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From Mark:
I hope that Kerry is allowed to win, and that the elite deals for which candidate is going to be the next Emperor was for Bush to be replaced by his cousin (John Forbes Kerry).
I also hope that a half year from now, everyone who votes for Kerry will pressure him just as much as they're complaining about Bush. Constant pressure on Kerry (and the people around him) will be needed to push him away from endless imperial wars, fascism, the surveillance society, and the neo-liberal corporate agendas. I don't have any illusions that Kerry advocates peace, restoration of the Bill of Rights, or shifting toward a non-violent society -- but it would be nice for the nastiness of the Cheney administration to be dealt an overwhelming defeat on November 2. Symbolically, at least, it would be a great improvement. Perhaps the symbolism of the BOSTON Red Sox winning in BUSCH Stadium is an interesting synchronicity (or an inside political joke).
November 9, a week after the election, is 11/9 - 9/11 in reverse. This would be a great time for advocates for peace and civil liberties to pressure Kerry to undo the fear paradigms that threaten to wreck civilization.
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http://www.bushrelativesforkerry.com "because blood is thinner than oil!"
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Star Tribune Saturday, October 16, 2004
Winona LaDuke Says Her Vote's Going to Kerry
By Paul Levy
Winona LaDuke, Ralph Nader's running mate in the two previous presidential elections, plans to vote for John Kerry, she said Friday from her home on Minnesota's White Earth Reservation.
"I'm voting for John Kerry this November," LaDuke said in a prepared statement. "I'm voting my conscience.
"John Kerry provides promise for Native America and for America," said LaDuke, a longtime activist and Harvard graduate. "His policy proposals involve vision -- like alternative energy, more accessible health care, and finding all those children who have been 'left behind' by the Bush administration. Heck, Kerry can even say 'sovereignty,' which is a far cry from Bush's inability to pronounce the word."
LaDuke, who turns 45 on Monday, is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, which seeks to have land returned to natives of the northwestern Minnesota reservation, whose ancestors were duped into giving away land to government agents, lumber barons and rail executives. She applauded Kerry's efforts in solving Indian Trust cases and said that his support of native communities shows "we are on his radar."
LaDuke said she regrets that the Democratic Party is "investing positive, grass-roots energy to deny ballot access" to her former running mate, Nader.
Four months ago, when a reporter asked LaDuke whether she was "relieved" not to be running for vice president, as she had in 1996 and 2000, she replied, "Yes, and thank you for phrasing the question in that way."
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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6562575?&rnd=1098395329703&has-player=false Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson sounds off on the fun-hogs in the passing lane
By DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
[excerpts - some words in the original would trigger "spam" filters]
Armageddon came early for George Bush this year, and he was not ready for it. His long-awaited showdowns with my man John Kerry turned into a series of horrible embarrassments that cracked his nerve and demoralized his closest campaign advisers. They knew he would never recover, no matter how many votes they could steal for him in Florida, where the presidential debates were closely watched and widely celebrated by millions of Kerry supporters who suddenly had reason to feel like winners.
Kerry came into October as a five-point underdog with almost no chance of winning three out of three rigged confrontations with a treacherous little freak like George Bush. But the debates are over now, and the victor was clearly John Kerry every time. He steamrollered Bush and left him for roadkill.
....
Indeed. the numbers are weird today, and so is this dangerous election. The time has come to rumble, to inject a bit of fun into politics. That's exactly what the debates did. John Kerry looked like a winner, and it energized his troops. Voting for Kerry is beginning to look like very serious fun for everybody except poor George, who now suddenly looks like a loser.
That is fatal in a presidential election.
I look at elections with the cool and dispassionate gaze of a professional gambler, especially when I'm betting real money on the outcome. Contrary to most conventional wisdom, I see Kerry with five points as a recommended risk. Kerry will win this election, if it happens, by a bigger margin than Bush finally gouged out of Florida in 2000. That was about forty-six percent, plus five points for owning the U.S. Supreme Court -- which seemed to equal fifty-one percent. Nobody really believed that, but George W. Bush moved into the White House anyway.
