Speakers showed disrespect, cruelty

The Republican Convention was a phantasmagoria of disrespect, disdain, mockery, taunts and cruelty. When Arnold Schwarzenegger called Democrats “economic girlie-men,” I thought of the Abu Ghraib prisoner forced to wear women’s panties over his face. Virginia delegate Morton Blackwell distributed 250 to 300 Band-Aids decorated with a purple heart and the words “It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart.” Intended to insult John Kerry, the Band-Aids backfired by insulting every soldier who has ever received a Purple Heart; but Newt Gingrich (who favored the Vietnam War, as long as they didn’t make him go) said he thought the Band-Aids were “funny.”

The taunting reached its crescendo in Bush’s acceptance speech. By promising workers that if elected, he would provide more job training and better, higher-paying jobs, he metaphorically stomped on the feet of people his policies have been robbing for the last four years. Under those policies, millions of people have lost their jobs, and those still working fear that their jobs could be lost without warning to outsourcing, which Bush’s chief economic advisor called “a good thing.” Wages have fallen and will fall even lower under Bush’s new rules which, as of last month, made 6 million workers ineligible for overtime pay. Bush’s first-term record suggests that the “ownership society” he wants to create is one where wealthy barbarians will own the rest of us.

Ann Adams

Oak Harbor