First, a few words from one concerned citizen about how the media is handling the upcoming election:

A few weeks ago my oldest sister forwarded a Republican slanted presidential candidate comparison chart to the whole family. I glanced at it and immediately recognized the fearmongering and misrepresentation of the facts geared toward fear. My brother Matt was motivated to write a response to the chart. Even without the original chart, his response was so powerful that I wanted to publish it in this blog (with his permission!). Without further ado… brother Matt gets political:

First of all, whoever wrote this up should learn how to spell the candidate names. It’s Barack, not Barak.

Next, offshore drilling will never solve our energy problems. The oil that would be produced is ten years down the road and there is no correlation between the recent price increases and increase on demand. Oil futures markets, lack of leadership at the administrative level, a middle east war and record profits have more to do with recent prices than supply.

Next judges, there is a philosophical difference with law as it supports the status quo and envisioned so that the law protects all citizens. Our founding fathers were gifted men, but they were far from perfect. If the constitution was not modified, we would still have slavery, minorities would not have property rights and women would have neither the right to own property or the right to vote. Imagine, giving the vote to all those silly frivolous women. Surely, this will be the end of America as we know it.

Have you noticed that the folks that are resistant to change are often those that live their lives in fear. They are afraid of those different than them. they are afraid of blacks, Mexicans, Jews, gays and even the the disabled. It is as though they that will lose their position as “top dog,” in the pile of haves vs. have nots.

Next, what about McCain and his service record. Have you ever pondered how a navel cadet who finished in the bottom 1% of his class got the prestigious opportunity to fly fighter jets? Could it be that John McCain’s father was a four star admiral? How do you think McCain got into Annapolis to begin with? It wasn’t Affirmative Action, it was that much older program called good ol’ boy network. Ironic, how those that benefit form this very old perk are the same that oppose measures such as Affirmative Action, which is a small attempt to level a playing field that is entrenched with old money, alumni, and the well connected.

Amount of time served is the next topic. If experience was the only factor of what makes someone good at a particular skill, then old people would be the best drivers. Let me remind you that Barack Obama has the same number of years in office as the Ronald Reagan.

Healthcare, Kathie with all the trouble you’ve had with your healthcare, I thought you would have enough common sense to know that the system does not work. Even if you have good insurance, medical care is regulated by insurance companies that have an overhead of 25%, while Medicare and members of Congress are administrated by “bloated bureaucracy” that manages to do the job with less than 6%. That means for every $100 you pay, an insurance company takes $25 right off the top. No wonder the insurance companies spent hundreds of millions to kill Universal healthcare during the 1980’s.

Barack Obama does not support late term abortion. John McCain supported a women’s right to choose in 2000, now in 2008, when he needs the fanatical religious right’s votes, he has flipped-flopped on this issue. If the Right Wing was truly concerned with being pro-life, they would adopt every infant in this country and not just the healthy white babies.

Obama supports a reasonable schedule on an Iraqi withdrawal. John McCain said that we might be there for a hundred years.

Obama would like to see reasonable restrictions on guns in some of our inner cities. You know, the places that you’re afraid to go to when the sun goes down.

Obama is against taking away citizen’s rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, even if those citizens happen to have the same naughty bits in their undies. Again, what are you so afraid of? If marriage is a “Sacred Institution” joined by the Almighty then any objective observer would have to give it an “F” grade since it fails 50% of the time. The religious right have a saying,”What would Jesus do?” If being gay were such a huge sin, then you would think that Jesus would bring up the subject time and again. But he didn’t. In fact Jesus gave no warning or rebukes to homosexuals. But what he did warn about was on the subject of money. He brings up the topic of money about a dozen times in the gospels.

English as an official language? Okay folks, are you too stupid to learn a second language? History lesson: what is the oldest city in the Unitied States? Answer: St. Augustine, FL, where the european settlers spoke spanish. We live in a global economy. One of the reasons that we got attacked is that we did not and still do not have enough Arabic translators. We have a scathingly bad record of being poor students of history, culture and languages. Remember how the Neoconservatives thought that our soldiers would be greeted in Bagdad like the French greeted the allied troops during WWII? Remember that the Bush Administration did not know the difference between the different Islamic sects? Remember that the oil revenue was supposed to pay for this war?Remember the American idiots that killed an Indian Sikh, because he was wearing a turban. Most Americans have the attitude of “give me my cheeseburger and my TV and leave me alone.” Its amazing that there are those thats resent the fact that Obama worked hard and got a great education. Maybe Americans are just too stupid to be effectively governed.

Lastly, taxes. Does anybody think that you can spend money like a drunken sailor and cut taxes without some serious financial consequences. Our current president has taken this economy down the toilet. We have suffered the perfect storm of record deficit spending, deregulation of the banking industry that has lead to the sub-prime crisis, an energy policy that was designed by oil industry insiders that has caused the greatest shift of currency to leave this country and go to countries that sent the 911 terrorist to the U.S. (please remember 15 of the 19 terrorist were from Saudi Arabia) and the crisis is spreading. We will see further financial problems due to our continuance of the slide of home property values, our lack of personal savings and the heavy reliance of easy to obtain credit cards. We need to seriously ask the same question that Ronald Reagan asked Americans in the 1980’s debate: Are you better off now compared to four (eight) years ago?

Please don’t be fooled by this type of conservative claptrap you sent me. These people have tired, old ideas. And if you didn’t notice by their example, they don’t give a damn about the average American or the problems that the average American faces. I wrote this lengthy reply because I am concerned and a bit angry with the voters in this country. But I deeply love my sister.

Matt

Amen, bro. Onward and upward. jbb