The goal of 08 ELECTION News is to provide students a wide array of various news articles to read and inform themselves of the upcoming Election. Too often in our TV/internet age we settle for a sound bite or a 30 second TV commercial for getting to know the people and policies of those who ask for our vote. That’s not enough. We need to inform ourselves. Hopefully this site will help take you one more step towards that goal.
Also – you have an opportunity with every article posted, for extra credit. Each article will be accompanied by a question. Answer the question (according Blogging Guidelines) and you may earn up to five points extra credit to be applied to future blog assignments.
I will post articles. You can submit articles for me to post or you may link your own posts here. I ask that you choose reputable news sources so that we are exchanging facts, not gossip. Feel free to use this site to debate this election or these articles with your colleagues. Youtube links are also welcomed.
In the end it must be our goal to become informed. If you are eligible to vote – then do so proudly anchored in the knowledge of personal research. If you can’t yet vote – help others to “wake up”. And if you know citizens who will vote – and do not pay attention to the issues that guide their decision – push them. Make them feel uncomfortable that they don’t know the facts, and still may be deciding not only their fate, but yours as well for the next eight years. Do whatever you can to help your fellow citizens to turn off the 30 second TV commercials and to truly inform themselves before they walk into that Election booth on November 4, 2008.
New York Times – Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes
Question: This question is open – talk to me about the article.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/09/09/palin_fundamentalist/
This article compares Republican VP pick Sara Palin’s stances on many major issues to those of Muslim fundamentalists. Among some of the issues the article brings up are: that she’s for censorship of things she considers “inappropriate”; she wants creationism to be taught alongside real science in schools; and she would make abortion illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. Palin does not believe that global warming is man-made, and she justifies her decisions by saying it was “God’s will” or something similar.
This is just one of many articles that shows how truly appalling Sara Palin is as the Republican VP pick. It makes me sick to think that John McCain chose such an intolerant, right-wing religious extremist with no foreign policy experience for his vice president. In every instance she is compared to Muslim fundamentalists, and these comparisons only serve to underline how awful she really is; often, she is more conservative than the fundamentalists are. Of course, choosing Palin is just a last-ditch effort to win over Hillary Clinton supporters who were so angry about her not getting the nomination. And there actually are Hillary supporters idiotic enough that they would rather vote Republican (even though though Republicans are completely opposite of everything the Democrats are supposed to stand for.) Palin’s blatant disregard for the values our country is built upon (free speech, freedom of religion, etc) disgusts me, and I can’t imagine someone like her possibly holding one of the highest positions in government. She does not have the right to censor my right to free speech, nor to incorporate religion into the government. But I guess she’s never heard of separation of Church and State. In choosing Palin as his running mate, John McCain has chosen someone who undermines the ideals of tolerance and democracy that our Founding Fathers built this country on; the ideals that he pledged to work towards. To quote the article, “You can’t say you are waging a war on religious extremism if you are trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency.”
Man I cannot stand the kind of people that our just changing from one side to the other. Just because Palin is a woman so it means that the republicans should get more votes, I think that is ridiculous. She is a woman with the same viewpoints as the republicans do. Yet they are getting votes from the fence sitters because she is a woman. People got to remember that they are not voting for her they are really voting for John McCain. He isn’t going to die in office that’s just ridiculous to say he’s perfectly healthy for his age. Although her viewpoints on some points are a little extreme especially abortion. She believes that abortion should be gone; that abortion should be illegal. Which other women would say that you should have the choice and I’m not getting in that argument. All I know is that one opinion is going to split the women’s votes in half the ones that are pro-choice and the once that aren’t. This election is going to be very odd and people should really follow what’s going on, I know I will be. I’m going to go out on a quote from Obama. “You put lipstick on a pig it’s still a pig”
I got my reasoning from this page
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08252/910304-152.stm
I defiantly agree with Josh Dykema about how people should know the issues, and be for a candidate for what he stands for instead of the fact of his vice president being a woman. I believe that people are choosing who they want to vote for based on race and gender instead of what they believe in.