It was the most brutal seizure of power since Hitler burned the German Reichstag in 1933 and declared himself the new Boss of Germany. Karl Rove is no stranger to Nazi strategy, if only because it worked, for a while, and it was sure as hell fun for Hitler. But not for long. He ran out of oil, the whole world hated him, and he liked to gobble pure crystal biphetamine and stay awake for eight or nine days in a row with his maps & his bombers & his dope-addled general staff.
They all loved the whiff. It is the perfect drug for War -- as long as you are winning -- and Hitler thought he was King of the Hill forever. He had created a new master race, and every one of them worshipped him. The new Hitler youth loved to march and sing songs in unison and dance naked at night for the generals. They were fanatics.
That was sixty-six years ago, far back in ancient history, and things are not much different today. We still love War.
George Bush certainly does. In four short years he has turned our country from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war. But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're not. Love it or leave it.
War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?
If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a "liberal" candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House today -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the once-proud, once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White House on November 2nd.
.....
I watch three or four frantic network-news bulletins about Iraq every day, and it is all just fraudulent Pentagon propaganda, the absolute opposite of what it says: u.s. transfers sovereignty to iraqi interim "government." Hot damn! Iraq is finally Free, and just in time for the election! It is a deliberate cowardly lie. We are no more giving power back to the Iraqi people than we are about to stop killing them.
Your neighbor's grandchildren will be fighting this stupid, greed-crazed Bush-family "war" against the whole Islamic world for the rest of their lives, if John Kerry is not elected to be the new President of the United States in November.
The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it that way.
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Voting for the First Time: Interview with Utah Phillips
By Carolyn Crane, The Nation. Posted October 15, 2004.
Phillips, a committed non-voter who was taught that his body is a ballot, will be casting a real ballot this year.
He is a folk singer who tours the United States, delighting
audiences with his outlandish stories and challenging them with the ruthless honesty
of his insights. A veteran of the U.S. Army who served in Korea, he rode the
trains for years after coming home in despair from what he'd witnessed
overseas. He met Ammon Hennessy in Utah at the Joe Hill House for Transients and
Migrants and discovered anarchy and pacifism.
These tenets have since shaped his life and work. Phillips and I live in the same Northern California town, Nevada City, where he was one of the founders of our thriving Peace Center of Nevada County. It was from the community radio station there that he produced Loafer's Glory, a collection of stories, poems and songs set to the accompaniment of Woody Guthrie-influenced guitarist Mark Ross. And it was to that radio station he went in late September to share with his community an important political decision he'd made, which caused him great difficulty and pain.
Q:You surprised many people who are familiar with your work with your announcement that you were going to register to vote for the first time ever.
A:This is not easy for me. I'm an anarchist and I've been an anarchist many,
many years. The anarchy that I've followed and practiced all of that time came
to me through Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers, through Ammon Hennessy, the
great Catholic anarchist and pacifist. Ammond taught me, as he did, to treat
his body like a ballot. My body is my ballot. And he said, "Cast that body
ballot on behalf of the people around you every day of your life, every day. And
don't let anybody ever tell you you haven't voted." You just didn't assign
responsibility to other people to do things. You accept responsibility and see to
it that something gets done. That's the way he lived and that's the way the
past forty, going on fifty, years that I have lived. It's a way to vote without
caving in to the civil authority I'm committed to dissolving.
But, we are in a desperate situation here. And it's not just us in the United
States. There are people all over the world who are affected by these people
who have staged a coup on our government. I can see a shopkeeper in Damascus
who's threatened by being bombed out. I can see a schoolgirl who's collaterally
killed by the action of these people. There are millions of people in the
world who are affected by the actions of this government, and they can't vote in
this election. I have no use for Kerry. I have no use for Bush. I don't like
either one of them, but these folks can't vote in this election. They have to
have people vote for them. And I intend to be one of those. What's the best
chance they've got to keep them from being bombed and killed? I don't know. Kerry
is an unknown quantity. Bush is a known quantity. A crapshoot, isn't it? But
I'm going to stand in for one of these people. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong by
myself.
Q:When you made your announcement, you talked about women who have inspired and influenced your decision. Can you talk a little about that?
