SIMPLE- No more IRS, complex tax code, or preparing and filing of individual tax returns!
TRANSPARENT- When you buy something, you see exactly how much you are contributing to the government on your retail receipt. No more “hidden taxes” in the purchase price.
INDIVIDUAL CONTROL- Choose how much and when to pay federal taxes. You are taxed only when you choose to consume rather than on your income and productivity.
KEEP YOUR ENTIRE PAYCHECK- No more federal withholding or payroll tax deductions taken out of your check. You keep what you earn. No more taxes on savings and investments or on your estate at your death.
It's all about demonizing, discrediting and destroying Barack Obama in the eyes of voters, defeating him and denying the Democratic Party the Presidency.
Who is behind it?
In general terms, the Republican Party. In more specific terms, a national alliance of hard-core Conservatives, powerful interests within the corporate-military-industrial-energy complex, Wall Street firms, free trade advocates, anti-tax zealots, militant pro-Israeli ideologues, Christian fundamentalists, racists, sexists, homophobes, anti-unionists and right-wing media shills like Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, the Weekly Standard, Townhall.org and Newsmax. Simply stated, a conglomeration of the forces that have thrived and been influential in the right-wing rule of America during the Reagan-Bush era, and who are determined to not only keep America headed in the same direction Bush/Cheney & Co. have been taking us in, but to complete their agenda of securing permanent dominion over America and the world and turning our nation into a capitalist-corporatist-fascist theocracy.
On the local level, this mentality is personified in the 2-3 rabid Right Wingers who plaster this group with an unending litany of lies, smears and hate propaganda about Obama and the Democratic Party day in and day out. Rest assured, nearly every posting you see here that is critical of the Left, no matter what it says or who it purports to have been posted by, is the work of these miscreants. And yes, the postings supposedly from disgruntled Hillary supporters, Nader supporters, 'Reagan Democrats', Black voters who think Obama is wrong for America, and activists who want to disrupt the Democratic Convention are almost entirely their handiwork.
Why are they going after Obama with such ferocity?
For the same reason that Christ was crucified, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were rubbed out, Gandhi, JFK and Martin Luther King were assassinated, and Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. By occupying the moral high ground, speaking truth to power, challenging our government to do what is right, and by taking a stand for what is truly in the interest of We The People as well as peace and freedom throughout the world, Obama represents a profound threat to an evil, self-serving system of lies, greed and oppression that serves a corrupt elite that is determined to maintain the status quo and protect its strangle-hold on wealth and power by any means necessary. You may rest assured that good old-fashioned racism is also involved.
Are these things that the Right Wingers post here every day about Obama really true? For example, is he a Muslim, did he attend a radical madrassah, does he hate America, does he hate white people, is he a terrorist sympathizer, is he friends with Hamas and bin Laden, does he hate Israel, has he knowingly accepted contributions from terrorists, is he a Communist or a Socialist, is he a homosexual, does he support and promote late-term and after-birth abortions, is he responsible for our high gas prices, is he an arrogant elitist who looks down at working-class Americans, does he disrespect our troops, does he refuse to put his hand over his heart during the National Anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance, is his wife an America-hating Black supremacist, etc.?
They are absolutely and unequivocally false. Every one of them. The anti-Obama smears you see here every day are either blatant lies or are things that have been taken out of context and re-framed within a different context and a version of things that serves the propaganda interests of the smear-merchants, and spewed forth as fact. When these liars are busted on their bullshit, they either attack and contemptuously dismiss those who confront them, or drop the subject temporarily and move on to other lies, or just keep defiantly posting the same lies over and over anyway. They are hit-and-run artists and character assassins, whose interest is not in constructively debating issues and getting to the truth about the candidates, but rather creating controversy and damaging Obama. As in every presidential campaign dating back to 1968, the Republicans are trying to win by destroying the Democrat as opposed to honestly and fairly promoting their own candidate. They almost never talk-up McCain, they spend 95% of their time and effort running-down Obama. That fact alone speaks loudly as to their legitimacy and their motives.
As for those who are taking the concept of sleazeball dirty tricks to a new low here on CL, the truest and nicest thing that can be said about them is that they are disturbed, deluded and mired in irrational hate. Psychologically healthy, well-integrated people do not do the things these people are doing.
Do the people who are saying these things actually believe them?
NO. They are very well aware of the fact that 99% of what they're saying is unmitigated bullshit. But they are liars, cheaters, dissemblers and election thieves with an extreme ideological agenda, who are determined to win by whatever means is necessary, and they do not give a rat's patootie about the truth. They are telling these lies and disseminating these smears because they know they can't win honestly and fairly. The Far Right has a track record of success with its sleazy propaganda tactics dating all the way back to the Nixon and Reagan days. They believe that many of you in the electorate (the "unwashed masses" as they like to refer to you) are dumb enough, naive enough, gullible enough, uninformed enough, suggestible enough, blind enough, fearful enough, prejudiced enough, angry enough, confused enough or whacked out enough on religion to fall for their lies and smears again, and in doing so deliver the highest office in the land (again) to the very people who got us into the mess we’re in. Proof positive of the fraudulence and dis-ingenuousness of all of this in the fact that no matter how many times the anti-Obama smears are conclusively and irrefutably shown to be lies, the smear-merchants continue to try to spoon-feed them to you. Like their dirty tricks mentor Karl Rove, they are infused with an almost demonic arrogance as they cut and slash their way through the objects of their wrath, and they actually get a perverse thrill out of being diabolical, dishonest and sleazy.
