Election 2008 Part I

It has taken me some time this year to observe the progress of the presidential election with care and consideration.

Yesterday Governor Sarah Palin was nominated as Vice President of the United States. Together with Senator John McCain, she promotes a potential presidency that will refuse GLBT individuals basic civil and human rights, refuse women the right to choose, and refuse all of us our Constitutional rights, just as we have been refused all these things for the past eight years.

If McCain becomes president, I won't be able to legally marry the love of my life, nor will I be able to visit her in the hospital as a family member. I won't be able to choose whether or not to have children if I become pregnant (even if I am raped), and I won't be able to adopt a child borne of my partner. If for whatever reason I am able to have children, my children will have the choice to be taught what to think in a parochial or charter school or to be products of a bankrupt, corrupt public education system run on a corrupt business model. My children will grow up in a country with one national religion, without freedom to choose their beliefs and practice them without contempt or persecution. My children will be denied scientific exploration and knowledge of facts and theories because their science classes will be censored and used as platforms to enforce evangelical Christian politics.

In this McCain-run United States, the infrastructure of the country will continue to deteriorate, because John McCain will cut the taxes we need to fund our government entities. Without tax increases, states won't have the funds they need to build and repair highways and bridges, to maintain law enforcement and emergency response entities, to maintain school districts, and other public services. John McCain's tax cuts will mean the most to the wealthy, people with large investments in corporations and in the oil industry.

John McCain supports oil companies and offshore drilling as a means of "energy independence." He ignores the facts that Al Gore has shown us in his seminars and films, which are supported by the majority of scientists in the world: that oil production and consumption, as well as coal production and consumption, is largely responsible for global warming and that our global climate is and will continue to be in jeopardy unless we drastically change our energy strategy. Our world is at stake and John McCain stands with the wealthy, and with people who are in denial about the state of our world.

John McCain supports Bush's foreign policy. In his acceptance speech for the candidacy, he said that he would stop friendly relations and financial aid to countries who "don't like us very much" and of course, he wants to continue the war in Iraq because he thinks we're winning. He doesn't support diplomacy with the nations that threaten to develop nuclear weapons, though I will give him credit for saying, at least, that he wants to engage in new diplomacy with Russia after their explosive recent war.

However, McCain doesn't seem to be very interested in restoring our relationship with our allies in Europe and Asia. Unlike Barack Obama, he hasn't said much of anything about how we can redeem ourselves before Europe and the rest of the world. He doesn't seem to see how humiliating it is to engage with the world while we wage a war upon a decimated country and rattle our many sabers.