The Constructive Use of F words

It's a three letter word used to describe a homosexual. It begins with the letter F and it goes with all of the other divisive F words that conservatives will roll out once more this summer to vilify the progressives, as they try to hold onto their power in Washington and their command of the national agenda.

As some one once said, you have to hand it to them they are the masters of legerdemain. While we are arguing about what to do about fetuses, flags, firearms and ..well that other three letter word for homosexuals, the conservative minority is, in the name of democracy, taking away our civil rights, securing the fortunes of major corporations, and serving the needs of the few, while abandoning the masses.

The enactment of change, being the watch word of this years presidential election has come down the choice between two men, John McCain and Barak Obama. If you're talking about regime change, you have to think that McCain is going to be a better version of Bush, before you'd ever define his election as change.

McCain is still going to advocate for armed conflict over negotiation. You have to understand that to these people, Democracy is not evolving form of governance, it is a set in stone almost religious belief that we must force on people if they won't accept it. He will decide for unilateral preemptive war versus building a consensus amongst our neighbors. He is still going to advocate for Friedman's free market or trickle down economics. He will submit tax breaks for the rich. McCain will owe it to his base to appoint judges that will vote for limiting the rights of individuals versus the perception of security of the many.

His policy will be the same as Bush, his delivery will be more nuanced and far more articulate, but than the standard set by Bush is so low that exceeding it has to be, excuse me, "a slam dunk". I would expect many of the same people who surrounded Bush to have influence in a McCain administration. And why not, these people succeeded in bringing us into a playground atmosphere with regard to foreign policy. Starting with the "he looked at me funny and called my dad names" reasons for the Iraq war, that resulted all time low world opinion ratings a huge deficit in our budget and not to mention loss of life and limb.

We are in the worst economic situation in decades. Please don't tell me how nice it is for many of the people. Average income in Wisconsin is down for seven years in a row. The dollar is at a record low against other world currencies. This is allowing American corporations to be bought at wholesale prices by foreign interests. Oil is selling at record high prices. World environmental polluters have had an eight year vacation. God forbid, lest I sound like a conservative, The stock market is in a mess and has lost considerable value in the last six months. Health care costs keep going up and all the conservatives have to say is that we have to install more market based solutions.

Please imagine yourself laying on a gurney, after you've suffered a heart attack, receiving quotes from various vendors trying to bargain down the cost of your need for immediate care. Or better yet, let some one whose interest lie in saving money for the insurance provider not your health, make the decision for you.

And why do things like the failure to respond to Katrina and the lack of action in regulating the banking sector, the contaminated food outbreaks and problems with prescription drugs happen and are happening more frequently. Because the conservatives believe these government agencies are the problem and they continue to fund them at lower and lower levels so that any effect they might have is hampered by their inability to respond.

If government wasn't the problem when Ronald Reagan said it was in the early eighties, it certainly has become the problem under the control of the conservatives. If you don't fund and support your regulatory agencies you get Enron, Katrina aftermath, a Housing mortgage bubble and lack of proper food inspection. Clearly Government has become a problem, because the folks running it don't believe in it and have down everything politically possible to destroy it.

If we want to continue feeling safe from the threat posed by those F words, we can continue down the road we are on. If we think our nations infrastructure, economy, general populations access to health care and the basic rights of our people are more important than the F words than we have to vote for real change.