8-25-08, 9:22 am

Because of a number of factual errors, from the misspelling of people's names to the use of quotes out of context and the general misstatement of the editorial policy of PoliticalAffairs.net, and its obvious political bias in favor of John McCain and the Republican Party, a recent Investors.com online editorial, 'Finding Friends On the Far, Far Left,' of August 20, 2008, provides a welcome opportunity for PoliticalAffairs.net to remind our readers of where we stand on the hot-button issues in this election.

Investors.com's struggle with basic journalism suggests that it editors can't tell the difference between reporting on and analyzing political issues and making endorsements of candidates, which PoliticalAffairs.net does not do.

Investors.com and the Republican Party support a policy some call 'socialism for the rich,' business-oriented government, and 'political fundamentalism,' meaning a divine right view of corporations and the wealthy. They favor socializing the cost of bad business decisions and failings of the system onto the backs of taxpayers, whom they expect will just unquestioningly fund one bailout after another.

PoliticalAffairs.net, on the other hand is proud to support policies that provide solutions to social problems that benefit all the people, not just certain business interests or the ultra rich. Further, we favor making solutions permanent so that the same stupid mistakes – like oil speculation driving up prices of gasoline, Enron-type fiascos, subprime mortgage meltdowns, airline bailouts, banking collapses, or dot.com bubbles – don't keep happening over and over again. To quote George W. Bush, 'fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me ... you can't get fooled again.'

At PA we constantly write and, yes, agitate, in favor of the right of America's working people to join and organize labor unions. This is a basic, universally recognized human right, which the US has long supported on paper, at least, by putting its signature on international conventions like the UN Declaration of Human Rights (see article 23 at the other end of this link).

Unfortunately Republicans and Investors.com make a mockery of our country's commitment to this right by their support for the manipulation of current labor law to limit workers' rights and by their opposition to new fair labor laws like the Employee Free Choice Act, which we also endorse.

Another basic human right we support is affordable, universal health care. We have a strong preference for a bill that has already been introduced in Congress (and hopefully will pass after November when there is a more solid Democratic majority in Washington): , which would expand Medicare to cover everyone for every medical need.

In contrast, by serving as a mouthpiece for John McCain, Investors.com seems to be behind McCain's duplicitous $3 trillion health care tax, a plan that impose a tax for the first time in history on employee health benefits. By all accounts, McCain's plan would expand coverage very little and would make health care insurance even more difficult to afford for working families.

Obviously Investors.com's has little enthusiasm for expanding health care coverage, but the cost employers pay for health care should be a real concern for capitalists and business owners, as well as workers. Workers with meaningful, affordable benefits are less inclined to see lousy health care coverage as a reason for looking for a new job. The high cost of employee turnover caused by workers seeking new employment because they need better health benefits is a serious issue for individual business owners and corporations as well as the economy as whole. So why would anyone, except the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, be against affordable, universal health care?

Political Affairs supports an immediate end to the Iraq war. If Investors.com can't get behind that, they have a major difference with the 7-in-10 Americans who want our troops home.

We favor equal pay for women workers. Perhaps Investors.com agrees with John McCain that equal pay for women is unnecessary, and blame women for their lower incomes on a lack of education or experience – a sociologically erroneous claim, as women as a whole are now the most educated segment of society. Gender-based pay discrimination is real and is a blatantly harmful social condition: women are our mothers, wives, and partners, our grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and children. Why would any of us, including Investors.com, want to seem them harmed financially by unfair pay?

We defend a woman's right to choose when to be pregnant and to plan when to have a family. We support traditional family values like full and equal funding for public education, job creation with union wages, rebuilding our communities in a meaningful way, and ensuring that all people have access to health care, shelter, and food.

We back serious and urgent action on the environmental crisis and global warming. Because of their clear political bias in his favor, we are forced to assume that Investors.com supports John McCain's view that their is no urgency to solve the global warming crisis. McCain refuses to make caps on emissions for big polluters a mandatory policy, and also refuses to invest seriously in alternatives to fossil fuels other than the already proven dangerous nuclear industry.

But McCain's first priority is to drill, drill, drill. McCain's oil drilling plan is misleading and unfeasible. His claim that new offshore drilling will lower the price of gas is contradicted by the geological facts under the ground, so to speak. Altogether, the US is in possession, at most, of three percent of the earth's petroleum, but today consumes 25 percent of the world's supply. John McCain has an obvious problem with math and a self-admitted problem understanding economics, but Investors.com, dealing as it does with financial figures regularly, doesn't have the same excuse on this question.

We also believe that saving the environment can be directly linked to a much-needed economic stimulus. Rebuilding America by using and investing in 'green' technology and in the rapidly emerging clean, renewable energy sector could create millions of good-paying jobs. But, if we have it right, in addition to his weak stand on environmental issues, Investors.com seems to support John McCain's lethargic response to the need for creating new jobs. The fact is that McCain has given up on fighting to keep good manufacturing jobs in the US. He has expressed no interest in revisiting or rewriting trade agreements like NAFTA or CAFTA, or in abolishing lavish tax policies that encourage businesses to ship jobs overseas.

The current economic crisis presents a huge problem for US capitalism. If US capitalism cannot produce good-paying jobs, the mass of workers, who are also the country's consumers, will never be able to buy the goods they are supposed to buy in order to make the economy run. We call this a crisis of overproduction, which is caused by the drive to maximize profits. What does Investors.com call it? A bump in the road?

Political Affairs also strongly supports protecting Social Security from privatization and guaranteeing benefits for all retirees. We don't need to ask where Investors.com stands. They support John McCain's $5 trillion boondoggle for private investment companies on Wall Street – the same companies that are responsible for the oil speculation which has driven up gas prices, the subprime mortgage crisis, Enron-type fiascos, and the dot.com bubble, to name just a few of the more recent Wall Street schemes that would have destroyed millions of the privatized, stock-market based retirement accounts John McCain is proposing to replace Social Security with.

In addition, we favor the complete removal of the cap on Social Security contributions so that, like in just about every other country in the world with a Social Security system, everyone pays on all of their income.

Political Affairs also believe in basic fairness and equality of all people. We oppose racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. We don't care to speculate where Investors.com stands on these issues. But it is clear to us that John McCain and the Republican Party are eager to engage in racist tactics against their political opponents. Additionally, they oppose laws that would equalize social and economic conditions for gay and lesbian people, such as the social benefits afforded by marriage. They oppose affirmative action policies that promote fairness by increasing the pool of qualified applicants in job searches, university admissions, and government contracts. Investors.com's support for McCain suggests they are on the wrong side of these key democratic issues?

On a final note, we would like to thank Investors.com for the publicity it has given us through its unfair, ill-considered and right-wing slanted editorial. The small but noticeable bump in our online readership over the past few days is helpful for any small publication. Like they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity!