On PUMA's, Rhetoric, Etc.

Those who scream that they are going to vote for John McCain just because Hillary Clinton didn't get the Democratic nomination are beneath contempt. Their candidate didn't win. So get over it. You say you're going to vote for McCain out of spite. So you vote against yourself. McCain will continue using the Constitution for toilet paper, will appoint judges like Scalito to the Extreme Court to see to it he gets away with it, will plunge us into more wars than our military will handle so he will have to draft your sons, and will bankrupt the middle class. But that's all right to you, huh? You want to sacrifice the livelihoods and perhaps the lives of your children just so you can get your whiney-hiney point across. Get a life.

I remember being bitter about Robert Kennedy entering the Presidential race after Gene McCarthy had done all the hard work of showing there was a strong anti-war vote out there. I went to sleep praying Kennedy wouldn't get the nomination one night, and the next morning I heard on the radio he had been assassinated. Talk about your wake-up call!

A few months later I was at the beach wearing my McCarthy button, and a fellow asked me if I would have voted for Kennedy. I thought about it and said I would have. Thereby I think I won over another McCarthy voter.

Little good it did, since Humphrey won the nomination, anyway, and our protests in the streets of Chicago (I watched on TV, but I was there in spirit) helped Nixon win the White House. You see how much good that did.

I grew up, and it's time for the PUMA's do do the same.

Now, I heard Bill Richardson's speech at the convention last night, and it did my heart good to hear him tear into the Republicans over shredding the Constitution, torture, etc. The one thing that made me uncomfortable was his criticism of McCain's plan to give tax cuts to oil companies that are swimming in profits. He kept calling them "tax breaks." That's Republican language. We don't need to let the Republicans define our terms. We need to define them for ourselves. It is the estate tax, not the "death tax;" it is a tax cut, not a "tax break." It isn't as though the taxes these hyperprofitable companies pay now is such an outlandish burden. So we need to call these gifts to the fat cats what they are: tax cuts.

I couldn't stay up for Obama's speech last night, but what I heard about it on the radio made me feel a lot better. I may even go back on my pledge and go ahead and contribute to his campaign. I'm still ticked off about the FISA vote, but the attack attitude he took last night made me feel that finally a nominee had found his backbone and stood up on his hind legs and let the Repuglicans have it the way they deserve.

John McCain, it is reported, is going to name the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, his Vice-Presidential candidate. I don't know much about her, but I see this as trolling for the PUMA vote. I believe we can still whip them if we stick together and keep our message strong.

I must say, now I am looking forward to voting for Obama this fall.