The Current Republican Party is Deadly to America -- It Has Almost Killed Her Already

Do not be fooled by John McCain’s new soft, friendly ad and his admission that things have been bad the last eight years. He and his Republican Party are not the ones to bring us change! REMEMBER – it was McCain’s party, and McCain’s votes for his Republican party’s policies, that made things bad. They do not deserve another four years. Do not give it to them!

What we must do is stop them from stealing this election, too. All thinking, compassionate Americans must fight for fair elections and be ever vigilant that everyone is able to cast his or her vote and that every vote counts and is counted. This right to vote really is the fabric of democracy. Yet the Republicans are at war with our democracy. They gave it grievous wounds in 2000 and 2004. Now here they go again!

They do not want anyone but their people, the ostrich-lemmings, to vote. If every one else were to vote, the Republicans would lose. However, in a democracy, it is crucial that we allow and encourage every adult to vote. Voting rights are important civil rights that we must fight to uphold for the poor and politically weak.

The history of voter suppression in this country goes back to its beginning. The U.S. Constitution (yes, the original document had its flaws, too), when ratified in 1787, it did not define a citizen. Any citizen of a state was deemed a citizen of the nation. At the time, most states only granted the right to vote to white male property owners. By 1850, most landowner requirements were eliminated. Throughout America's history, certain groups of citizens were disenfranchised. Poll taxes, literacy requirements and physical barriers effectively removed these individuals from the voting pool. Court decisions, local legislation and Constitutional amendments overturned many of these conditions for voting, but it has taken a huge effort for blacks and women to get to vote in America.

Yet some still do not like it that blacks and browns have the right to vote, and they work to keep people from voting. In our day, that group is the Republican Party. Lincoln must hate his name associated with such a bunch of conspirators against the right to vote.

It was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, pushed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, that made the big difference. The history of oppression of blacks is a sorry one for this country. After blacks were freed from slavery in the Civil War, and granted the right to vote in 1871, literacy requirements, physical violence, property destruction, hiding the polls and economic pressures still kept many blacks from voting, particularly in the South.

Republicans of our day still fight against black (and brown) voting, and they have a particular venom for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, who valiantly attempt to register the poor and underprivileged, hopefully giving them a say in our democracy. That is why the Republicans are crying against them in their latest smokescreen. It is a familiar tactic of the Rove-Bush machine. Republican have repeatedly attempted to exclude legal voters and reduce Democratic turnout. There are many shocking stories from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections of such purposeful suppression of voters.

The Republicans are the ones who are always crying wolf and voter fraud while, in reality, they are the ones doing it, stealing elections and engaging in massive campaigns of voter suppression.

Now, they are attempting to disqualify hundreds of thousands of voters. What does that say about a political party? Their strategy is not to persuade voters that their positions are best for the country, but to disenfranchise them in as many places as they can. Right now, Republicans are doing all they can to prevent as many people as possible from voting in swing states like Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, and, of course, Ohio.

They won't give up. Cheating is all they have left and the power they desire so madly at stake. They will do anything to stay in power. Lie, cheat, steal? Sure!

They will fight to destroy the larger vote, and then they will smile and lie and maybe even wink at you. Since the snake was in the garden with Eve, there has never been a more deceitful creature on God’s green earth than this current version of the Republican Party.

We must defeat these inveterate liars so soundly on November 4 that the party will have to take a different direction. We need another kind of choice than the evil, neo-con/closet racist choice they give Americans now. The current Republican Party is deadly to America. It has almost killed her already.