Bluebelle

My name is Cheney Wolfhound. (Read the linked story and you'll understand.)

I love Anne Lamott. She's one of my favorite authors. Top 5 at least, maybe even top 3.

That said, I'm positively delighted to link to her latest piece, "A Call To Arms". (Hey, if you're laughing at my choice of words: when's the last time YOU were positively delighted about something? You oughta be jealous.)

Read it.

Here's an excerpt:

I had to leave church Sunday morning when it turned out that the sermon was not about bearing up under desperate circumstances, when you feel like you're going crazy because something is being perpetrated upon you and your country that is so obscene that it simply cannot be happening.

I sat outside a 7-Eleven and had a sacramental Dove chocolate bar. Jeez: Here we are again. A man and a woman whose values we loathe and despise -- lying, rageful and incompetent, so dangerous to children and old people, to innocent people in every part of the world -- are being worshiped, exalted by the media, in a position to take a swing at all that is loveliest about this earth and what's left of our precious freedoms.

[. . . .]

I hate to criticize. And I love to kill wolves as much as the next person does. But this woman takes such pride in her ignorance, doesn't have a doubt in the world about her messianic calling, that it makes anyone of decency feel nauseated -- spiritually, emotionally and physically ill.

I say that with love. As we say in Texas. (Also, we say, "Bless her heart.")

Anne Lamott has some practical advice for us, too:

Figure out one thing you can do every single day to be a part of the solution, concentrating on swing states. Money, walking precincts, registering voters, whatever. This is the only way miracles ever happen -- left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe. Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe. The great novelist E.L. Doctorow once said that writing a novel is like driving at night with the headlights on: You can only see a little ways in front of you, but you can make the whole journey this way. It is the truest of all things; the only way to write a book, raise a child, save the world.

Amen.

That's it. Release the hounds.

(I'm showing some major self-restraint here, because what I really want to do is scream obscenities and throw things.)

You have got to be FRICKIN' kidding me.

I get up this morning to find that McCain just can't lay off the lies with his newest smear ad against Obama. Guess he can't quit cold-turkey, even though everyone and their brother are calling him out for his vile, offensive, deceitful ads.

This newest ad (find it on your own -- I don't want to sully my blog with such garbage), like all of his previous ads of late, has absolutely NOTHING substantial in it. Instead of talking about REAL ISSUES, this ad spends the entire 30 seconds accusing Obama and Biden of attacking Palin -- which they haven't done, of course. The ad uses quotes taken COMPLETELY out of context to bolster their claim lies.

Already, FactCheck.org has thoroughly debunked it:

The ad says "they said she was doing 'what she was told.' " But the Obama adviser who's being quoted didn't accuse Palin of meekly following orders. What he actually said is that she made a false claim about Obama's legislative record and added, "maybe that's what she was told."

It says "they lashed out at Sarah Palin; dismissed her as 'good looking,' " But "they" didn't lash out at all. Obama – who is the one pictured – didn't say anything like that. The only one the McCain campaign quotes is Obama's running mate, Biden, and he actually offered the remark as a compliment. Biden said the "obvious" difference between Palin and himself is "she's good looking."

The ad says Obama was "disrespectful" when he accused Palin of "lying" about her record. But the truth is Palin's claim to have "said no" to the "bridge to nowhere" is indeed a dubious one, as we and many have pointed out.

ENOUGH!!!

As an American citizen, you need to view this video RIGHT NOW. Take the 3 minutes and 31 seconds to watch how McCain's lies and "distortions" match up side-by-side with the TRUE quotes in context.

Finally, some TRUTH.

Pass this video along to everyone you know.

The McCain campaign is using these reprehensible smear tactics to manipulate Americans. We, the people, deserve to hear the TRUTH.

VOTE -- it's the least you can do

Late-night comedian and naturalized citizen Craig Ferguson rants about the presidential campaign and voting in this country:

Clip 1:

Clip 2:

This isn't about cheering for "your team" on Nov. 4

Check out this article written by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): "This Election is Not a Soap Opera or a Football Game: It is About the Future of Our Country" on the Huffington Post:

In a democracy, elections are not beauty pageants or reality shows, or soap operas for political junkies. Elections are the real business of democracy, and they should be about real things.

Hey Democrats -- can we talk? (No really, sit down and shut up for a minute)

PULL YOURSELVES TOGETHER!