A:I learned a great deal from Judi Bari. I drove and talked with her the day
before her car got blown up in Oakland in 1990. She had come around to the idea
that direct action and political action are two hands of the same body. I
think as an anarchist and when you keep company with other anarchists, as I have
in the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, and this is my fiftieth year
in the IWW, you develop a great antagonism toward the political process,
toward statism in any form. However, many of us have come to realize that political
action and direct action are two hands of the same body. We have to learn how
to work together: the street and the ballot box. In places like Philadelphia
or Boston, Mass., when they put freedom in jail, when they put freedom of
assembly and freedom of association and freedom of speech in a bullpen with razor
wire around it, they put freedom in jail. In the bullpen on Pier 57 in New
York, when my daughter [Morgan Phillips] was jailed for trying to shut down Wall
Street in an act of nonviolence civil disobedience.
They're trying to tie that direct-action hand behind our back. If they
succeed in that, how long will it be, how long are we going to hang on to the other
hand, the political action hand? Every significant social movement in this
country - anti-slavery, suffragette, labor movement, peace movement - all
l
started on the street. All of them began on the street. Don't give up the street.
The street's where we win. We vote with our feet. That's where it all begins.
Made a song about that, "Bodhi Busick." Put a nice tune to it. No, I won't give
up the street. But in this instance, at this time, at this place, I think the
situation is so dire that yes, I have registered to vote and I am prepared to
stand in for one of the victims of the kind of brutality that the people in
Washington bring to the world.
Q:You've said that your choice to not vote, to not participate in the system in that way, is one of the most sacred promises you've made. I know what it means to you to make this decision. It's sobering, because I think: Are things really that bad?
A:Yeah, it is that bad. Now, I am not putting myself forth as an example. I'm
not putting myself forth as a role model. Anarchists don't make rules for other
people. You make rules for yourself and then people have got to learn how to
trust you. And if you blow it you have the courage to change, and you do
change and an anarchist is always something you're becoming. I don't need any
congratulations for what I'm doing at all. I feel lousy about it. I don't feel good
about it all. I'm simply going to do it. And if there are consequences of my
act, than I harvest those consequences. That too, is anarchy.
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http://starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/election_04.html
Be the Wind: On the Upcoming Elections
by Starhawk
As you read this, a mother in Iraq is newly wailing over the body of a dead child. A nineteen year old kid who used to be the star of his basketball team is being sent home without legs. A father in Guantanamo hasn't seen his kids, or sunlight, for three years. Another chunk breaks off the polar ice caps and the heat trapped by greenhouse gases churns the atmosphere into new swirls of turbulence like those that unleashed four hurricanes in one season in the Caribbean. As I type this sentence, another worker loses her union job, another child is shot in Palestine, another farmer somewhere drinks pesticides in despair.
The stakes are really high right now. And the future is very unclear. It seems likely the outcome of the elections will be a cliff hanger until the very end. Bush could win. Kerry could win. Bush could try to manipulate, steal, or subvert the outcome. His forces could manufacture a last-minute surprise-unearth Bin Laden, say, or stage a terrorist attack. They could even try to postpone or cancel elections altogether. After all, this particular gang of thugs has for decades plotted, planned, schemed, manipulated and murdered to consolidate their power-why should they let it go for anything as simple as a fair election?
I don't know when I've seen so many people so deeply afraid, staring into the future like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Will it run us down? Do we try to deflect its path, or run away?
I'm hearing two schools of thought among progressives. Some are heading to swing states to help get out the vote. Others are saying, 'Why vote?' when both candidates are taking such similar positions on the war, and serve the same corporate interests.
I'm a direct action kind of gal, and I don't generally put a lot of energy into electoral politics. But I believe that we need to vote. We need to do all we can to keep the neocons behind Bush from further consolidating their power.
