...explanation from Quill (this one I ask that you all read)...

I know some people aren’t too thrilled with all the political postings that I have been making as of late. I thank each of you for bearing with me. I feel some explanation about my true stance on this election is clearly overdue and in order:

As you have noticed, I have no real love for George W. Bush, or his administration. Believe it or not, I was behind Bush in the days after September 11th, after we were attacked. It is my belief that at that moment, he was exactly the type of man we needed in office; someone who wasn’t going to pussy out, who was going to take this fight to our enemies and show them that they had made the worst mistake ever.

However, since then, I have sat back and watched this man make every colossal mistake a president could possibly make. Our health-care system is crappier than it’s EVER been; the Patriot Act side-steps several rights of individuals (and no, I’m not just saying that because of that stupid Fahrenheit movie); I’ve watched him lie and appear to be probably the dumbest C.I.C. we’ve ever had; although the numbers on paper look good for our economy, the job market for the middle/lower class is unbelievably shitty; I’ve seen him take us into war in Iraq.

About Iraq: I agree that Saddam was, simply put, an evil fucker, and he needed to be taken down. I’ve believed that since we DIDN’T finish things the first time, since Bush Sr. dropped the ball. However, Bush’s reasons for going to war weren’t true; the truth is, he DID lie to the American people. And sure, Saddam was TRYING to get those weapons; but at the very least, we could have delayed doing this for about a year before it became a desperate situation. Bush just got us into this war too fast; he rushed it.

Because of Bush’s decision, there have been many more casualties than were necessary. Think about that for just a second. A president’s JOB is to act in the best interests of his people; and there is no bigger judgment for a president to make than how to go into a war situation. Bush didn’t act in the best interest of our troops, and he clearly doesn’t have the proper judgment about war. For all the good in the world that’s resulting from it, the hard fact of the matter is that people, like Shark, and dying when they don’t necessarily need to, had Bush just had us go in there PREPARED. It’s good that Iraq has hope now; but was that hope worth the 1000 plus brave souls that have died for this cause, died when they might not have had to? Dammit, if we had just gotten allies, if we had the proper equipment out there…and on top of it all, those were things Bush PROMISED and SAID he was going to do, and he didn’t. The soldiers that are fighting in Iraq right now are in a greater level of danger than they would have been if we hadn’t rushed into this.

My main reason for believing so strongly in this is our job market and the economy. I graduated with a bachelor of science in construction management from SMSU in December of 2002. I didn’t get a job in my field until mid-July of 2004. That’s nearly TWO YEARS. And it wasn’t because of laziness on my part. It was not because I didn’t have an impressive enough resume, or because I don’t know how to interview. It’s because the job market, and our economy, sucked for jobs. When I finally landed my position with LaClair, it was a right-place, right-time situation. It helps that my resume and interviewing skills and portfolio is top-notch, but for the most part, in THIS job market we’re in, I got lucky. For nearly two years I struggled, battling both the shitty state of the market and my own internal struggle. There were times that I felt like just curling up into a ball and dying, it was so hard; and by nature I am one of the most optimistic and positive people you will meet, EVER. I don’t ever need to go to hell, because I’ve already lived through it, guys. I went through doubts about my own abilities to wondering if I was ever going to make it through this tough time. I suffered through Radio Shack, being on unemployment for a time, having to swallow every bit of pride I’ve ever had and more. Starting about Christmas of 2003, when I got FIRED (yes, fired) from Radio Shack because they had to let someone go, I was operating solely on the belief that I had to keep my hope alive for just one more day. That if I could just make it through ONE more day, tomorrow might just produce something. I did that for the remainder of my days before being saved by LaClair.

The whole job market thing is my personal story in all of this; like so many others, I’ve experienced, tasted, first hand what this president has allowed to happen to our country’s economy. Now, he’s begun to outsource jobs, making an already flailing job market/economy even worse.

