wanted to note this mess. You conservative big boys can dodge the truth all you want, but sooner or later it will come to the surface, and people will not tolerate your scheming, the secrecy, and the candy-coated baloney you keep dishing out.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Who Does She Think She Is?
So on my Sunday afternoon, I decided to catch up on my New York Times reading, and I was easily distracted by an article regarding the Republican's vice presidential candidate, Sarah "Goody Goody" Palin. Lipstick or not she still reflects a lot of the current administration's blatant disregard for the law, and ethical governance. Now I know all you die hard Republicans out there are going to tell people like me that it's not fair and that more respect should be given to her, but you know what folks, you need to look at the facts here.
She is not a policy maker, because she does not understand the importance of democracy, and a government that runs itself. Instead her background is loaded with ruthless personal vendettas, and running government the way she and her close friends see fit. This is not my America, nor should you accept her vision as yours. How would you feel if you local government had put forth a code or some legal restriction, that you and others did not feel was acceptable, and not in the best interests of the people in that area? How would you then feel, if that governing entity discovered your opposition, and even though you did nothing to argue the point, they decided that your position was null, and removed you from your job, not because you incompetent, but because you had a different point of view? It's quite simple. You wouldn't feel anything, because it doesn't matter to people like this. They are not concerned about your feelings, your well being, and your ability to have any say in how your world and your existence is preserved.
Sarah Palin does not represent in any way the free America we once knew. She has governed a very isolated part of the world, and does not understand the greater need of the American people, because in all the words she's been spilling forth, not once has she expressed the need to address the crises that many Americans face on a day to day basis. She's never discussed how to make our economy better, she's never spoken about how she plans on addressing the cleaning up of our environment, she doesn't deal with the issues of energy, and lastly she still hasn't address to us how she plans on dealing with threats to our national security. I mean she didn't even know what the Bush Doctrine was. Her idea of foreign relations being able to see an island in Russia 2 miles off the coast of Alaska, that she's never even been to.
Palin has stated regarding her economic policies, that "it's not government to be looked at to solve all the problems." But it's only one problem, and it seriously needs to be solved. We are not dealing with some small town fiscal crisis, this is a major national nightmare. A politician cannot possibly take a huge number of issues, and spin them into a single item. Then there's the fact that she has fired numerous people under her for personal reason, and could not provide a professional reason for ousting these people from their positions. Now this willy-nilly firing of people is great if your dealing with people who cannot fulfill their responsibilities, but when you go about firing people without warrant, or because they have acted in a manner that counters your beliefs, or your political stance, you are doing a disservice to the economy, and the confidence of the market. What would happen if a large worker's union opposed her presidential will? Would Palin just decide that these people don't deserve a job, because they disagree with me, and then fire thousands of people for personal reasons? That, folks, is not the representation of a good national leader. We're losing enough jobs already in this country, and we do not need a leader who will practice employment genocide due to personal feelings.
Now, her stance on environment is just outright ignorant. She has stated on the topic of what is main cause for global warming, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.". If it's not man-made, then what else would it be? In my state of California, from 1990 to 2004, hydro fluoro compound emissions (gases derived from manufacturing, and commonly used on aircraft, ships and large vehicles as well as in computer facilities, that is the main cause of global warming) went from 7.1 million metric tons to 14.2 million metric tons. So you tell me whether or not it was man-made! (see here)
On the environmental note, Palin, will drive our environmental concerns into the ditch, because she is a huge supporter of big oil in Alaska, having fostered the allowance of big oil to drill in ANWR. If we are to effectively save our environment from energy consumption, we need to yield our addiction to oil, and stop thinking it is our only way to solve our dependency. It is not the only energy resource available to us, and in all reality, opening up more drilling in Alaska is not a long term solution. Of course it's all about who is lining her pockets, because giving us more oil doesn't necessarily make it cheaper, it gives the oil companies more money, and does not in any way help our environment. If anything this shallow attempt to persuade us into a pseudo effective energy plan is a joke. This may have been a viable platform for her to stand back in 1990, when the world consumed 66 million barrels a year, but I got news for you maverick Palin, we consume 83 million barrels a day now. Do you think Alaska can cover that? This just goes to show that she has no idea what the reality of the energy situation is.