Voting is not the most empowering of political acts -- but it's the one that most people across the political spectrum take part in. When I stand in line to vote in my neighborhood, I stand in a crowd that is more diverse than almost any other political activity I take part in. Working class, middle class, old, young, Euro/African/Asian/Latino Americans-everyone is there. I don't see how we can claim to speak to the communities who are most impacted by the neocons policies, most disenfranchised, most utterly screwed, if we disdain this simplest, most basic of political acts. How do we speak to the parents of kids whose schools are lacking books and desks and supplies if we can't get out to vote for school bonds? In California, we have a chance to vote for Proposition 66, which would end the worst abuses of our vicious three-strike law that now condemns mostly black and brown offenders to life sentences for stealing a few bucks worth of groceries. If you can't be bothered to vote for that, don't claim to be an ally of communities of color. In every area, there are crucial issues on the ballot that go far beyond just the choice of presidential candidate -- whether they are initiatives to ban the growing of GMO crops that we need to pass, or initiatives to ban gay marriage that we need to defeat.
What about voting for Nader, or the Green Party? I've voted for Nader many times. I'm registered Green Party. I strongly support Green Party candidates in local and regional elections. I've seen what a Green Mayor and City Council can do in Sebastopol, where they have banned the use of pesticides on city property, planted a permaculture garden outside the Police Station, are working on a community garden and skateboard park. I think that's one way we can build a Green Party or other third party as a counterforce that might pull our national dialogue to the left-from the bottom up, in places where we can win and build alternatives as examples of what is possible. I thought Nader was right to run last time, to attempt to give voice to issues that other candidates weren't talking about, to start to build a new base. But this time, I see his decisions as undermining that base. If by some miracle a candidate with his policies got elected, she'd need to be a great coalition builder, with a brilliant sense of how to win over, influence, charm, and yes, and occasionally arm-twist both allies and enemies -- and I don't see that in Nader or the Greens nationally at this time.
I've heard it said that "the lesser of two evils is still an evil." Kerry does not perfectly represent my vision for the world, or the policies I would like to see implemented. I don't expect that any candidate for President will, under the current system which is so driven by money and corporate influence. But Kerry does represent change, a refusal to give the current evil a mandate. And here let me quote my brother, Mark Simos, who wrote to me saying:
"I'm choosing to focus on these messages: that voting for change right now will send the most powerful possible message to the world, that Americans still have a conscience; that we are not completely controlled by our media spinmeisters; that the mechanisms of democracy are, somehow, still intact if compromised on all sides; that we hold our leaders accountable for the consequences of their policies, even if they themselves refuse to do so; that we are capable of getting out of denial about realities on the ground, instead of "changing the facts to suit our position"; and that we are fundamentally committed to finding more just ways of exercising leadership in the post 9/11 world. In other words, the act of change itself will open doors to new alternatives hard to envision right now.'
But won't things get so bad if Bush gets in again that people will finally wake up and make the revolution? Oh, if you believe that you weren't around or have forgotten the same arguments in '68 and '72 and '80 and '84 and on and on. What actually happens when the right wing triumphs is that progressives become demoralized, the economic elite gains and keeps more power, the national dialogue shifts further away from progressive goals, and things get worse. Maybe it's hard to imagine that things can get worse than they are, but I've been to Palestine and I'm telling you, they can get a whole lot worse. And I believe that in many important ways Kerry will be significantly better than Bush. On issues of women's rights and on the environment, there's a world of difference between them. Kerry has fought to prevent Bush from rolling back clean air and water standards. He supports a shift to renewable energy sources, and is aware of the global warming crisis. He's a strong supporter of women's right to choose, and is pledged to nominate judges to the Federal bench who will support our liberties.
At minimum, he seems to inhabit roughly the same reality I do, in which Iraq is a mess, the economy is a disaster, and people all over the world are suffering. Listening to Bush in the debates, I began to wonder if he is actually the president of some other country, where foreign wars are going well, the economy is booming, African American children are dutifully doing their homework in the homes their parents own and getting the test scores they need to go on to college, and the environment is something invented by liberals to hamper business. That would explain a lot, since I know he wasn't actually elected president of this one. For the American people to ratify the Bush policies of greed, lies, empire and war, or to let them continue out of apathy or misguided principle, would be to contribute to crimes against humanity. I have no illusions that Kerry will be a beacon of pacifism and revolution, but at least he knows that Iraq is a disaster, that nuclear proliferation is a danger, that jobs are evaporating, and that the environment actually exists and has some bearing on our quality of life. And Kerry windsurfs. That's a quality I want in a president, because we need to be the wind.