In this 2008 election campaign, perhaps the most important one in America history, the Far Right is concentrating its efforts on four things: (1) re-energizing its core constituencies through fear, flag-waving bellicose nationalism and the standard "God, Guns and Gays" rhetoric, (2) blaming the Democrats for the failures of the Bush administration as well as the energy crisis and high gas prices, (3) demonizing and discrediting (aka "swift boating") Obama to enough independent and undecided voters so that they will vote for a 3rd party candidate (which helps their cause immensely) in an effprt to swing a few critical states in their favor and (4) fomenting discord between the Obama and Clinton factions so as to split the Democratic Party and siphon off Clinton votes in favor of McCain. Inasmuch as our state is one of the key battleground states that could determine the outcome of the election, they are pouring it on here for all they're worth.
YOU the voting public are the battle ground upon which this political equivalent of chemical weapons is being unleashed. YOU are the cannon fodder for this all-out war on truth, goodness and justice. YOU are the objects of deceit and manipulation through which the nefarious agenda of the Far Right is intended to be accomplished again. YOU are being looked to as unwitting accomplices, yet again, in the destruction of democracy, the defeat of freedom, the perversion of the Constitution and the absolute takeover of America by forces that are every bit as dark and sinister as those that plunged Europe and the world into the most appalling chapter of death and destruction in human history, in the 1930's-1940's.
I am not one of those gals who sits around, clipping my toenails and watching CSI reruns. I don’t watch much television, but I especially avoid shows that involve homicide.
I was a cop reporter for 10 years. Take my word for it — there is nothing glamorous about being at the scene of a murder. There’s just a whole lot of grieving going on.
The people who know me best are keenly aware of my aversion to such sadness. That’s why the bulk of them were stunned when I told them I was moving to Fayetteville.
“You mean the murder capital of North Carolina?” asked one.
“That’s a rough town,” warned a combat veteran. “You better get yourself a concealed-weapons permit.”
“Don’t you know they’ve got a serial murderer on the loose there?” Mama cried.
Mama watches way too much CSI and CNN. I’m a newswoman, but even I think news should be digested like all good things — in moderation.
Of course I’d heard about the murders of Spc. Megan Touma and 2nd Lt. Holley Wimunc. A person would have to have been holed up in some remote Idaho canyon to have missed the headline coverage the national media gave these tragedies.
Prior to coming to Fayetteville, I was in Fairhope, Ala., doing a writer-in-residence gig. Specifically, I was working on the draft of a true-crime book. I’d spent the better half of the past year sifting through thousands of pages of documents, conducting interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, the victim’s family, investigators and doctors.
All that research taught me that what seems to be the case, often isn’t. To the outsider, Fayetteville may seem to be a violent community.
“I wouldn’t live in a military town,” warned one friend.
The implication being that soldiers are like gang members, only their weapons are government-issued.
But as I read those news reports, I began to wonder if perhaps the real threat of living in a military community isn’t random killings, but all that “whoring around” that goes on when soldiers are deployed.
We know that when we send 14-year-olds off to coed camps, we need counselors to keep watch. Otherwise, somebody is going to be sneaking off, making a bed of pine straw and doing the big nasty. Probably a whole lot of somebodies.
Decades ago, when we were debating the merits and demerits of allowing women to serve alongside their brothers in the Armed Forces, opponents raised the infidelity issue. They argued that allowing women to serve would give new definition to “soldiers humping it” — a term traditionally used to describe an infantryman’s long hike.
Turns out, they were probably right. Bunk boys and girls together, even grown boys and girls — maybe even especially grown boys and girls — and you can expect some hanky-panky is gonna go on.
Divorce rates in the military have grown at an alarming rate since the Iraq invasion, according to one 2005 Associated Press report. But then again, the national trend is up, too. According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly half of all marriages end up in divorce. (Maybe the question we ought to be asking is why the nation’s divorce rate is being tracked by the center for “disease control”?)
Far as I can tell, nobody is keeping track of the cheating rates of G.I. Johnny and Jane, but Newsweek reported in 2004 that equal rights for an increasing number of married women means she can be as big a slut as her male counterpart.
I’m not suggesting that bed-hopping led to the murders of Touma and Wimunc. There is no excusable reason for such violence toward others, ever. Nor am I saying that infidelity will invariably lead to homicide, but we’d all do well to heed the truth of that old Patsy Cline tune: “Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.”
No matter where you live, building a safe community begins at home.
1st Prize is a $200 BP Gas Card.
2nd Prize is a $75 Target Gift Card
3rd Prize is a $25 Amazon.com Gift Card
Raffle Tickets are $3 for one and $5 for two.
The prize winners will be announced on August 15, 2008 at a Democratic Rally held in beautiful Festival Park.
If you're interested in supporting or joining the Cumberland County Young Democrats, or if you're just interested in the prizes, please feel free to contact:
CCYD President
William Munn @
910-286-5619
william.h.munn@gmail.com