It's 1932, Do You Know Who Your Candidate Is?

Last night, while Barrack Obama was handily trouncing John McCain in the (thankfully) last debate of this interminable election season, a friend of mine forwarded me a semi-anonymous email touting Obama's supposed connections to terrorists, and his purported "lying" about McCain's record, and so on, and so forth. Apparently there are a lot of these emails floating around, providing folks who won't support Obama because he's black with a feel-good-about-yourself alternative reason to pull the lever for the other (white) guy.

Be that as it may, my friend will probably end up voting for McCain, because he gets most of his news from right-wing talk radio, and because, over the years, he's accepted most of the Republican arguments without really looking at the difference between what they say and what they do.

After all, the party that ran on the promise of proposing an anti-abortion constitutional amendment had control of Congress and the White House for almost eight years, and somehow never managed to put that amendment on the front burner. The party that touts its fiscal responsibility has left our children with a crushing ten trillion dollar debt. The party that promotes its handling of military and foreign affairs sent our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters to die in Iraq without a clear plan to achieve "peace," or without a good reason for invading in the first place, and has made our country the enemy of human rights, and has destroyed our moral standing in the world. But none of that matters, because it's not what they do that's decisive, for the people who blindly support them, it's what they say. And it's what they say about the other guy that wins them elections -- because they're not afraid to use the Nazi "Big Lie" technique, having learned that people will believe anything if it fits with their prejudices.

Here's my response to the email my friend sent me:

Sadly, this is typical behavior for a party that's proven itself incapable of governing, bankrupt of ideas, and unwilling to face the consequences of thirty years of lying to the American people. They're reduced to making faces at their opponent, of exaggerating inconsequential issues, and in the process, they're attempting to confuse the voters into making yet another bad choice. As if on his worst day, doing the worst thing he's been accused of (and only accused of -- these anonymous emails are despicable, full of lies and innuendos that would make Joe McCarthy proud), Barrack Obama could be any more of a threat to our country than another four years of Republican misrule.

Really, aren't you tired of being played for a fool by people who hold you in contempt?

The Republicans are *not* on your side. They don't care one bit about you, about your family, about what you believe, or what you need. If they had their way, you and your family will be facing even worst economic news in the future than we are all facing now. Make no mistake: the situation our economy is in is a direct result of thirty years of free-market, anti-regulation, anti-government philosophy. This is the world Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior and Junior, the Republicans in Congress, and their proud sponsors on Wall Street, have bequeathed us.

They know they've screwed up, they know that on the merits they don't have a case to make for another four years of mismanagement, corruption, stupidity, and malfeasance.

So, instead of fighting on the issues, they make up lies and distort the truth about their opponent.

Don't let them sucker you.

The very fact that they're raising this issue -- which was raised and dealt with ten months ago during the Democratic primary, and proven then to be a red herring -- is a clear sign they're desperate, and they're hoping that Lincoln can be proven right one more time. They're hoping to fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time.

I'm just hoping, for once, they can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Not again.

It's 1932. Are you really going to cast a vote for Herbert Hoover?