We need to be the force that politicians have to respond to. It's useless complaining about Kerry's positions or about how frustrating it is to not have a viable candidate that can really raise the issues of the war and globalization. We need to raise those issues, as we have been, and continue to raise them so strongly and loudly that they cannot be ignored. Regardless of who is elected, we need to build the base and the movement that can shift the political currents away from the right-wing shoals of empire back to the harbor of real democracy.
If Bush wins the election or steals it, if there is fraud or attempts to disrupt the process, we can't sit back this time with that paralyzed-rabbit-stare. We need to be organized and prepared to hit the streets and raise such a ruckus that the fraud cannot be ratified. We can complain all we want about Gore and the Democrats rolling over and playing dead last time-but how many of us were in the streets urging them on to fight? This time, we need to be ready. So at the bottom of this email you'll find a call from the NO STOLEN ELECTIONS campaign, and a pledge you can sign to participate in protests including nonviolent civil disobedience if fraud occurs. I've signed it: I hope you will too.
If Kerry wins, we also need to be prepared to hit the streets, to celebrate but also to agitate, to let him know that we actually do want health care and good schools, taxes on the rich and the corporations, and end to the murderous mess in Iraq and our civil liberties back. Oh yes, and that small problem of the basic life support systems of the planet heading toward collapse-could we begin to address that? In San Francisco, we have demonstrations planned for November 3, regardless of who wins, calling for Healthcare, not Warfare-beginning with a 9 AM rally at Justin Herman Plaza, a march through the Tenderloin district and a convergence at noon at the Federal Building. It's part of an overall national campaign, Beyond Voting, www.beyondvoting.org . You can check the website to find out what's planned in your area, or plan an action of your own.
And whoever wins, we need to actually build the world we want to live in, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. That's a longterm project, and I won't outline the full program here. But here's what I intend to do on November 2:
My house is across the street from our neighborhood polling place. We're going to set up a free caf� in our garage, and invite the neighbors to stop by, before or after voting. For some free coffee, and some homegrown apple pie, and some conversation about what our neighborhood wants and needs. Maybe we'll set up a mini Really Free Market, and give stuff away. Give out sidewalk chalk to the kids and let them draw their visions on the street. It's a small action, but any time we start to reach out across the barriers that keep us isolated and build community, we undermine the empire.
A year ago, my friends and I were blockading and dancing outside the walls of the World Trade Organization's collapsing Ministerial, chanting in Spanish, "We are the wind that blows the Empire down."
We need to be that wind.
Copyright (c) 2004 by Starhawk. All rights reserved. This copyright protects Starhawk's right to future publication of her work. Nonprofit, activist, and educational groups may circulate this essay (forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission.
Starhawk is an activist, organizer, and author of Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising and nine other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality. Her latest book, The Earth Path, has just been published by HarperSanFrancisco. For details of her upcoming events, see her schedule page.
NO STOLEN ELECTIONS! www.Nov3.US
Sisters & Brothers,
We all remember the votes that were never counted in Florida 2000. While we are all working hard for a positive outcome on November 2nd, we also have to be prepared for a repeat of a 2000 stolen election. Below is a pledge for people to sign, supporting efforts to mobilize and protect the vote on November 2nd and making a commitment to protest starting on November 3rd in the case of a fraudulent vote count. By signing this pledge, you will be joining with thousands of others in the November 3rd Urgent Response Network. Please sign the pledge at www.Nov3.US and pass it around far and wide.
We are setting up a Fair Elections Advisory Council made up of U.S. and international elections experts who will give us their assessment on election day itself. If they find significant fraud, we will activate the Urgent Response Network on or immediately after November 3rd, calling on people everywhere to engage in protest, including non-violent civil disobedience, in front of their local federal buildings and other appropriate places. We will also be asking those who can to converge in the states where the most serious fraud occurred, as well as in Washington DC.
In addition to signing the pledge, please work with other people and groups in your area to protect the vote on November 2nd and to build the Urgent Response Network. Pick a venue for your local protest in the case that the Urgent Response Network is activated, and list the time and place on the website at www.Nov3.US We also recommend that you set up a place to jointly watch the election results on November 2nd.
