Obama’s New Pastor Problem

I didn’t want to comment on the choice of Rick Warren to do the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. I really didn’t. Several other bloggers had already mentioned it, and I figured I could consider myself safely off the hook.

I was wrong.

Seeing the level of invective surrounding this choice, I need to point out a few things.

But first, my personal feeling.

I don’t think that Rick Warren, pastor of mega-congregation Saddleback Church in Orange County and author of the Purpose Driven Life books, is a great choice. It’s unclear to me whether Obama truly picked him, or whether some Congressional folks in charge of organizing the event picked him (and Obama chose not to overrule them). But I would have preferred to see a pastor or preacher more toward the middle end of the spectrum instead of someone who has, apparently, compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia, and someone who was an early and vocal supporter of Proposition 8 in California.

That said, I cannot sign on to the sheer outrage I’m seeing from so many people on the left or the left-leaning middle of the political scene. I just can’t.

There is too much at stake in this country for me to worry about who gives a brief prayer at any event, even the inauguration of Obama. This doesn’t give Warren some extra bit of legitimacy. Those who liked him before will still like him; those who don’t, won’t. This isn’t some sign that Obama wants to be in bed with the Christian right-wingers. People are bitching and moaning that Obama isn’t gathering enough people around him, and at his events, who represent “change.”

So, the fuck what?

I mean it.

I would like to see more “outside the box” choices, sure. And I hope I will in the weeks to come. But this man has to drag this nation out of a cesspit, and he can’t do it with a huge load of people who lack connections and pull. He can’t do it by focusing on just one end of the ideological spectrum. We’re in this shit together, and we need people and strategies that will get all of us out of this mess as soon as possible.

John McCain and Sarah Palin ridiculed Obama when he suggested that…*gasp*…we actually talk to world leaders who do nasty things. They talked about how irresponsible it would be to do so “without preconditions” because that would legitimize these leaders. And so many Obama supporters decried that notion as unfair and stupid. Now, we have people who voted Obama in and are complaining about, “How could he have a man so against gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual issues and a woman’s right to choose on a national stage like this?”

So, you don’t mind if he talks to murderous despots without demanding that they make changes before talking, but you’re willing to burn Obama at the stake for letting a right-leaning preacher say a quick prayer at his invocation.

Hypocritical much?

Let’s stop worrying about silly shit and start dealing with our problems. Worrying about what pastor Obama has near him for a hot second on stage isn’t productive. What a fucking waste of time. I was hoping we were past this crap about pastors after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright fiasco.

What next? Do I have to worry now that the left wing will become as oppressively obnoxious as the right wing has been for years, and that MSNBC will devolve into the left-wing version of FOX News and descend to the lowest common denominator of liberalism?

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Regaining Face

It’s no mystery to anyone around here that I supported Barack Obama. But as happy as I am about him winning the presidency, I’m not going to cheer about that right now. And as historic as this moment is, I’m not going to talk about that now either and will instead leave that to better commentators from the newsy blogs and the African American blogs to do (well, for a day or two anyway; I’ll have to say something eventually).

Oddly enough, what I am moved to talk about right now is John McCain.

I still don’t agree with many of his policies, but what I saw when McCain gave his concession speech was the John McCain who began this race, and not the McCain he had become. The McCain he should have been all along.

He showed sincerity. He showed dignity. He didn’t let Sarah Palin step up and take away any part of the spotlight. He was proud in a good way and humble in an even better way. When some in his audience booed Obama, he shut that crap down. He didn’t lift up thiny veiled lies about his opponent but instead praised Obama’s skill and lifted up the personal qualities of that opponent. He called for working together, and it sounded honest to me.

If he’d done that all along, this race wouldn’t have been decided as quickly and as decisively as it was for Obama. It would have been a far, far closer race and McCain might have won.

McCain isn’t the first candidate to lose control of his own campaign and let others tell him who he should be and how he should act. He won’t be the last. But he lost primarily because he stopped being himself along the way, and way too early at that. Obama never did that.

I have said some harsh things about McCain in recent weeks, but I have said those things in light of the way he had been acting; the man he had let himself be turned into. I said some harsh things about Palin, too, and we’ll see if I have any reason to change my tune there, but at this point, I assume that she remains an unqualified, power-hungry person with little or no scruples. McCain, on the other hand…well, unless he is still into changing and reinventing himself, and I suspect he’s done with that now, he’s in my book as a man who, while flawed in many ways, actually seems to mean well for the country and willing to stand up straight and do the right thing and call upon all of us to welcome the new commander in chief.

