Here is an email my friend sent me this morning. I give him a thorough response. I do not include his name. Specifically, I focus on Indian Issues and foreign policy, for two reasons, we are both Indian, and my friend is a veteran who specifically challenges me on both issues right after his name, I omit that though. -WB (a lot of my info on McCain's veteran related votes is from Cliff Schecter's book)
Subject: OBAMA
Bill,
Do you really think that he can? I still have yet to see the answer what his question is, but still do you think he can?
Can he solve the health care for the poor (without killing those who can)?
Can he turn around the economy for the poor (who never invest) without taxing those who can?
Does he want to tax those who “made it”, and give to those who will not try? Or even those who made it from nothing?
Can we just tax and tax and tax to death, those who have tried and made it, for those who will think the government will save them and never try?
Can we believe in a man who can go to the Crow, who was for the government in 1876; get a (Crow name) from a tribe who will back anybody (especially in 1876) and think we can?
Can we believe in a man who will sit with a man who will kill an "infidel" of our friend in Israeli?
I so want to vote for a man of "ours", but at what cost?
I can vote for a man that did fight for the Indian people is a strong supporter for Vets, but has put his arm around the current poison oak of this nation.
Is this man a person that I can trust, or a man that will say anything to get a vote? (I am not defending a man that is doing that currently.....both of them)
The man I want to vote for the one that has a long (and very strong) history of defending the Indian Nations of this great country. You tell me who has more?
Can I trust again? Can I believe? Can I be proud again?
I have two, and will vote one. I want to believe, and I want to trust…….
My response in full:
Here is the bottom line, it's philosophy. 9 of the last ten recessions have occured under Republican presidents. The best Republican president on job creation and economic growth, Reagan, wasn't even as good as the worst Democratic president, Carter, on those issues. When Republicans have the presidency, less people have health care, more women have abortions, more people are on welfare, inequality grows at faster rates and the Middle Class has to make up for the price of irresponsible tax cuts. That's not partisan, those are simply facts.
Nobody gives anything to those who won't try in our country. Welfare, food stamps, things like that, they are very miniscule in our budget. The people that get that stuff, they don't live good lives. And most of them are women who are single parents who can't afford childcare and things like that. There are incidents when single moms have gone to work and left their kids with people who can't take care of them that well because they were forced to and bad things have happened. That's the reality. In the end, we can't leave people out in the cold and it doesn't cost much at all. Abuses are rare. Like Reagan's welfare queen story that he made famous? He made it up. Not even true. That's what the debate has come to.
The difference is, are you for the top one percent of the richest people paying for their fair share or are you not? That's the real argument. Nobody taxes anybody to death anymore. Our tax burden's in our country are way less than when even Eisenhower was president. Way less. The problem isn't that we pay too much taxes in our country, it's who pays them and who has to sacrifice in the end. Look around you. Look at your food bill. Your light bill. Look at the rise of health care costs. Rise of tuition costs. I won't be able to finish my degree because the U of A had to raise their tuition like 4 times in the last several years. I'm an A student, did everything right, but maxed out my student loans, which I have to pay back. That's the reality of the world we live in. You have seen what one side can do. And from it you have the biggest deficit ever, two recessions, Katrina, records amount of people without health care and on and on and on. Why? Because Movement Conservatism is about words, not action. They don't even like government, they make it a playground for cronies. Is McCain different? Nope. He knows nothing about the economy. His chief economic advisor, Phil Gramm, wrote the legislation that caused the recent banking crisis and is a chief reason we are in a recession. McCain has an insane economic plan that consists of borrowing trillions of dollars from China and Saudi Arabia. You remember when Bush went hat in hand to the Saudis last week to ask them to turn on the oil spigots to lower prices? They said no. And we can't do nothing about it, because the leader of the free world has let the Saudis buy up about 6 percent of our country. McCain will do the same. That's his plan. So if you want your kids and grandkids to serve the Chinese and grovel to Saudi sheiks, vote McCain, it's that serious and he's that bad.
