I'm sure by now those who care have figured out I'm a Kerry/Edwards supporter. Hopefully over the next few months you will check back to see what I have to say about them and the opposition.
In my daily email from the Kerry campaign they talked about our nation being better off than it was 4 years ago. A lot has happened since then. We have 9/11, 2 wars, the emergence of Al Quaeda as a serious terrorism threat to all countries it opposes, high energy prices, and a joke of a tax break.
We started off with the Florida fiasco, in which began a long decline in the stock market throughout the year and the recession was beginning. Many were losing their jobs so Bush gave his first tax refund which did nothing to stem the outsourcing of jobs and businesses laying off employees. Many took the tax refund only to be stabbed in the back the next year when it came time to file for taxes. I was one of those unfortunates who was laid off, filed for my taxes to get the refund to help stay in Dallas to better help me get a job vs going to my small hometown where telecommunications jobs were nil. So I was hoping on getting 300-600 dollars only to find out that I owed 714 dollars in taxes. It would of been 300 less had I not taken that refund back in August of 2001 and I could of easily of stayed in Dallas and found a job quicker. No I had to go live with my parents to be able to pay on my new truck that I bought to "support the economy" one of the last bits of Bush advice I was ever to follow. I spent 6 months looking for a job only to see one job outsourced, and 2 others they just made do with inside canidates. I could say that 6 months was horrible and depressing but I finally was rehired in another department at my old job. Another backstab I ended up making 6.50 a hour less when I started. Today I'm still 1.25 below the 23 dollars per hour I was used to making.
So 9/11 also happened in that time which was trying for all of us. There's nothing more than I want to see is Osama to see justice, American or Islamic. I would also like to see Afganistan as a stable country that's free of warlords and drug farms also. There getting there but it's taking longer since 90% of our deployed troops are fighting Al Quaeda in Iraq due to Bush pulling a coup on Saddam Hussein who did not like Al Quaeda and was a minor local threat that has been kept in check for years with overflights and a few cruise missles. Nobody cared about him. I wonder how many families would still have their sons and daughters had they of served in Afganistan en masse chasing Osama and his ragtag band there who are far less capable than in Iraq where there is a huge anti-american support base there willing to arm rebels.
Past these wars many Americans are struggling at home just to make ends meet. Now they have changed overtime laws that may strip millions of their overtime. A republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison here in Texas responded to my criticism with "I'd rather take overtime away from a few to give it to many others." There is no excuse to take away anything from anyone and the same law could of been worded to empower more Americans with extra money vs taking it away from a few.
Not only are we going to be making less with our new jobs but we are going to pay more for power and gas. And prices of goods and services will be higher to pay for those extra costs there too. Employers are not giving cost of living raises but they're charging the public more to make up for it's costs but I have yet to hear of a company passing any of that extra money to it's employees to make it easier on them. They dont do that so they can make their bottom line bigger.
Oil nearly hit 50 dollars per barrel last week, however the prices are not following the traditional supply and demand model either. Iraq's oil is commonly cited as the excuse for high prices. Iraq's oil is not counted in any statistic for supply and demand. Demand is only 85-90% of the supply and they increase the supply every day. All this supply is piling up at depots and other storage areas around the world. I'd rather it be in the ground where it's safe than a target of terrorists somewhere else. Bush could probably do something to quell the price gouging going on with our energy stocks but why when his family and Cheny's family are getting richer every day from the suffering at the pump and power payment office of the average American? Sure they had to dump their interests in those companies before running for office. Do you really believe they wont get it right back when they're done bending America over the oil barrel?
Lets not forget Bush's second tax break. I think it came to 14 dollars per month for me. I'm paying nearly 80 dollars extra a month in gas prices that are way overblown. Inflation counted we should probably be paying 1.20 or so per gallon not 1.91 or worse just for regular. If Bush was really interested in helping the poor he'd cut their federal taxes but a Republican would rather die before giving anyone down on their luck a real boost.
Once again the Bush camp in caught in a lie. This morning it was across several news sites that a Bush campaign volunteer who worked on the veterans steering committee had quit over his appearance in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) ad's. Retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier so far has provided no comment as to why he appeared in those ad's and Bush's spokesman has so far not said anything also.
Just another nail in Bush's political coffin. Another Lie that he participates and will surely announce in the next day or so that he was unaware. Which is just what he wants everyone to believe. It's easy to sit around all day and put the blame on those underneath you. A true leader would own up to actions of those he's in charge of but it seems that Bush is once again running away from any controversy that anyone he's connected with has created.