Welcome back, John. I hope you’re back for good. I may not agree with you on many things, but I’d like to regain my ability to look at you and see a public servant who’s got considerably more good points than bad ones.

Digging for Manure

Just some random venting for the moment; maybe something else later today that is more spiritual or more entertaining.

There are a couple Christian blogs I frequent that are, let’s say, a bit more conservative than mine. I like them fine, because often on doctrinal matters we agree on most points. But in this political season, I’ve had to limit my visits to those sites because I’m tired of the repeated claims that Sarah Palin (and somehow John McCain, too) are getting savaged by a “liberal media” and “left-wing bloggers” and that Barack Obama is some golden boy who’s getting nothing but love and who “hasn’t been vetted as much as Palin.” I don’t want to let my anger color my attitude toward these bloggers.

Sometimes, people’s ability to go into deep denial and manufacture fantasy scenarios amazes me.

Obama has been campaigning for a couple years now. He’s had Rezko thrown in his face repeatedly (and that’s coming up again) even though he answered that issue quite thoroughly. He had to endure having out-of-context soundbites of sermons by his then-pastor played over and over and used to support idiotic arguments by people who either never bothered to watch the sermons in their entirety or ignored the real message because informing the public about the real message would have messed up their lies.

Obama has had people digging into records to try to prove he wasn’t really born in America (though his mother was a U.S. citizen so that wouldn’t matter anyway) and to try to prove he went to radical Islamic schools and to even question whether he’s really Christian.

He’s had to deal with people trying to make like he’s good buddies with former domestic terrorist (who long ago served his time and is an upstanding citizen these days) Bill Ayers, while completely ignoring that plenty of conservative Republicans have served with this very same man on the same board Obama did.

People have tried to claim Obama has no experience, even though he is a constitutional law scholar, former community organizer in the third-largest city in the country, a former state legislator and a current U.S. senator.

People have dug around trying to find a mythological video of Michelle Obama using the word “whitey.”

And the list goes on, I’m sure, but I’m exhausted to think about it anymore.

And yet, poke around about whether Sarah Palin had any real major duties as mayor of little Wasilla, point to her own pregnant teen girl as possibly evidence that her abstinence-only stance is flawed or that her family values maybe aren’t so tight, or mention that she’s only been a governor for two years and in a state with less than a million people, and she’s being treated unfairly. Catch her flip-flopping on issues like the “Bridge to Nowhere” and people are being mean. Discover that her husband once had a DUI, and that’s getting personal. Mention that she has associations with scary pastors and churches, and that’s out of bounds. Point out that her husband and she have recent direct ties to an Alaskan secessionist group, and that doesn’t matter.

I know of at least one Christian blogger who believes that all the negative stuff about Obama is something that has to be “dug up” with lots of research because the media won’t cover it, while Palin is being gleefully destroyed.

Forgetting that actually, all the crap and lies about Obama have been circulated quite widely, and often by mainstream media. A lot of the stuff being dug up on Palin isn’t lies but truth…and the stuff that might be questionable (like whether she should be held accountable for what her pastors say) is either equal to what Obama has had to deal with, or gets dropped from media coverage far more quickly than any of the Obama stories did.

Forget also that Obama actually knows the issues and Palin can only spit out soundbites. Ignore the fact that while people try to smear Obama’s wife, Cindy McCain has never really been hounded about how she avoided jail for stealing drugs though her position with a non-profit to feed her habit, or the fact she keeps passing off other people’s copyrighted recipes as her own family fare.

No, let’s continue with the myth that Obama has been getting an easy ride and ignore the fact that it is actually McCain, through most of his campaign up until recently, who has been handled with hero worship and kid gloves my a mainstream media that has loved him for years.

Because why deal with reality when we can wrap ourselves in comfortable lies?

I know that Obama isn’t a saint. I think he’s a pretty upstanding guy and I respect that he has a pretty together-looking family life. I like that he succeeded on hard work and talent and not handouts and legacies. I like most of what he stands for. But I know he’s a politician and someone with his own ego and agendas, like any politician. But it’s amazing to me that everyone has to dig so hard to find even rumors and innuendo about this man, and often come up with flat-out made-up stories instead, while it is so easy to find ugly truths with the members of the Republican ticket, and yet somehow Obama is the one who hasn’t been vetted enough.