Let us commit ourselves to making sure that this time around, the person who occupies the White House is the one who won the election.
No Stolen Election Pledge of Action:
"I remember the stolen presidential election of 2000 and I am willing to take action in 2004 if the election is stolen again. I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 2nd. If that right is systematically violated, I pledge to join nationwide protests starting on November 3rd, either in my community, in the states where the fraud occurred, or in Washington DC."
Please sign the pledge now at www.Nov3.US
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http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/Columns/Editorial/editorial39.htm Kerry Will Restore American Dignity 2004 Iconoclast Presidential Endorsement
Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:
* Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
* Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans' benefits and military pay.
* Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
* Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
* Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
* Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
* Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.
These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.
The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.
Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.
Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.
President Bush has announced plans to change the Social Security system as we know it by privatizing it, which when considering all the tangents related to such a change, would put the entire economy in a dramatic tailspin.
The Social Security Trust Fund actually lends money to the rest of the government in exchange for government bonds, which is how the system must work by law, but how do you later repay Social Security while you are running a huge deficit? It's impossible, without raising taxes sometime in the future or becoming fiscally responsible now. Social Security money is being used to escalate our deficit and, at the same time, mask a much larger government deficit, instead of paying down the national debt, which would be a proper use, to guarantee a future gain.
Privatization is problematic in that it would subject Social Security to the ups, downs, and outright crashes of the Stock Market. It would take millions in brokerage fees and commissions out of the system, and, unless we have assurance that the Ivan Boeskys and Ken Lays of the world will be caught and punished as a deterrent, subject both the Market and the Social Security Fund to fraud and market manipulation, not to mention devastate and ruin multitudes of American families that would find their lives lost to starvation, shame, and isolation.
Kerry wants to keep Social Security, which each of us already owns. He says that the program is manageable, since it is projected to be solvent through 2042, with use of its trust funds. This would give ample time to strengthen the economy, reduce the budget deficit the Bush administration has created, and, therefore, bolster the program as needed to fit ever-changing demographics.
Our senior citizens depend upon Social Security. Bush's answer is radical and uncalled for, and would result in chaos as Americans have never experienced. Do we really want to risk the future of Social Security on Bush by spinning the wheel of uncertainty?
In those dark hours after the World Trade Center attacks, Americans rallied together with a new sense of patriotism. We were ready to follow Bush's lead through any travail.
He let us down.
When he finally emerged from his hide-outs on remote military bases well after the first crucial hours following the attack, he gave sound-bytes instead of solutions.
He did not trust us to be ready to sacrifice, build up our public and private security infrastructure, or cut down on our energy use to put economic pressure on the enemy in all the nations where he hides. He merely told us to shop, spend, and pretend nothing was wrong.
Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him.
The Iconoclast, the President's hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper's publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Again, he let us down.
We presumed the President had solid proof of the existence of these weapons, what and where they were, even as the search continued. Otherwise, our troops would be in much greater danger and the premise for a hurried-up invasion would be moot, allowing more time to solicit assistance from our allies.
Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda.
Now he argues unconvincingly that Iraq was providing safe harbor to terrorists, his new key justification for the invasion. It is like arguing that America provided safe harbor to terrorists leading to 9/11.
Once and for all, George Bush was President of the United States on that day. No one else. He had been President nine months, he had been officially warned of just such an attack a full month before it happened. As President, ultimately he and only he was responsible for our failure to avert those attacks.
We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a "wartime president." America is in service 365 days a year. We don't need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don't get done.
What has evolved from the virtual go-it-alone conquest of Iraq is more gruesome than a stain on a White House intern's dress. America's reputation and influence in the world has diminished, leaving us with brute force as our most persuasive voice.
Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous thing and "spin" will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not a thousand of them.
Kerry has remained true to his vote granting the President the authority to use the threat of war to intimidate Saddam Hussein into allowing weapons inspections. He believes President Bush rushed into war before the inspectors finished their jobs.
Kerry also voted against President Bush's $87 billion for troop funding because the bill promoted poor policy in Iraq, privileged Halliburton and other corporate friends of the Bush administration to profiteer from the war, and forced debt upon future generations of Americans.