Obama won't sit directly with Hamas unless it's organized on lower levels diplomatically and something good can come out of it. Which he's right. And John McCain said the same exact thing last year, several times. McCain said he'd meet unconditionally with Hamas before. Now he says not, because he wants to be president. Here is the thing, and I told you and I told everybody who supported Iraq and who wanted to start holding elections in the Middle East out of nowhere. When you start holding elections and espousing democracy, you better be prepared to deal with the winners of those elections. And I remember being asked and giving my analysis to a few people on this and even writing about it, holding elections in the Palestinian terroritories and Lebanon would likely mean Hamas and Hezbollah would come to power? Why? Because people there care about services, and Hamas and Hezbollah have political and charitable arms that take care of people who need food, water and other assistance while their own governments were corrupt and ineffectual. Everybody told Bush and his allies like McCain that this was a mistake. So when the obvious result happens and they didn't like it, all of a sudden they chose not to accept it. Which is an even bigger mistake. Now, granted, Hamas has committed political violence, yes, but you have to understand two things. Our friend Israel, and Ariel Sharon specifically helped create what became Hamas as a counter to the Fatah Party, under Yassir Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas, which controlled the PLO. It's disingenous to pretend that never happened and condemn them outright when they would never even be in power today if it wasn't for Israeli and U.S. backed meddling. We played our hand there, we need to deal with it. The other thing is, yeah, you can say Hamas wants to kill Israelis etc and throw around the word "infidel" and so on, but what most people think they know is usually wrong or just part of the story. The bottom line is, Israel is an occupier. (a wrongful occupier at that) And occupiers get attacked. It doesn't matter if it's in Israel, Sri Lanka, the British in Indian and Iraq or the United States government occupier American Indian lands. They will get attacked, sometimes in uncondonable ways. The solution? Trade occupied lands for peace, and get together and make an agreement with the Palestinians. This is something the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians want to do. Even their governments want to do it, but for 8 years, this administration has refused to be a decent arbiter for peace. That's a fact. And Israeli newspapers and leaders can't wait for Bush to get out of office and are praying that McCain doesn't replace him, because finally something can be done. And the leader from Hamas, who you don't want Obama to talk to? You want to know what he said recently. He, and Hamas, will accept any peace agreement with Israel and the Palestinians, and will accept the right of Israel to exist, as long as it's put to a referendum and the Palestinian people are fine with it. Which they would be. The leader of Hamas has a much saner and sound concept of how to diplomatically solve the situation than McCain or Bush do. Hell, the former Likud leaders like Olmert have a saner idea of it. Like I said, Bush and McBush are probably the worst enemies Israel has in the world, because neither one will do a thing while the Middle East erupts in turmoil. Will Obama solve it all? That's tough. It's not that easy. It'll probably take a generation of presidents to work on Israeli-Palestinian peace, just the same as it took Carter to create peace with Egypt and Israel and every other president since to keep that working. But is Obama better than Bush/McCain on this stuff? Light years. As in probably more than 100 percent better that's how stark the difference is.
I won't comment on the Crow thing in depth. Holding Obama responsible for something they did in 1876 that he nor any other Presidential candidate know anything about is ridiculous. McCain went to Kentucky and visited with people a few weeks ago who flat out admit they would never vote for a black man, just because he's black. Hell, McCain's ancestors fought in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy in the 1860s. The Confederates were the biggest terrorists and traitors in our nation's history, but you would be hard pressed to hold that against him. Shit, Prescott Bush, W. grandfather, plotted a coup to overthrow the U.S. government in the 1930s with other people who hated FDR and he was a Nazi sympathizer who did business with them while Germany was exterminating Jews and marching down the streets of Paris. McCain hangs out with Bush now, so should we hold him responsible for that? No, it would be petty to do so. And it serves no purpose other than to distract.