It’s madness. Look, if you don’t want to vote for him because he’s black, or pro-choice or whatever, just admit it already, damn it. Stop trying to make a fictional case for some vast media conspiracy to tar and feather McCain-Palin and give Obama-Biden a ride.

This is the Internet age. This is the era of blogging. Shit is dug up and disseminated in an instant. There is no privacy.

And the fact is, most of what’s getting dug up on Obama for two years now is easily proven false or misleading. Yet what is coming out now, only in the past few months or weeks, on McCain and Palin that is scary is actually, in most cases, true. Obama may have skeletons in his closet, but if so, he hides them better than any other politician running for president ever has. And if he’s that good, maybe we really do need him in charge. But chances are that he just ain’t that dirty.

Sorry, conservative conspiracy theorists. In this case, at least, you’re the ones with the loony notions. Get back to reality please.

Sheeple, Sheeple Everywhere

I try to avoid looking too much at the video evidence of how many people, particularly among the poor and working class in various places (especially rural ones), really think that Obama is:

• A Muslim
• Will somehow try to do harm to whites if he gains the Oval Office
• Shifty
• A terrorist or terrorist sympathizer
• Against the middle class and working class
• Etc. etc. etc.

Because, if I look at this stuff too much, I get angry. Not on behalf of Barack Obama but just because I’m tired of sheeple. I’ve used that term before around here; I assume it’s obvious, but in case it ain’t: Sheeple = Sheep + People. In other words, people who can’t seem to think for themselves and just let the big shots tell them what to think.

Obama has done his share of flip-flopping and bending the truth a bit. But no more than his competitor has. Yet somehow people get it into their heads that he’s evil. The man shows more insight, thought, composure, tact and class than McCain, and thus he must be “hiding something.” As if being angry, spiteful and erratic (as McCain has been) somehow should engender our trust and show that a guy is a real stand-up feller.

Look, I come from working class stock. Despite having two degrees, I think and act mostly like a working class guy. My beers may be a little fancier, but it’s still beer I choose over wine most of the time. I can still appreciate a good fart joke in a movie. I’d rather have a comfy couch to watch TV in than to have a fancy looking one that I can’t put my feet up on. So, I’m not slamming the working class and rural folks who say this stupid shit about Obama because they’re working class and rural and in some cases poor.

I’m slamming them because they don’t bother to think.

At all.

It’s the same thing that has turned me off of most brick-and-mortar churches and many of the people who attend them. Just like the Obama-haters, they are often sheeple. Heaven forbid they should study a Bible or question anything a pastor says. Just like the ignorant folks who call for Obama’s head on a bayonet can’t be bothered to read anything that points out McCain’s or Palin’s lies or flaws, can’t be bothered to compare platforms of the candidates side-by-side, and who instead, like good sheeple, just believe whatever Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, their local police chief or nasty hateful bloggers tell them.

Like good sheeple, they go where they are told until the time comes to fleece them or slit their throats and offer them up as burnt offerings to the hungry economic gods.

An Open Letter from the McCain Campaign

Fellow Americans,

We the members of the John McCain/Sarah Palin campaign would like to apologize personally, and on behalf of the Republican candidates for president and vice president of this great land.

Much has been made of Barack Obama’s name, particularly that middle name “Hussein,” and we have made some unfortunate implications that he might be a terrorist sympathizer, or might even actually “pall around with” certain terrorists, domestic or foreign.

And at various campaign rallies, some members of the audience have shouted things about Obama that sounded a lot like “Terrorist,” “Traitor” and “Kill Him.” We continue to believe that those may have not been the actual words…perhaps “Rarest bits” and “Inflater” were what people were really saying in the first two cases, to reference his rareness (as in not being cooked enough by the fires of experience) and his propensity to make grandiose and airy statements.

And the “kill him” reference probably just meant “kill him in the polls” and not literal murder. Really.

Look, we admit we were wrong to paint Senator Obama as a possible terrorist element or secret Muslim or anything like that. We had what we thought was reliable intelligence on those matters and, frankly, we just got carried away. And if vile things perhaps really were said at McCain/Palin rallies, the candidates themselves certainly were not at fault. They probably just didn’t hear the comments or assumed that Secret Service agents would quietly locate and remove (or shoot) the offenders.

No, we are forced to admit that Senator Obama is indeed a God-fearing, Christian, experienced candidate. He is fully qualified to run for president and possibly hold the highest office in the land.

Still…

…Well, we hate to say this. But you see, because there has been some tension these past several weeks, and perhaps tempers have been inflamed, we have to urge each and every one of you, particularly Obama supporters, to vote for McCain/Palin.

