I am mourning Giles Corey

I need to vent a little here.

I have received 2 robocalls from the RNC this week; their transcripts are -word for word- as follows:

1. Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because Barack Obama and his fellow democrats got caught putting HOLLYWOOD above America. On the very day our elected leaders gathered in Washington to deal with the financial crisis, Barack Obama spent just 20 minutes with economic advisors, but hours at a celebrity Hollywood fundraiser. Where are the Democrats' priorities? This call was paid for by McCain/Palin 2008 and the Republican National Comitee.

2. Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers whose organization bombed the U.S Capital, The Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans; and democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his democratic allies lack the judgement to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain/Palin 2008 and the Republican National Comittee.

I have been screening heavily because I am registered as an independent voter in a red state where the candidates are in a dead heat; and campaign calls have been coming in increasing numbers. I found these on my answering machine...and...I think my brain finally broke. I couldn't decide whether or not to erase them - I WANTED to...but I left them trapped in the machine...as though there were an intellectual abuse hotline I could call and report them to. But there isn't; so I tipped my head to the left, banged on it, and finally managed to get some of the stagnant pool water to come out of my ear. 

Some points:

* Hollywood is in America. The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm sorry if you couldn't pass elementary school geography but don't take it out on my answering machine.

*Politicians attend fundraisers. John McCain also attends them.

*The leaders who met in Washington didn't nor would they have accomplished a damn thing within the few hours that a candidate was at a fundraiser. Neither candidate had any more impact than any other senator or house member in that mess...there is a theory afoot that their prescence was actually more disruptive than helpful...in fact I think the consensus is that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is getting the MVP award for stepping up to the financial crisis.

*There is not one single mention of McCain in his own campaign calls...no policies, no solutions except to blame the democrats.

*(There should totally be a game show called "Blame the Democrats.")

*(Although personally my favorite scapegoat is Alexander Hamilton.)

*I don't really believe that the party who voted for Ronald Reagan, Arnold Shwarzennegger, Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson, and Clint Eastwood - have any real issue with celebrity. In fact, look up the word "celebrity" in the dictionary and you'll see how stupid this is.

*Al Franken is running as a democrat in Minnesota. This has nothing to do with anything; I just like saying "Al Franken."

*Bill Ayers was a trust fund radical who hasn't been relevant as such in 40 years. His organization "The Weathermen" DID plant bombs in the men's crapper at the Capital building in 1971, and the women's crapper at the Pentagon in 1972. Nobody was killed because they called in advance and warned people to evacuate. They were suspected of bombing the judges home, but it was never proved and they didn't take credit for it as they had the others. The Americans who were killed were 3 members of the Weathermen who died when their own bombs exploded on them while they were making them. Basically, (in my opinion) they were hysterics reacting to hysteria like reactionaries do, and decided to have a big temper tantrum and destroy property instead of doing the boring work of organizing voters and educating people on the issues. They DID manage to make it difficult for anyone else who wanted to do these things peaceably in an effort to protest the war to do so without being painted as a mad bomber.   

*Between then and now, Ayers was pardoned and has become a respected leader in the field of education...go figure.

*The Comittee that Barack Obama worked on with Bill Ayers also included a Republican governor and a former Nixon official who has given $1,500 to McCains campaign. Not so leftist. 

*MCCain/Palin 2008 and the RNC conveniently forget that McCain has his own supporter who was an extremist on the right 40 years ago: G. Gordon Liddy. You'll remember him as part of the Watergate break-in scandal during the Nixon administration. He was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping; and has admitted plotting to murder a journalist who wrote unfavorably of Nixon, and to firebomb the Brookings institute. He served 4 years of a 20 year sentence before he was pardoned. He has given a fundraiser for McCain, donated to his campaign, and McCain has praised his "adherence to principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

* (Hilarious irony...get ready:) Ayers was not convicted because the evidence against him was obtained by illegal wiretapping. In a weird way, Ayers and Liddy complete each other.

*In 2008, Ayers is a professor, and G. Gordon Liddy is a radio show host - neither regrets their past. but I think it would not be a bad idea to put Liddy and Ayers in a big Monster Truck Arena and let them at each other so that the hysterics and extremists can go watch them duke it out while the rest of us focus on voting for the president of 2008.

*Having said that - I'm not surprised by the amount of public PTSD symptoms after the last 8 years. I'm having one now.

*I am not interested in a re-enactment of the Joe McCarthy comittee on anti-american activities. We should have learned the danger of hysterical finger pointing from the Salem Witch trials...but that would require learning.

*The Gateway Media Literacy website has this lovely quote on their homepage: "Media Literacy is a critical thinking skill that is applied to the source of much of our information: the channels of mass communication. As such, media literacy has emerged as a survival skill that empowers individuals to decipher media messages."

*This helps when you get an email forwarded from a Southern Baptist Uncle you never met which states that Obama is a socialist terrorist and the proof is a picture in which Obama is holding a copy of Fareed Zakaria's book, "The Post-American World," which I am certain this man has never heard of let alone read.

*Rush Limbaugh is a douchebag. he just is.