Seriously, stop all the self-defeating bellyachin' about our chances in November. We have 57 days left to make this happen. 57 DAYS. There is no time to waste.

We thought the 2004 election was dire (and it was), but it is nothing compared to this one. We need to elect Obama and Biden, PERIOD.

Can we do it? YES WE CAN, but we can't sit back and be complacent. We need to act NOW.

Here's the reality:

Our candidate is black. (Surprise!) Actually, he's bi-racial, which is even less desirable in some people's racists' opinions. This works against us (duh). There is a revoltingly ugly faction of our population that will not vote for a non-white candidate, no matter what.

In an election season where the stakes have never been higher (at least not in modern history), there has been an astonishingly high number of "undecided" voters. What no one wants to acknowledge is that a portion of those "undecideds" has been looking for an excuse -- any excuse -- to not vote for Obama because he's black. Period. All of those lame excuses we've heard -- "He's so exotic" or "I don't know, his middle name is Hussein" or "I heard he's Muslim" -- they all translate to: "I'm a xenophobic racist bigot".

Get real. They would never have voted for Obama anyway. Their lame excuses reveal morally repugnant prejudices, but we've gotta move on. There are plenty of people out there who can still be won over, and we have to focus on them.

The latest polls that are coming out in McCain's favor are partly due to a post-convention bump, and partly due to some racist "undecideds" moving over to McCain. Keep in mind that Sarah Palin wasn't picked to pick up disgruntled Hillary supporters as the McCain campaign claims -- no, she was selected to energize The Base: the lukewarm conservative evangelical Republicans who have only been half-heartedly supporting McCain until now.

Polls are showing that Palin is not attracting independents and moderates. She isn't winning over a substantial amount of voters to the McCain ticket. That was never the campaign's intention. She exists to solidify and rally the True Believers. This is the McCain campaign's desperate attempt to win the election -- follow the Rovian strategy of electrifying the religious fundamentalists, just like Bush did in 2000 and 2004.

Chances are good that it won't work this time. Registered Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans nationwide, and the independent voters who will decide this election likely will not flock to such an obviously conservative (read: conservative evangelical) ticket.

However, we can't take any chances.

Here's what YOU need to do:

1. Volunteer.

I don't care how you do it, but DO IT. Get out there. DO SOMETHING. The Obama campaign has about a bajillion different ways you can do something to win this election. Go to their website, sign up for a profile, and get immediately connected with the campaign office network in your area. Once you are logged in, you can access canvassing lists in your immediate neighborhood (door-to-door), and you can also get phone banking lists for voters in your area.

Neighborhood canvassing and phone banking are the two biggest difference-makers in campaigns. I recently read that for every 25 voters contacted by phone, 1 vote is gained, and 5 more are motivated to actually show up at the polls come Election Day. The gains are even higher for canvassing.

Why is this? Simple -- you establish a personal connection with a voter.

I know it's a foreign concept to many reading this blog (it's certainly something I can't comprehend), but there are WAAAAAY too many voters who aren't paying attention to this election. They don't seek out information on their own. If they happen to catch something on the news every now and then, that's all well and good (assuming it's not FOX), but they don't take initiative to learn about the issues.

So where do these so-called "low information voters" get their information? WORD OF MOUTH. That's where YOU come in.

2. Make your voice heard.

I know it sounds trite, but write letters. Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper, write letters to news magazines, write letters to your local news stations, write letters (OK, emails) to political websites. Write emails to cable news shows that read viewer comments on the air. Call radio shows, call TV shows, call whomever will listen. Post comments on blogs, even -- just do something. Speak up!

3. Donate.

Give till it hurts. Put your money where your mouth is. I don't care which cliche motivates you more -- just suck it up and donate something.

Even $5 makes a difference. Don't you have $5 that you can contribute to saving our democracy? Isn't this campaign worth giving up a latte or a lunch at McDonalds? Can you give more? How about $10? Or $20? Whatever it is that you can give, do it -- and do it again and again until Election Day. The campaign needs your donations to fund TV ads in swing states (like my dear home state of Ohio), to pay for the travel expenses incurred while campaigning, to pay for the campaign materials used in lit drops, etc. Unlike the McCain-Palin campaign, the Obama-Biden campaign does NOT accept money from PACs or lobbyists -- instead, it relies heavily on small contributions from LOTS of people. If you can afford it, don't let them down.

(It's almost 1am and I've got to get some sleep . . . I will write more tomorrow about this. TO BE CONTINUED . . . .)