You see, it really is the only choice. If Senator Obama becomes president, we will be living in constant fear, as a nation, that he might be assassinated by one of the few dozen white racists left in the country. And that might incite a race war, or at least some very nasty riots in our largest cities. None of us want that, do we?

Also, because of the concern that some deranged individual or two or three or however many are left in this nation might be overstimulated in their anger, we fear that death threats and risks to Obama will require the Secret Service to expend enormous resources, in terms of money and staff and time, to protect him. In this time of financial upheaval, the United States certainly cannot afford to front that kind of money to protect a black president. We estimate that it will cost upwards of $17 trillion to ensure the safety of a Barack Obama presidency.

Please, as patriotic Americans, make the proper choice in November. Vote the white…we mean, the “right”…choice: McCain/Palin.

Cordially,

The Campaign Staff for McCain/Palin in 2008

A Real Maverick

For those of you are confused, with John McCain and Sarah Palin calling themselves mavericks every chance they get, even when it isn’t appropriate to the topic at hand…this is a Maverick:

As in Brett Maverick, a charming gambler played by various actors in films and television, but probably most famously, entertainingly and roguishly by James Garner (pictured above) for the Maverick TV series.

In the big-screen remake, Mel Gibson (below) did a decent job in the title role:

These two are not mavericks.

(Incidentally, if they weren’t running a campaign with thinly veiled racism, trying to pit America against each other along class lines, telling outright lies about themselves and their opponents, and generally stooping to dirty tactics all the way around, maybe I wouldn’t harp on them so much.)

In case you need more help on this issue, let’s bring Mr. Webster into the mix:

mav·er·ick | Pronunciation: \ˈmav-rik, ˈma-və-\ | Function: noun | Etymology: Samuel A. Maverick 1870 American pioneer who did not brand his calves | Date: 1867 | 1: an unbranded range animal ; especially : a motherless calf | 2: an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party

You see, John McCain is apparently still trying to earn the respect of his grandfather and father, both accomplished admirals in the Navy. Maverick-y? Think not.

He ditched his first wife—while she was ailing, no less—for the current one, a beer distribution heiress, which allows him to have numerous homes and an obscene number of cars. All so he could be with the “in” crowd and have all that comfort and wealth. What a maverick there!

He sided with George W. Bush a hellaciously large amount of the time, even though Dubya was dead-wrong on most of his major policies over the past eight years. Way to go against the grain, McCain!

As for Palin, damn, she benefited from using the old boy’s network in her state and pretending to root out corruption, and she is using 50s and 60s style feminine flirting tactics to give boners to male voters (who fail to see the hypocrisy of standing up for family values and lusting after the VP candidate) so that there won’t be enough blood in their brains to see the McCain Palin ticket is empty of ideas.

Yeah, those are some real mavericks there…

They Call Me Chickenshit McCain

I’m not even going to put up a front on this post. I’m not pretending there’s any spiritual angle here. I’m not trying to get one iota of religion in this one. I simply need to spew.

If there are any readers of this blog out there who genuinely support John McCain for president, I implore you to tell me how, after today, you can have any respect for this man. Look, I don’t care if you tell me you just hate Barack Obama’s political stands and you’d rather have the reek of McCain because it’s more comfortable to you.

Just don’t freakin’ tell me you have any respect for McCain anymore. Lord knows, George Will sure doesn’t, and he’s as conservative as they come, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he might swallow his own tongue if a black democrat became president. Now he’s almost tacitly supporting Obama simply because he’s ripping John McCain a fresh new sphincter.

Not only has McCain flip-flopped on multiple issues with sometimes mere days (or even hours) between one stand and the opposite one that he now insists he always believed in, not only did he pick his running mate virtually sight unseen and fail to vet her, not only has he used dirty and deceitful tactics in his campaign commercials…but now he had to take a break from campaigning because things are too crazy right now?

……..Hmmmm…..

At a time when we desperately need to know how our presidential candidates stand and what they plan to do, McCain wants to put off the presidential debates (which, conveniently, would force the vice presidential debates back, too, likely meaning that Sarah Palin would never had to do one before the election). He expects people to believe that in the next couple weeks, if he works really hard and Obama stops campaigning too and joins him, they and the rest of the government can solve the anal reaming that we’re getting in our economy thanks to eight years of total ineptitude. Just like that.