The final thing here I want to address is Palin's approach to Foreign policy, and how that ties into national security. First, it is worth noting that in her interview with Charles Gibson, she balked at his question on what her stance was on the Bush Doctrine. She had no idea what it was. It's all about foreign policy, and the protection of U.S. borders. So what, Russia is close to Alaska! Anyone who can read a map knows that, and one Russia is not a direct threat to the U.S., and two, what does that have to do with the threat terrorism. Other than this Palin has got nothing else when it comes to dealing with foreign entities and national security.
She is not a policy maker, because she does not understand the importance of democracy, and a government that runs itself. Instead her background is loaded with ruthless personal vendettas, and running government the way she and her close friends see fit. This is not my America, nor should you accept her vision as yours. How would you feel if you local government had put forth a code or some legal restriction, that you and others did not feel was acceptable, and not in the best interests of the people in that area? How would you then feel, if that governing entity discovered your opposition, and even though you did nothing to argue the point, they decided that your position was null, and removed you from your job, not because you incompetent, but because you had a different point of view? It's quite simple. You wouldn't feel anything, because it doesn't matter to people like this. They are not concerned about your feelings, your well being, and your ability to have any say in how your world and your existence is preserved.
Sarah Palin does not represent in any way the free America we once knew. She has governed a very isolated part of the world, and does not understand the greater need of the American people, because in all the words she's been spilling forth, not once has she expressed the need to address the crises that many Americans face on a day to day basis. She's never discussed how to make our economy better, she's never spoken about how she plans on addressing the cleaning up of our environment, she doesn't deal with the issues of energy, and lastly she still hasn't address to us how she plans on dealing with threats to our national security. I mean she didn't even know what the Bush Doctrine was. Her idea of foreign relations being able to see an island in Russia 2 miles off the coast of Alaska, that she's never even been to.
Palin has stated regarding her economic policies, that "it's not government to be looked at to solve all the problems." But it's only one problem, and it seriously needs to be solved. We are not dealing with some small town fiscal crisis, this is a major national nightmare. A politician cannot possibly take a huge number of issues, and spin them into a single item. Then there's the fact that she has fired numerous people under her for personal reason, and could not provide a professional reason for ousting these people from their positions. Now this willy-nilly firing of people is great if your dealing with people who cannot fulfill their responsibilities, but when you go about firing people without warrant, or because they have acted in a manner that counters your beliefs, or your political stance, you are doing a disservice to the economy, and the confidence of the market. What would happen if a large worker's union opposed her presidential will? Would Palin just decide that these people don't deserve a job, because they disagree with me, and then fire thousands of people for personal reasons? That, folks, is not the representation of a good national leader. We're losing enough jobs already in this country, and we do not need a leader who will practice employment genocide due to personal feelings.
Now, her stance on environment is just outright ignorant. She has stated on the topic of what is main cause for global warming, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.". If it's not man-made, then what else would it be? In my state of California, from 1990 to 2004, hydro fluoro compound emissions (gases derived from manufacturing, and commonly used on aircraft, ships and large vehicles as well as in computer facilities, that is the main cause of global warming) went from 7.1 million metric tons to 14.2 million metric tons. So you tell me whether or not it was man-made! (see here)
On the environmental note, Palin, will drive our environmental concerns into the ditch, because she is a huge supporter of big oil in Alaska, having fostered the allowance of big oil to drill in ANWR. If we are to effectively save our environment from energy consumption, we need to yield our addiction to oil, and stop thinking it is our only way to solve our dependency. It is not the only energy resource available to us, and in all reality, opening up more drilling in Alaska is not a long term solution. Of course it's all about who is lining her pockets, because giving us more oil doesn't necessarily make it cheaper, it gives the oil companies more money, and does not in any way help our environment. If anything this shallow attempt to persuade us into a pseudo effective energy plan is a joke. This may have been a viable platform for her to stand back in 1990, when the world consumed 66 million barrels a year, but I got news for you maverick Palin, we consume 83 million barrels a day now. Do you think Alaska can cover that? This just goes to show that she has no idea what the reality of the energy situation is.
The final thing here I want to address is Palin's approach to Foreign policy, and how that ties into national security. First, it is worth noting that in her interview with Charles Gibson, she balked at his question on what her stance was on the Bush Doctrine. She had no idea what it was. It's all about foreign policy, and the protection of U.S. borders. So what, Russia is close to Alaska! Anyone who can read a map knows that, and one Russia is not a direct threat to the U.S., and two, what does that have to do with the threat terrorism. Other than this Palin has got nothing else when it comes to dealing with foreign entities and national security.
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