A very different convention

Life’s been kind of busy this week in AuntieM-land. So much has happened that I wanted to document but this is the first time since early in the week that I’ve had more than 10 minutes at my computer. So here are my impressions of the RNC (the Really Nasty Convention) and assorted other timely items.

Yes, I sat glued to the RNC for three whole evenings, watching the expanded coverage on cable news, not the paltry hour-long network coverage. It took a lot of self-control to watch as much as I did, because my temper kept rising at all the mean-spirited insults being hurled at Obama. I did it though, because it is important to me to listen to opposing viewpoints instead of proceeding blindly down my own path, which it itself would be an exercise in prejudice. It is vital to listen to many perspectives before forming your own, and then to continue to listen to other perspectives with an open mind. You'll either gain new ideas and information which may cause you to reasses your positions, or at the very least you'll be better informed as to the arguements posed by those who oppose your views.

Hubby and I watched the first two nights together and kept each other amused with our running commentary. On Thursday Hubby had to work, and my friend M and her son K invited me to their house to watch the show and eat cheesy pizza in honor of a cheesy speech from McCain. We had a wonderful time. I brought some munchies designed specifically for the occasion: wrinkly dried fruits for dried-up old McCain and a can of mixed nuts to represent the rest of the convention. I’m now calling that particular mix SnarkySnax.

For those of you who don’t know me personally, I’m afraid I do have a bit of a potty mouth. That’s one reason Hubby and I don’t have a parrot – we don’t know which words a parrot would pick up. I’m pretty good about controlling myself in professional situations and around kids, and I believe using profanity in written communication weakens the effectiveness of your message, but last night sent me right over the edge. After a while I simply had to stop saying “****… sorry K” over and over, because it was wearing thin. I doubt he heard anything from me that he hasn’t heard before. We had a wonderful time watching the speeches, commenting on what was being said and exchanging terrorist fist jabs.

How DARE Giuliani and Palin criticize Obama for working as a Community Organizer? Do they even know what a Community Organizer does? Let me tell you, Community Organizers deserve tremendous respect because they earn a pittance for going out into dicey areas to reach out to people who need help but may not know that help is available or where to get it. Working as a Community organizer is physically and emotionally demanding and draining that involves placing oneself in possible danger, all for the sake of contacting people in need one-on-one and seeing that they get the help they need. This job requires a serious dedication to and concern for the welfare of others, and requires one to place the welfare of others ahead of one’s own. Community organizers have my deepest respect and admiration, and I’d bet just about anything that neither Giuliani nor Palin could make it through one single shift of that job! They’d chicken out and run away screaming.

Gee, if I put on some lipstick and start spewing nasty, mean-spirited stuff about those who are way more qualified than me, can I be a hockey mom too??? Pit bull with lipstick, that’s a great image for Palin since she’s ready to be McCain’s lap dog and do his bidding.

Giuliani 9/11 spoke 9/11 for 9/11 way 9/11 too 9/11 long 9/11 and 9/11 all 9/11 that 9/11 he 9/11 said 9/11 came 9/11 right 9/11 back 9/11 to 9/11 the 9/11 same 9/11 topic 9/11: (I’m not going to continue doing that, you get my point) Fearmongering over terrorism and references to 9/11, trying to scare folks into supporting a truly fearsome ticket. That’s all they’ve got, the Republican cabinet is bare otherwise.

Did you notice the chants that went up during Giuliani’s speech when he mentioned opening up the ANWR and protected offshore areas for oil drilling? The crowd started chanting “Drill baby, drill!” I thought I was going to be sick. Yeah, let’s go ahead and trash this planet because by the time our actions come back to us we’ll be dead and gone to our heavenly reward, let future generations figure out what to do to clean up our messes. Or maybe they think the world is going to end soon anyway so why bother conserving any natural resources or protecting the planet for the future? If that’s their take, then it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy, but it will be carried out at the hands of mankind, not by God.

How can any reasonably intelligent person continue to deny the existence and effects of global warming? Oh, wait, I’m not sure that Palin or McCain fall into the category of reasonably intelligent. Never mind, strike that question.

Ground noise and static: those were the new names M and I took last night, straight out of McCain’s speech. He said something about the audience being distracted by “ground noise and static”, meaning the five separate times his speech was interrupted by protesters. How they got past security I’ll never know but my hat’s off to them for their ingenuity and determination. I’m sure they all got arrested, we saw the security guards swoop in, confiscate their signs and usher them out of the arena. I was so pleased that the station we were watching (PBS) aired these scenes, don’t know if the commercial networks did. I’m sure Faux News didn’t. McCain was thrown off his stride so badly that he practically yielded the floor to them. He might as well have walked off the stage and gone back to the green room for a snack and a nap. His speech was as good as over, because the protesters stole the show.

What’s wrong with Cindy McCain’s right hand? Did you notice during her speech as she was holding the microphone that her hand was purple and immobile? And at the end of the festivities when she and John were shaking hands with the crowd she used her left hand instead of her right. A few days ago my manager said she noticed that Cindy McCain was wearing a pink cast on her right wrist and forearm, and asked me if I knew what happened to her. She said her first, instinctive reaction was to ask if it was a domestic violence injury, because she used to work domestic violence cases. I haven’t had a chance to research this question, but if anyone knows anything I’d appreciate if you’d pass on your info. Personally I thought Cindy McCain looked a little stoned last night, as if she was on some heavy painkillers or something. Her speech had a rambling, disjointed quality about it. Yes, she read from the teleprompter all right, but she might as well have been reading a bedtime story instead of a political speech. Face it, she’s McCain’s trophy wife and she’s only there for show, she’s not intended to perform any significant function.