Poor Johnny Boy can’t juggle too many things at once. Oh, and he also called off his appearance with David Letterman, too, phoning him to say he just had to run off to Washington, D.C., instead. Yet he didn’t leave town, but instead stayed in New York and did an interview with Katie Couric, someone desperate to hold onto her own job and probably eager just to have him on her set, and thus perhaps less likely than Letterman to skewer him on the air like a well-cooked hunk of kabob meat.

So, McCain can’t multitask, he lies to get out of an interview, and he wants to protect the woman who would be second in line for president if he wins from the media and from debating her democratic VP opponent…and we’re supposed to trust this man with our country?

Really, once again, any die-hard McCain supporters. Please tell me, if you still respect this guy and trust him…

…what kind of drugs are you taking and where can I get some?

I May Be Evil, But at Least I’m White

John McCain is a nasty bastard. He ain’t right in the head. He needs anger management and impuse control lessons. He should not be operating heavy machinery, much less an entire nation. Yet he wants to be your evil overlord, and he will stoop to anything to make it happen.

I already pointed out in this post the ad that so evilly and incorrectly tries to paint Barack Obama as a leering pedophile.

Now we have John McCain and gang trying to paint him as a wicked Negro out to steal old ladies’ money. (Go here to find out about that.)

Barack Obama has said some negative things about John McCain, sure…but at least so far they’ve had the vitue of being true.

Memo to John McCain: Bearing false witness against your neighbor is a sin. You should know. You were around when the Ten Commandments were first carved in stone. (OK, cheap shot. But he wants to throw out racism and classism, I might as well give him a taste of agism…and he is a mean old coot, anyway.)

Election 2008: The Stakes – Christian Values

Yeah, yeah, I know. I just posted one of these Election 2008 items just yesterday. But since I’m still waiting on Miz Pink to post her Saturday post, and since I’ve gotten a bit worked up by the blind devotion to Sarah Palin that I’m seeing at some of the Christian blogs I frequent, I’m here again.

As I noted before, I try not to get too much into politics around here. But with this year’s presidential election and all that has been done wrong in the country for the past eight years, this is a pivotal time and we need to clear the air about some things.

See also:

Sept. 7 Post – Election 2008: The Stakes – Experience

Sept. 12 Post – Election 2008: The Stakes – Our Troops

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The headline for this post should probably have been “traditional conservative Christian values” and not simply “Christian values,” but I only have so much room up there. This is at least one area in which I will admit that a Barack Obama-Joe Biden win would be “bad.” It would move the conservative evangelicals backward politically speaking. Also, some baseline Christian value issues that crop up across various Chrisitian lines, like gay marriage, abortion and stem cell research—things many working class and conservative middle class and upper class Christians hate—will get support.

So what?

I don’t mean that to be dismissive of Christian values. I have Christian values. Many of them conservative, though I’m sure some of the Christians who visit here might not believe that from what I talk about and how I present things. But last I checked, we don’t have a theocracy here. Our government is not about religion. In fact, we say that we support religious freedom and freedom of expression, so having a government that is willing to cram Christian doctrine down our throats legislatively, as George W. Bush has done, as some politicians before him have done, and as I think a McCain-Palin presidency would do (along with the help of ultra-conservative justices that they would no doubt be in a position to put on the Supreme Court).

This is a representative democracy and as such, I am not ever going to vote for a candidate based on religious views or because he or she will uphold Christian values. This is a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans and so many, many more. To uphold Christian values as the standard is just plain wrong.

Christian values are something to be handled in our churches and our families, not on the national or even local political stage. Yet many people who support McCain now are doing so fervently because a very conservative Christian is now running with him, and she is a person whom many Americans relate to because she is an “Average Joe” (though why we would want an average Joe in charge of the entire nation potentially is beyond me). There are actually some Christians out there who are praying not only that McCain and Palin will be elected but that God will bring McCain home soon thereafter so that Palin can step up to the plate.

My dad is Catholic from all the way back, and devotedly so, and he hates abortion. But you know what, he is a working class man who realizes that by and large, the Democrats are the ones who have supported the needs of the working class more than the Republicans. We were talking politics and he noted that he hates the level of support the Dems put behind the pro-choice camp, to the extent they almost look like they support abortion (being pro-choice and pro-abortion really are two different things, by the way, and my dad realizes it and you should to if you don’t already). But he also told me that he is not going to vote against his own interests and the interests of the nation and vote an angry, confused man and an inexperienced, extremist woman into office. Making a decision about the presidency based on one or even a handful of religious issues is wrong, he told me.