And when you say you would vote for a man who fought for Indians and is a strong supporter of vets well you must mean McCain, but I have news for you. McCain doesn't have much of a record on either. McCain as chairman of the Indian Affairs committee heavily reduced and whitewashed the Jack Abramoff stuff to protect his fellow Republicans. But even then, forget that. McCain, and I know this because my great-uncle was a BIA Area Director at the time and knows inside stuff that nobody really knows, was one of the biggest pushers of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The reason was because he said he felt the Mafia was involved in Indian Gaming. He pushed it the hardest. This goes back to the era when younger senators such as John Kerry, were making their bones going after different things when the Cold War was winding down. Nobody had an enemy to fight anymore, especially the Republicans because they basically only ran on two things, cutting taxes/government and fighting Communism. So while Kerry was making a name for himself investigating both the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal (Savings and Loans followed which was something McCain later became part of the Keating 5 on) and the Iran-Contra scandal, McCain tried to make an issue of going after the mob. There are a few reasons for this. McCain is no real friend of Indians, I know people who have interviewed him and talked with him on Indian Affairs, he knows little about Indian policy. McCain had issues with the money that Indian tribes were making off of casinos. Plus, it hurt business for his friends who worked with casinos in the boxing industry, but I won't go into that. See Indian tribes are protectorates of the federal govt, we really don't have to do shit for or with a state. McCain had issues with Indian casinos getting a free ride on their own land without having to kick anything back to the states or anything like that. Legislatures and governors freaked out about Indian casinos. So McCain saw it as a chance to both move in and ensure that states have a cut of Indian casinos, and for him to toughen up his crime credentials by conflating it all with a fight against the mafia. Curious, because he was friends with Joseph Bonanno, AZ resident and former head of the Bonanno crime family in New York. See just about everything McCain does is overtly political. But basically, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act is the biggest encroachment on Indian sovereignty by the federal government in our nation's history. It federalized state law, and made Indian tribes reliant on the permission of governors and state legislatures in order to have casinos. If the governor said no, I will not negotiate a compact with a tribe, well that tribe could not have a casino, even though it was on their own land and at their own discretion. The other big McCain legacy on Indian Affairs, is his support and introduction of Relocation Legislation Senate Bill 1001, The Navajo Hopi Land Settlement Act of 1974, Amendments 2005. This happens to be something I am researching right now, and the first bill was chronicled in an Academy Award winning documentary called "Broken Rainbow" from the 1980s. Specifically, S. 1003 is McCain's bill and it's a grim one. It forces the relocation of Navajos off of their own land, because coal and other energy interests want to get those resources for themselves. Let me reiterate, FORCED RELOCATION. It's the biggest forced relocation since the Cherokee Trail of Tears. 10,000 Navajo and 100 Hopi all told will be forced to relocate. This has gone on since the year I was born, McCain wants it to be finalized now. These people will be forced off of their ancestral homes, in the past they have had springs and wells destroyed, and livestock murdered because they have fought this. Now imagine if coal was discovered in the area where your parents lived, and John McCain put forth legislation that says because of these energy interests that your family and all of your friends and everybody that live all around the area where your family lives would be forced to move, say to Valier. Again, FORCED to move. That's exactly what John McCain is doing to Indian people as I sit and type this, he's supported it his whole career. Look up S1973-1 and S. 1003 or check out
http://www.blackmesais.org/ if you don't believe me. But that's John McCain's legacy to the Indian people that he fought for, Jack Abramoff whitewashing, Indian Gaming and sovereignty violation and a modern day Trail of Tears. That's not a pretty picture.
Now on to the biggest bullshit myth about McCain ever, that he fights for veterans. He doesn't. In fact, McCain is so bad on veterans affairs, it makes a person wonder what exactly he has against veterans considering he is one himself. I was asked to review a book on McCain and plus do some other research into him, so just like with S.1003 the veteran issue is one I've looked into quite a bit and I actually was doing considerable research on it right before I checked my email, so I have this all onhand and off the top of my head. For instance, in the last few years, McCain voted against s. Amdt 149 which would have increased veteran's medical care by 2.8 million dollars and S.Amdt 1852, which would have set aside 10 million in readjustment counseling services for veterans when they return from Iraq and/or Afghanistan. He also shot down efforts by current Senate Veteran's Affairs chairman, Daniel Akaka, to add 1.5 billion for Veteran's medical care and an additional 430 million for Veteran's outpatient care. He voted against all of those, and offerend no alternative either. Do you remember the Walter Reed Scandal? When vets were coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and ended up in outpatient housing with rats and shitty water etc etc? Well before that broke McCain voted against S Amdt 2735 which proposed additional funding to shore up the failing infrastructures at veterans hospitals all over the country. Why? Because the funding would have been provided by a minor rollback in the Capital Gains tax that effects the top one-fifth of the richest one percent in our country. Yes, you read that right, McCain refused to shore up funding for decrepit Veteran's hospitals in order to preserve money for the richest one-fifth of one percent of people in our country. Bill Gates gets his tax cut, a guy with his arm blown off gets a rat next to his bed at Walter Reed. He voted twice against two redeployments of troops, including S. 4442, which would