Sheena Hussein Fury's Questions for the Candidates

I must open with a new and alarming article I read today. I've been telling everyone to watch Hacking Democracy on the Internet, and now it's also being run on HBO On Demand. I watched it again yesterday. Well, today, I did a little search and found the film-maker's Web site, which is mighty scary! He and the Ohio Secretary of State have been receiving frequent death threats; Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio SOS, had her Web site shut down and recently had an envelope sent to her with white powder in it! Why? Things aren't right! Where's Kevin Spacey?


I've heard a whole lot (and understood a very little) about the economy, taxes, healthcare and foreign relations. This is all well and good, but I have a list of questions I wish McCain and Obama would answer for me, too.

1. People without kids, or private school attendees, often gloss over the public education situition. It's everyone's tax money involved, so people ought to consider that an educated society will be a healthier one all around. What exactly (beyond vouchers) do you plan to do about schools, teachers, education and the KIDS? Thirty percent of kids don't graduate from high school today. How are they going to live in the future? If you haven't been to a public school lately? They're in a terrible condition. Or has it now become acceptable to dumb the people down, so that they'll be good sheeple we can either manipulate, or jail?

2. Ronald Reagan did it all for the nookie *oops* er, he did it for the wrong reasons. To save money, he let tens of thousands of alcoholic, drug-addicted, psychotic, schizophrenic, whoknowswhatsisetic out of Veteran's hospitals everywhere. I remember all of a sudden, L.A. was full of the most care-needing people ever, demanding to be cared for! Most were Vietnam vets, so they were still young. Now, almost 35 years later, there are whole family's sleeping in the streets and in their cars. Tons of them. Does it even come up at any of your meetings? Should homeless, messed up, jobless, diseased (both mentally and physically) hard luck Vets expect no hope whatsoever from you? Like your friend over there at Lehman Bros., right? How will we finally deal with the huge homeless population in most every city?

Come to think of it, that's a state issue...most of these are State issues, but fuck it, I have something to say! The Feds should involve themselves by being aware of situations and steering the states the right away if they're unable to manage it themselves with efficiency and compassion. Are the people just meant to lie and die in the street if they happen to have a lot of bad luck (and bad choices)?

3. If you refuse to legalize marijuana, will you at least decriminalize it (thus letting hundreds of thousands of people who smoked a joint out of overcrowded prisons)? Some states have the lamest laws on marijuana. In New Mexico, for example, if you get caught with one joint, you'll do a year or longer in prison. I happen to think a drunk person is FAR more dangerous than a stoned one. And let's hear it: What is your stance on medical marijuana? What are we so scared of?

4. We are the only "civilized" country that practices the death penalty. Can we stop the barbarism now? Innocent people have been executed within the past six months. Our judicial system has become a bureaocracy - justice has been left behind. I have something else to say about prisons: Why do we see prisoners using fine new computer systems and modern tools so that they can earn a college degree? What about the kid who didn't get arrested? Doesn't that seen somehow...ironic?

5. Street gangs are becoming a bigger and bigger threat to themselves and to innocent passers-by. Whatcha gonna do about that? It has come to my attention that there is a twenty-square block area of Compton that is nowhere land. The cops don't go in there because they are out-armed. This? Is a big problem, especially when the Civil War II starts - the haves v the have-nots. The Salvadoran Salva Maratrucha gang is slashing and burning - in the most alarming manner - the parts of the city THEY want. Chicago, New York, Miami, and all the little towns in between. Be afraid!

6. If Safeway or Lucky or Ralph's want to open a fully-stocked grocery store in the posh part of town, can you force them to open one in the middle of the hood, too? One of the systematic ways our government keeps the poor powerless is to control what goes in and out of the hood. There is NO hood that has a grocery store less than 25 minutes away by bus. A woman I saw said it would be much easier to buy a gun than a tomato where she lives. Fast food, overpriced, understocked liquor stores, gun stores, boarded up windows and falling down buildings.

7. I'd like to request that all PAC's, lobbyists of ANY kind, must only be able to get on his/her knees and beg whenever the congressperson or senator arrivres at or leaves the office. And they have to wear a diaper.

8. I must say, I'm a little bit confused about this separation of church and state thing. I know that it states in the Constitution that church and state shall be separate, but then I see the Ten Commandments enscribed in Judicial buildings and I hear our kids still have to say "one nation, Under God," (which was never meant to be there in the first place!) in school each morning; In God We Trust is everywhere. I thought we were to be a nation that accepts and respects all religions. Is being an Atheist okay in everyone's book? Why must the President, or presidential candidate, have to end all speeches with "God Bless America," or "God Bless You!" That talk honestly makes me nervous. Let's allow anyone who wants to teach their kids creationism home school or go to private school. Otherwise, let's stick to the facts, shall we?

9. Whatever happened to philanthropy, corporate conscience? If a CEO makes 89 million dollars in ONE year JUST in bonuses, what happened to giving that money back to the community? Even those robber barons knew to keep the public happy. Now we're giving THEM money. There's something very wrong with this picture?

10. If you really know how to manufacture weather, will you let us know already?

I have some more things I'll need doing, but I'll save it for another day. Thank you for your kind attention.