And he’s right. It’s the financial, foreign relations, social, labor and infrasctructure issues that will define how economically viable and internationally relevant we will remain.

Countries that are run by religious leaders tend to be the ones that spawn terrorists, and the ones that we often most fear. Why would be want to emulate them by voting with our Bibles?

Election 2008: The Stakes – Our Troops

Normally, I try not to get too much into politics around here. But with this year’s presidential election and all that has been done wrong in the country for the past eight years, this is a pivotal time. Time once again for me to share with my Christian brothers and sisters (both those who agree with me, those who don’t and those who are on the fence), why the Republican ticket is not only bad for our country but not doing much to serve God’s will either.

See also:

Sept. 7 Post – Election 2008: The Stakes – Experience

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God doesn’t sanction wars these days. Frankly, the ones he did sanction back in Old Testament days were part of a necessary process of showing that the Hebrews were his chosen people, and getting the path laid for Jesus to arrive and begin the real process of healing the breach between humanity and God.

Unfortunately, we’ve been reminded now, thanks to Sarah Palin’s comments and stories about the views some of her pastors hold (yes, they held a pastor against Obama; they deserve the same treatment), that there are actually people who think we’re fighting God’s war over there in Iraq and Afghanistan. Funny, I wasn’t aware that God needed protecting. Are the militantly radical Muslims going to blow up something in Heaven?

God’s assistance and directives to the Hebrews were about setting a place for them on the map, spiritually, physically, politically and otherwise. Even those wars didn’t do anything to help God; they were about advancing His plans and helping the Hebrews get started. The conservative Christian contingent in this country is right that we’re in a war related to God, but that’s a spiritual war against Satan. It has nothing to do with warring against other countries. Sure, we should defend ourselves, but our continued presence in Iraq in particular has nothing to do with defence and everything to do with powermongering and greed.

God wants us to wage a war against sin in our own lives and against ignorance and misinformation about Jesus as we reach out to people day-to-day and show the light and love of Christ. But that’s not what the GOP is ramming down our throats. And McCain has said if we’re in Iraq another 100 years, so be it! Yes, I know he was using hyperbole and that even he isn’t that crazy with unresolved anger issues. But the fact that he isn’t willing to see that we’ve already stayed too long and done too much damage is frightening. I’m not saying we have to pull out all at once and right away, but it’s time to stop acting like our huge presence there is a good thing.

I recall that one of the speakers on the night of the GOP convention when McCain accepted the nomination (I forget who it was) was ridiculing Barack Obama for wanting to get out of Iraq in the near future. He actually said that Obama was disrespecting the work of the troops by wanting to leave. He said that honoring the troops meant we had to stay until the job was done.

First, what job are we trying to finish? Making Iraq stable? That’s up to Iraqis. Eliminating terrorism? Anyone who thinks we as a country has the power to do that is insane. So, there is no goal anymore now that we’ve deposed Sadam Hussein. Instead, we’re making excuses to stick around and continue to plunge our nation farther into debt to finance the conflict.

Second, how is keeping troops there honoring them? Our armed forces are already stretched too thin and have been forced to serve too many tours of duty. Without a real plan and a real goal, we hurt them by continuing to be in Iraq and by people in the GOP saber-rattling to say that we need to target Iran next and maybe Russia, too. Our troops don’t want to be used up like old whores. They want to see their families.

Before you actively co-sign on to more war and military excess by shouting “hurrah!” at our current and possibly future forays, or before you passively do so by electing an angry man who still calls Asians gooks and his sidekick who is already showing no diplomatic ability in her words about Russia and Georgia, remember who they send overseas to fight these battles. Your sons and daughters. Your friends. People you care about or who matter to people you care about.

The folks in the military signed up to defend our nation, not to be used as pawns for political gamesmanship, international grandstanding and corporate interests.

And don’t talk to me about bringing back the draft. That will give more warm bodies to abuse, and more incentive to stay places we don’t belong and to go into new places and conflicts we shouldn’t be tackling. Moreover, remember that the politicians won’t be sending their kids off to war for the most part. Way, way more often than not, their kids and other close family will either be safely practicing law, business, medicine or politics—or if they are getting some military credentials they won’t be in harm’s way.

There is nothing respectful or loving in the way our country has used its troops over the past two presidential terms and nothing Christian about it. We are killing and psychologically damaging our own people for nonsense, and we need someone in office who at least wants to try to put an end to it, not someone who blithely wants to soldier on with the same-ole, same-old.