require a redeployment in Iraq in order to further a political solution so the people of Iraq can take control of their own security. He voted against and helped kill S. 344 which would have funded additional medical care and adjustment counseling for Iraq vets with PTSD or other disorders. In 2005 and 2006 he voted twice against legislation to adjust veteran's benefits according to inflation and the growth of the veteran population, which would be paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top tax rate (the most successful rate in our history by far), closed tax loopholes and the delaying of tax cuts for the extremely wealthy. In February 2006, former Army Ranger Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) sponsored S. Amdt 2737 which would have rolled back capital gains tax cuts (again, think Bill Gates and Paris Hilton tax cuts) so that MUCH NEEDED EQUIPMENT would be sent to troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Again, McCain voted against it, and Bill and Paris kept their cash. You remember the draconian Bankruptcy Bill from 2005? Dick Durbin authored legislation to help make returning Iraq/Afghan vets exempt from some of the harsher laws in that bill. McCain voted against it. The Homes for Heroes Act, which Obama introduced in 2007 and enjoyed great bipartisan support, provided housing for low-income veterans and worked to get homeless Vets across the country into their own housing. Good bill, something almost everybody agreed on. And then the post-9/11 Veteran's Educational Assistance Act of 2007, introduced by former military officer Jim Webb as his first act of legislation in Congress, which restored the old G.I. Bill and seeks to provide robust educational assistance to Veterans, the same as they had after WW2. Again, this is something that has broad bipartisan support on both sides. Well, John McCain wanted no part of either bill. So does John McCain fight for troops? Nope. But does he at least generally support them? No he doesn't even do that. He likes to send them to war, that's about it. Take into consideration the nonpartisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's of America, the country's first and largest Iraq Veterans group. They examined 155 Senate votes since 2001 on legislation that affected troops, veterans and military families. No Senator received an A rating by the IAVA. 13 Senators all Democrats received an A-. 22 Democrats and one Independent received a B+. (Jim Jeffords is the I) The worst grade by a Democratic Senator was better than the best grade given to a Republican. What did John McCain get? He got a D. And it's no surprise because I have watched Republicans vote against legislation to support troops time and time again. Including John McCain, hell, especially John McCain. It's one thing to talk about the troops, it's another thing to do something about it. So if you plan to vote for John McCain because he's a fighter for veterans, well don't, because he isn't.
So if you want to vote for somebody who has a long and very strong history of supporting American Indians and supporting Vets, well that man isn't John McCain. It just isn't true. You ask who has more experience supporting Indians? Just about everybody. Try Byron Dorgan. Ted Kennedy. Try Patrick Kennedy. Even go back and look at Nixon. But McCain, no effing way, that's not being partisan, that's just knowing the facts. But then put into consideration his ignorance of domestic policy, and his ignorance and dangerous views on foreign policy and he's not even votable. He just isn't. Like I said, look around, if you like what you've seen under George Bush, well, McCain might be worse. He'll likely start another war, his opinions on Russia are so stupid and out of date it sounds like he wants to start the Cold War again, his plan in Iraq amounts to "If it gets bad, we have to stay, if it gets better we'll stay" and he continually conflates Sunni and Shia to the point that it makes me wonder if he's truly that stupid or just dangerous and ignorant, plus, he thinks we're fighting al-qaeda there, which is enough to disqualify him from being president alone. He wants to fight al-qaeda, but he gives money to the groups that were al-qaeda in Iraq and arms them. He want to fight Iran, but he gives money to the Badr Brigades which is the closest affiliate of Iran in the country. Huh? He's all over the map and makes no sense. John McCain, supposed national security expert, knows so little about foreign policy that a few months ago an influx of military officers started coming out in the media saying they are frightened that he might get elected and have access to nuclear weapons. He's more frightening than Bush, because some people actually think McCain might know what he's talking about. He doesn't. He's about as bad as it gets. It's not partisan to look at somebody's record and to come up with these conclusions. It's true. Look up those bills. Look at these issues. My grandfather was President of the National Congress of American Indians, a personal friend of Mike Mansfield, Lee Metcalf and the Kennedys. My great-uncle was the first BIA Director of Indian Education, a BIA Area Director and the one of a few American educators and the only Blackfeet, to be chosen to go overseas and visit the Soviet Union in a delegation that represented our country at the height of the Cold War. I've been studying policy and politics since I could ever remember. I read books on Lincoln and JFK when I was in 2nd grade. I've been published on both foreign policy and Indian affairs, hell they even study one of my essays in a PHD program at the University of Arizona. I know a thing or two about politics and policy and especially Indian Affairs, I was basically born doing it, I may not know .99999 percent of what is out there to learn, nobody does, but I can tell you this, John McCain would be one of the worst presidents of all time. And he'd probably be the worst president ever on both Indian and veteran's affairs. The only reason he might not be the worst in domestic policy is because Bush has set the bar pretty fucking high on that one, but McCain might even be able to catch him on foreign policy. A vote for McCain is a vote for disaster. And that's putting it nicely. There is a reason why Republican Senator Thad Cochran was quoted as saying about McCain a few months ago: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine."
Mine too. You should probably take both Thad's and my word on it.
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