The Only Joe Who Has a Place in Campaign '08

The only Joe I want to hear about is Senator Joe Biden. I don't want to hear what Joe Six-Pack or Joe the Plumber thinks about. Sarah Palin keeps on talking about "Joe Six-Pack" and John McCain about "Joe the Plumber". Who are these people? What do these labels mean?

To me, these labels just conjure up more labels, such as "redneck" or "white trash". And this is the way to label hard-working folk from middle America or from the rural South? Or, Alaska? Shame on Governor Palin and Senator McCain. From the way they use these "ficitional people" or "charicatures" to talk about Americans, they just serve to incite the people at their rallies to spew even more labels, calling Senator Obama a "terrorist", for example. Really? Is that what a highly intelligent family man and public official is called these days if he is black? Shame on all of you.

When I hear Senator McCain and Governor Palin refer to "Joe Six-Pack" and "Joe the Plumber" during their speeches, they are not referring to the decent, blue collar people from America's Heartland or the conservative "base" of the Republican Party but rather, I think, to all the "racist", "close-minded", "uneducated" people that still exist out there.

That's why the only Joe I want to hear about in this presidential race is Senator Joe Biden--a real American Joe.

Namaste.

Drill Baby, Drill?

On the same day that the Republican faithful were chanting "Drill baby, drill!" during their National Convention, Canadia scientists reported that an ice shelf "the size of Manhattan" has broken away and "adrift in the Arctic Ocean".

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080903.wiceshelf0903/BNStory/Science/home
Still other conventioneers waved signs saying "Drill Now", while Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was telling the crowd how great it would be to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to do more oil drilling in her state. Okay, so let's dig up a critical polar bear and caribou habitat -- one that's also important to the native peoples of that area -- so we can have more oil to feed our SUVs and Hummers and off-road vehicles. And then we can have ice shelfs and ice caps drift away and cool off the North Atlantic even more than it is. And then we can have even more devastating effects of global warming, not to mention an even bigger energy crisis.

Now which slogan would you prefer to rally behind: the Republican's "Drill Baby, Drill" or the Democrat's "Yes We Can!"? Which message is going to help our nation?

Namaste.