The RNC itself was pretty pathetic, when compared with the DNC. Here in Denver we could have easily filled both the Pepsi Center and Invesco Field 20 times over with all of the folks who wanted to attend. The Republicans, in contrast, had so many empty seats that it was simply embarassing for them. Hopefully that's indicative of how few people actually want to align themselves with the Republican brand of hatred and intolerance. We can only hope.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting completely sick and tired of McCain’s self-proclaimed “maverick” stuff. What does he mean by that anyway? I know he’s intending it to be a positive characteristic, but calling himself a maverick without clarifying his interpretation of the term is meaningless. The Encarta Dictionary definition of “maverick” is: 1) independent person, an independent thinker who refuses to conform to the accepted views on a subject; 2) unbranded animal, especially a calf that has become separated from its mother and herd. By convention, it can become the property of whoever finds it and brands it.” So are we to assume that McCain is using the first definition and trying to stress his independence and refusal to conform to accepted views of his party? Not likely, considering McCain himself admits that he has voted in accordance with Bush’s views more than 90% of the time. Maybe he’s using the second definition of “maverick” and telling us that he is the property of the GOP because he’s certainly displaying their brand, philosophically if not physically. Language can be a slippery thing, and it’s important to clarify terms to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing.

Continual repetition of a term or concept (like McCain as a maverick) is actually a form of brainwashing. I think the theory is that if people hear it enough times they begin to believe it's true, regardless of how much sense it actually makes or whether it has any meaning. So if I start a nationwide media campaign calling myself a supermodel and repeat that message so many times that people just can't stand it anymore, does that make me a real supermodel? Not hardly. Even if a bunch of brainwashed people respond involuntarily to the name AuntieM by saying "she's a supermodel", that still doesn't make it true, it's reminiscent of Pavlov's dogs salivating whenever a bell was rung. Simple behavioral conditioning, nothing more. And I'm pretty offended by a candidate and a campaign that attempts to condition me like a dog.

Did you know that Palin tried to get certain books banned from libraries in Alaska because a librarian found that they contained offensive language. Don’t know which books she had a problem with, or what sort of “offensive language” was involved, but it’s all a sign of fascism, and we sure don’t need to put a fascist in office.

We especially don’t need a vice president with fascist beliefs in the #2 spot for the oldest newly-inaugurated president in history, which McCain will be if (goddess forfend!) he’s elected. McCain’s health record is scary – he had malignant skin cancer (melanoma) which has recurred twice. Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that this is the type of cancer that killed my mom, and you may remember the long post I wrote about just what melanoma does and how quickly it moves. If McCain was diagnosed with a recurrence today, odds are that he would not have long to live. When a melanoma recurs and is anywhere past the very earliest stages, the mean survival time is 6 months.

I know I shouldn’t throw this in because I agree that families should be off-limits, but when a candidate presents herself as such a sanctimoniously perfect mom, and incontrovertable evidence points to the fact that her beliefs and tactics are dismal failures, they should be dragged out into the light. I’m talking about Palin’s opposition to teaching sex ed in schools and her complete reliance on “abstinence-only” programs and education. Look how well that approach worked for her daughter Bristol… another casualty of the abstinence-only movement.

Achieving peace through war is an oxymoron. This boggled my mind until, in a brilliant flash of insight (if I do say so myself) I figured out McCain’s plan for peace: if we go to war with and conquer every other nation on the planet, then there will be peace. Funny, I think that was Hitler’s strategy too.

M and K told me something that left my jaw dragging on the floor. Apparently the Palin folks have already settled the procedural question of what title to give the husband of a female VP: “First Dude”. I think I’m going to hurl.

Overall, after comparing the speeches of Obama and Biden to those of McCain and Palin, I am now ready to present the following comparison:

• McCain and Palin’s speeches focused primarily on the past, with Palin telling her family history and McCain returning again and again and again to his time in Viet Nam. These personal stories don’t give us any indication of how well they’d perform the duties of President and Vice President, they only attempt to play on our emotions and bury our crucial questions and critical opinions in schmaltz.
  
• Obama and Biden’s speeches focused primarily on the future as they laid out the problems they see in this country and discussed how they will address them and work to improve this country. They tackled specific, tough issues without fear, reservation or dissembling, and they invited participation by people of all political beliefs because they understand that it is possible to find common ground and a common goal to work toward.
  
• McCain and Palin traded on fear and the spectre of future terrorist attacks, because they don’t have anything else in their arsenal. They want to continue the “more of the same” policies of the failed Bush presidency because they don’t have any other ideas, or their handlers have an agenda that these detrimental policies serve.
  
• Obama and Biden present a hopeful view of the future, one in which we can utilize both existing and new energy sources, not just to break our dependence on foreign oil, but to break our dependence on oil, period. They understand that we cannot build a 21st century society on the framework of the 19th century technology of internal combustion. They present a future in which US innovation in clean energy will create good jobs for Americans, jobs that will rebuild our country in a green model and provide a secure future for subsequent generations because we’re going to stop trashing our planet. They present a peaceful outlook for our country, between withdrawing US troops from Iraq and opening up negotiations to improve the US’s standing in the international community. Other countries have got to be getting sick and tired of our bullying, and Obama and Biden know it’s got to stop now. They present a future in which health care and higher education will be available to all, not just the privileged. A future worth working toward.
  
  Peace,
  AuntieM