I haven't seen this diaried yet, but I got this from the Facebook application "Causes." It comes from someone named Tim, and I don't know if it's either of the Tims on my list or some other Tim. It starts innocently enough:
Dear friends,
Tuesday is the most important election of our lifetimes. Let's make sure everyone on Facebook gets to the polls on election day by making sure our friends do, and that their friends do, and their friends, and their friends...you get the idea.
A clever public service idea suddenly turns ugly...after the fold.
Donate your Facebook status and at 12:01am, your friends will automatically be reminded to get to the polls. Everyone's Facebook status message will be the same and we will flood the site with a huge, consolidated message to go vote. Millions of people will come together to make a difference in this election.
O.K. So far it looks innocent enough...then the author gets out his "voter gun":
Personally, I will be pulling the trigger for John McCain. Not because I am crazy about his candidacy, but because I believe that the Socialist foundations of Obama's policies are dangerous for the future of our great nation.
Suddenly, yet another drink of the Kool-Aid that suggests tired, outdated 1950s rhetoric is what we crave in the new millennium. It also shows a complete ignorance of what I learned about socialism in basic high school civics as it dusts off this lie that so many Americans have categorically rejected already.
But that's just the pathetic part. Here's the scary part:
Karl Marx said, "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose
fiscal policy."
Friends, much of the nation has figured out that they can, in fact, vote themselves gifts from the public treasury. And, Mr Obama is determined to allow them to believe that is exactly what they are doing. In fact, what they will be doing is raising taxes and lowering profits on those who now create the jobs. This will only lead to higher costs for goods, services, and many necessities of life...and higher unemployment. See through the smoke and mirrors. McCain might not be the perfect candidate, but we simply cannot afford the risk of an Obama administration.
...and there you have it, actually in writing this time: the Republican Party is the anti-democracy party.
In adopting Karl Marx's words, this reactionary message actually suggests those of us who expect a basic level of services from our government are anti-American, and now that our democracy has ceased to "exist," voting against Barack Obama is a survival thing.
And oh yes, a very tepid endorsement of McCain, just like every other anti-Obama email I get that addresses McCain if at all. Once again I have to assume they don't have a quality product.
Is anyone in the undecided column falling for this grade school ignorance? My high school civics teacher would've flunked this guy and torn his answer apart in front of the entire class. I have yet to see any plan on Obama's part to nationalize all major U.S. industries and make the taxpayers their only stockholders. Closest I've seen in our country lately is the Wall Street bailout and the wacky system they have in Alaska with the oil profits.
Here's what the McCain camp, the wingnuts, and the anti-Obama forces (I no longer think the three groups are part of a cohesive unit) can't get for some reason: every attack about "socialism" is an attack on not just Barack Obama, but his supporters, whether they're devout and long-term or last minute undecideds. We feel our own patriotism is questioned by these McCarthy tactics, and while this may have scared us away in the 1950s, now it's just pathetic. It solidifies our support for the man, since we've gone through so much with him. We won't be made to feel guilty because we feel a sense of ownership in the Obama camp, and because he wants to look out for us and make sure everyone pays their fair share of taxes, a principal cornerstone of capitalism itself. We won't be made to feel anti-American because we support the only candidate who has a hopeful vision of all the wonderful things we can do if we repair the problems of the wars, the economy and the partisan divide. We won't be made to feel bad because we won't turn our backs on those less fortunate, flooded out of their Louisiana and Texas homes or suffering horrible illnesses they can't afford to treat. We won't be made to feel bad because some millionaire suddenly has to be 3% more in taxes and the idea that would wreck the economy is laughable.
And we sure in the living hell won't believe the "right" attitude to have in a democratic election is to be "for" a candidate, not "for" the lesser of two evils. We're hopeful, not cynical, and we won't let anyone browbeat us out of that.
I do intend to put a non-partisan "get out the vote" message on my Facebook and Myspace sites but it won't be theirs. It'll be something like this:
(Dwayne) says one of the greatest things about the greatest country on Earth is that we're a democracy, so don't forget to vote!