Why do I care so much? Why do I beat this issue into the ground? I don’t want anyone to have to go through the hell that I did. I don’t want my friends who are getting out of college in a year or two to have to struggle like I did. I don’t want anyone else to die for a war in which we were ill prepared to go into. I have my issues with Shark; but I don’t wish him to die. Phoenix’s husband, Cyclops, is going to be a marine in just a few short weeks, and he quite possibly could be sent off right away. There are 1000 people, people with families, even people that some of you KNEW, that are dead that might not have died under safer circumstances.

My reasons for fighting tooth and nail on this election are not selfish; I have my job now, I don’t necessarily have an uber-personal bid for our market anymore. I think of my friends; I think of my family; I think of the families of those thousand plus soliders that were put in more danger than they needed to be. I think of the future of our country in this.

Bush has made a fucking mess of things. I can’t deny that there’s no guarantee that Kerry can do any better; but there’s a pretty clear picture of why Bush definitely isn’t good for this country. Is the worth of Bush’s resilience in this whole “War on Terror” really equal to thousands of lives? Does it balance out the way he’s let our health system turn to complete shit, or how the school systems are rapidly disintegrating in his administration’s wake? Do the ends of his methods in Homeland Security justify the means by which he accomplishes them, namely by stomping on rights that have existed since the U.S. began? How many middle class families are struggling just to make ends meet while tax breaks are given to the richest in our country, as a result of his doing? I mean, wake the fuck up…do you guys honestly think that if Bush has done this for the past FOUR YEARS that another four with him in office will get any better?! He’s had four years to do anything for our country, and the only thing he did of any worth was to go after the 9/11 terrorists, which looking back at it, I think any president would have done as well. Would Clinton have let it slide? Would Reagan? I don’t think they would have.

With every new president we’ve ever had, there’s been a 50/50 chance that they’d just fuck everything up. With politicians, you can never predict if they’ll be good or bad; you can only listen to what they say and hope you make the right choice. Kerry does have some bad points about him. I’m not talking about the ‘flip-flop’ issue, because we all know that’s bullshit, tripe slung around to make Kerry look bad, a.k.a. the politics game; Bush ‘flip-flops’ on things as well. And I’m not even talking about the so-called “shady” war record. The way I look at it, Kerry went to war and fought for his country; Bush did not. Kerry got wounded in war, thus he received the Purple Heart three times; it shouldn’t matter how wounded he was or how deep the bullet went into him. If you fight in a war, and you get wounded as a result of that fighting, you deserve whatever the military deems fit to decorate you with. Bush would understand all of this, had he gone to war himself. I would have come home from Vietnam and protested the war, too; history has shown us that Vietnam was a mistake for us. We got our asses handed to us in that war, and it was a situation that we shouldn’t have gotten into in the first place.

Bush has proven that he is not a good president. I could cite a million different examples of this and some still wouldn’t accept it. Personally, I think you’d have to be blind not to see how terrible he’s done in office. Voting for Bush won’t change anything about the current state of our country. Voting for Kerry might change things. It comes down to voting for things to be crap for the next four years and voting for a chance, a shot, that things might get better.

Bush is a man of great faith; he believes in Jesus and the Bible. He believes that life is precious. He believes what a lot of religious, faithful people can get behind. He believes what people who are pro-life can get behind. But there’s more at stake here than abortion rights and religion. There’s an entire world of issues outside of this, and they affect everyone, whether you realize it or not. Just as an example, some people say, “I don’t care about health care issues; Bush is pro-life and I’m voting for him.” To this person I confidently say, “You are blind to the world around you, and it is people like you that allow people like Bush to fuck things up for everyone.” It blows my mind that some people would rather stick with what they know rather than take a chance with Kerry, given what Bush has done and the state of our country in general.

Bottom line: I don’t care if we have a democrat, republican, independent, hell, even a chinchilla with mange and an overbite in office, as long as things are good in our country. I’m a split-ticket voter; I go for the best man for the job, regardless of political affiliation. Bush is not good for our country. Kerry may not be the BEST choice for president, because no one could be the PERFECT candidate, but he’s a league better than Bush. And the only way to get Bush out of office, due to our current political system, is to vote for John Kerry.