By now many have probably heard of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth". Sadly many Americans are the type that believe anything they see on TV. Lots of things happen in wars. Kerry did what he had to do and what his country expected of him. He did not ask for these metals and I'm sure it's dishearting to listeen to ad's against him that are Lies and in other cases half of the truth.
Kerry attended a congressional hearing to speak about war crimes. Many of the views he expressed were on behalf of a meeting of Vietnam Vets prior to the hearing. Yet the SBVT claims that all of Kerry's testimony is his alone. 30 years is a long time and then this whole country was flying in several directions. Yet if anything can be believed from the many movies and documentaries since then what Kerry described did happen. Why would he make it up. Any number of movies portray what happened in Vietnam and many Americans are not proud of what happened.
A black mark on America.
What about all the other black marks that this country are faced with fighting a war where George Bush and his cohorts fed us lies to get marginal support to go fight Iraq only to find that Saddam got rid of his weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure Saddam is still laughing at the though of Bush trying to figure out what he did with them. Yet were still in Iraq fighting Al Quaeda now that Saddam who did not like them in the first place kept out of the country. Now we face the possibility of a short lived Democracy replaced by a Theocracy similar to what Iran is ran by now.
Not only that but the rest of the world now thinks less of us as a whole. Americans who were gladly called the world police ready to help anyone out is now the pirates of the world. Also would Mr Bush care to explain Oil and soon Gas prices that are about to soar through the roof? 50 Dollars a barrel is expected by Monday and our vacation from the 2 Dollar a gallon gas prices in late Spring will soon give away to 2.50 or higher in some places. My tax break amounted to nearly 14 dollars a month in my pocket. Yet I'm paying nearly 60 dollars extra a month in gas prices. George Bush could care less. If he and his partner lose this election they'll be board members of Haliburton and other oil companies they were involved with from the start. Sure they had to divest those interests prior to being able to run for office but they can easily reaquire those resources and be instant billionaires days after Kerry would be sworn in.
All the while laughing at how they got over in Florida, how they fooled congress and the house in supporting the War long enough to get us engaged, how they snubbed the middleclass and poor with their tax breaks that only helped the wealthy, and worse how they robbed 6 million Americans of their overtime pay to give it to others instead of just forcing rich companies to pay overtime to other groups of workers.
I know who I'm voting for in November and I'll be happy to see the door hit Bush in the butt when he leaves the Whitehouse.
Listening to the latest noise on the economy we still hear that wages are not keeping up with inflation. I'm not surprised at all to hear this news. I mean with the highest oil prices in nearly 30 years things would become expensive.
However another view of the world I have maintained is that we Americans are expensive. We flaunt our money and compete with each other's ego and drive our own prices up. Million dollar houses that may have cost 200,000 to build and the people that finance them for 30 years even at the lowest rates possible they end up paying more than 2.5 million back to the banks. Yes that's on the expensive side but without hefty down payments nearly all houses will pay back more than double the price the owner purchased it for.
Why is it that high? We'll for one the one thing you rarely see in america anywhere is bargaining power. I cant go into a store anywhere and say these levi's cost too much at 30 dollars a pair but I would pay say 25 dollars. You pay for what the price says or wait for discounts and sales and that's the end of the story. Economists will say market forces set prices but the only way I see prices go ever is up and up. Today we are paying 1.80 a gallon for gas that cost us prior to the Gulf War in 1991 maybe 1.05 or less. Once again a lot of it is our fault due to the car ego's of Americans of which even I am guilty of. I spent some time in South Korea and I never needed a car for anything no matter how small the town or city I was in. For most the subway or bus will get you where you're going and if you needed a car sometimes then the taxi would do just fine.
Any european country you will find small cars but they also have good gas mileage to combat the gas prices that are nearly triple what we pay here in the U.S. they're also cheaper and for the most part I hear they have a public transportation system on par with South Korea. Many people can get by on public transportation in many countries. Only a few cities in the U.S. even sport a system that could acheive this level of ability to it's citizens. A lot of projects have started only to fail because many americans believe it's beneath them to ride on a bus with the "common" people and thus the attitude spreads and nobody uses these systems. I'm sure when gas prices are 2.50 a gallon or worse there will be complaints and the ever popular lawsuit flying left and right against the cities that have tried public transportation and failed due to lack of popularity.
We the people need to get off our butts and begin to do something about this country before it's too late. Terrorism will be far off our list of problems if half of americans cannot afford to drive to work becuase of high gas prices and are out of work because they were fired due to not being able to afford the long commute.
