... received in an email newsletter from moveon.org
For all the coverage this week of Senator John McCain's background, there are some important things you won't learn about him from the TV networks. His carefully crafted positive image relies on people not knowing this stuff—and you might be surprised by some of it.
Please check out the list below, and then forward it to your friends, family, and coworkers. We can't rely on the media to tell folks about the real John McCain—but if we all pass this along, we can reach as many people as CNN Headline News does on a good night.
Click
here to tell us how many people you can pass it on to—and to see our progress nationally:
10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):
1. John McCain
voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.
1
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is
more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."
2
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain
voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.
3
4. McCain
opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."
4
5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as
the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.
5
6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain
says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.
6
7. Many of McCain's
fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
7
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain
has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.
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9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain
sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."
9
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but
he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.
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John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be. Please help get the word out—forward this email to your personal network. And if you want us to keep you posted on MoveOn's work to get the truth out about John McCain, sign up
here.
Thank you for all you do.
–Eli, Justin, Noah, Laura, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
Sources:
1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html
"McCain Facts," olorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/McCain_facts/
2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us
"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-McCain/
3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/McCain-torture-veto/
4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/
5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007
"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/McCain.interview/
6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80
"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home
7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022
"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_McCain_temper_is_tamed/
8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/McCain-black-lobbyist/
"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251
9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-McCain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html
"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/McCain-hagee-anti-gay/
"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-McCain-endorsement/
10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/
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Until yesterday I had planned to vote for the Democratic candidate for President, based on the premise that either Clinton or Obama would be better for our country than McCain. I wasn't excited by the prospect, and never believed that either candidate would do more than strengthen the status quo in ways that are marginally less harmful than the disastrous policies of the Bush administration. But after reading Obama's speech I've changed my mind: I am voting for Obama. Full stop. If I have to write his name on my ballot, then that's what I will do.
For the first time in my life a viable candidate for high office has spoken honestly about race in America. For the first time a candidate had the courage to say what we should all know by now: racism is a tool used by the wealthy and powerful to divide working people and the poor. Finally there is a candidate who says that white resentment against affirmative action would be better aimed at the corporations that are shipping our decent jobs overseas for 'nothing more than profit.' Finally a candidate who acknowledges that the gains we have made toward greater equality, better working conditions, and greater liberty have been made only after great struggle by large numbers of ordinary people.
Obama made only passing reference to the casual racism of the ruling class - the casual racism of Geraldine Ferraro, the comments by Bill Clinton in South Carolina. Obama rightly sees this as mere noise and a distraction. For 25 years, since the early days of the Reagan administration, we've been treated to a non-stop litany of complaints by right-wing commentators about affirmative action, about the 'special treatment' given to minority races and to women in America. These complaints have had the intended effect of convincing white Americans that they are somehow at a disadvantage, and that blacks and latinos are to blame. And they've had the effect of diverting attention away from the deep problems that we face: health care for profit that fails to deliver adequate health care at an acceptable price; the massive loss of good jobs; the end of defined-benefit pension plans; the loss not only of factories but of the engineering base that would have allowed America to continue to lead the world in technology; and the ever increasing accumulation of wealth by the wealthy, by way of massive federal corporate welfare. I believe Obama is the candidate who would be willing to recognize these problems and lead the way towards solutions.
The media has made much of pastor Wright's 'God Damn America' speech. Ignoring the bombast for a moment, Wright made two claims that I believe should be uncontroversial: he stated that America was built on a foundation of racism, and he stated that 9/11 happened in response to US foreign policy. I honestly do not understand how either of those statements can be refuted. Howard Zinn devoted a significant portion of 'A People's History' to demonstrating the truth of the first statement. From the beginning of the colonial era to well into the 20th century racism was used as a tool to divide workers and to divert their attention from their own exploitation. Racism served to create a large bloc of poor and working class whites who would defend the status quo, with their lives if need be. Working against their own interest, working class whites often stood against the struggle to achieve a more just and prosperous society. It is painful to acknowledge past racism; and for many whites today it is difficult to recognize the fact of racism in contemporary America. Obama had the courage and the insight to describe the legacy of racism, but also to point out that we have made great progress, and that we can do more in the future.
As for the claim that we brought 9/11 on ourselves because of our foreign policy - what is there to object to? Chomsky has been very persuasively arguing the same thing since September 2001. What is the alternative theory? That they 'hate us for our freedom'? That slogan, and that way of thinking, is simply idiotic. We were attacked in 1994 and again in 2001 for exactly the reasons that the terrorists said they attacked us: the US forces in Saudi Arabia, our unwavering support for the racist and zionist regime in Israel, and our military support for repressive regimes throughout the Muslim world.
Obama chose not to address the causes of 9/11 - I really don't see how he could have done so. The sound bites would have destroyed him, no matter how carefully he phrased his analysis. But everything else in his speech makes me believe that Obama will not be willing to pander to the neo-con idiocy that has driven our policies these past 7 years.
This is the most important presidential election since 1968. The difference this time is that we have a shot, just a shot, at a candidate who has the vision and the courage to be honest with the American people and who is willing to tackle the really big problems. He may be beaten down by a combination of right-wing media and the right-wing pandering of the Clinton campaign. But for now there is hope.
. Very simple, very cool. The idea is that you specify chart data and settings in a url, and get back a generated image.
I wrote a little code that renders sparklines-like graphs using the google charts api, from TWiki. In my case I call the code from one of my plugins - but I'm probably the only person on the planet that uses that plugin, so you would need to call it from somewhere else.
The basic idea is simple: create the simplest, smallest legible line graph for a set of data. Small enough that it can serve as just another 'word' in a sentence, yet convey a relatively large set of quantitative information.
My approach was to invent some wiki syntax: ((sparkline)(number1, ..., numberk)), e.g. ((sparkline)(1500.0,700,1244,400,800.0,1921.5,2100.2,500,900,600,800,1000,1921.5,2100.2,500,900,600,800,1000)). This gets rendered as
shown in this example. It's all fairly easy.
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