Kerry's four-point plan for Iraq is realistic, wise, strong, and correct. With the help from our European and Middle Eastern allies, his plan is to train Iraqi security forces, involve Iraqis in their rebuilding and constitution-writing processes, forgive Iraq's multi-billion dollar debts, and convene a regional conference with Iraq's neighbors in order to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq's borders and non-interference in Iraq's internal affairs.
The publishers of the Iconoclast differ with Bush on other issues, including the denial of stem cell research, shortchanging veterans' entitlements, cutting school programs and grants, dictating what our children learn through a thought-controlling "test" from Washington rather than allowing local school boards and parents to decide how young people should be taught, ignoring the environment, and creating extraneous language in the Patriot Act that removes some of the very freedoms that our founding fathers and generations of soldiers fought so hard to preserve.
We are concerned about the vast exportation of jobs to other countries, due in large part to policies carried out by Bush appointees. Funds previously geared at retention of small companies are being given to larger concerns, such as Halliburton - companies with strong ties to oil and gas. Job training has been cut every year that Bush has resided at the White House.
Then there is his resolve to inadequately finance Homeland Security and to cut the Community Oriented Policing Program (COPS) by 94 percent, to reduce money for rural development, to slash appropriations for the Small Business Administration, and to under-fund veterans' programs.
Likewise troubling is that President Bush fought against the creation of the 9/11 Commission and is yet to embrace its recommendations.
Vice President Cheney's Halliburton has been awarded multi-billion-dollar contracts without undergoing any meaningful bid process - an enormous conflict of interest - plus the company has been significantly raiding the funds of Export-Import Bank of America, reducing investment that could have gone toward small business trade.
When examined based on all the facts, Kerry's voting record is enviable and echoes that of many Bush allies who are aghast at how the Bush administration has destroyed the American economy. Compared to Bush on economic issues, Kerry would be an arch-conservative, providing for Americans first. He has what it takes to right our wronged economy.
The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our present course of chaos. We cannot afford to double the debt that we already have. We need to be moving in the opposite direction.
John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in America the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district attorney, lieutenant governor, and senator.
Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence, good sense, and guts to make it happen.
That's why The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.
The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A447-2004Oct26.html
36 Papers Abandon Bush for Kerry
By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, October 27, 2004; Page A13
The Orlando Sentinel has backed every Republican seeking the White House since Richard M. Nixon in 1968. Not this time.
"This president has utterly failed to fulfill our expectations," the Florida paper said in supporting John F. Kerry, prompting some angry calls and a few dozen cancellations.
"A lot of people thought they could trust that the Sentinel would always go Republican, and when that didn't happen, they felt betrayed," said Jane Healy, the paper's editorial page editor.
The Sentinel is among 36 newspapers that endorsed President Bush four years ago and have flip-flopped, to coin a phrase, into Kerry's corner. These include the Chicago Sun-Times, the Los Angeles Daily News and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, according to industry magazine Editor & Publisher. Bush has won over only six papers that backed Al Gore, including the Denver Post, which received 700 letters -- all of them protesting the move.
Nine more papers, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer yesterday, abandoned Bush after four years but did not support the Massachusetts senator. Instead, these papers -- the Detroit News, the Tampa Tribune and the New Orleans Times-Picayune among them -- threw up their collective hands and made no endorsement.
"We have decided not to add one more potentially polarizing voice to a poisoned debate," the Plain Dealer editorial said. Amid reports that Publisher Alex Machaskee, who chairs the editorial board, wanted to back Bush, the Ohio paper acknowledged that a majority of the board favored Kerry.
Even many editorial page editors say they do not believe their endorsements move many voters in an age of round-the-clock opinion-slinging on television and online. But the Bush defections may reflect a degree of disillusionment with the president, at least among opinion leaders, principally on Iraq but on domestic issues, as well.
"I've always argued that presidential endorsements, which may mean a lot to political activists and groupies, are the least important endorsements big-city newspapers make," said Brent Larkin, the Plain Dealer's editorial page editor, whose paper has backed a candidate in every election since at least World War II. "People make up their own minds and do not need our nickel's worth."
Nolan Finley, who runs the Detroit News editorial page, disagrees: "I've heard people speculate they don't mean as much anymore, but I think they're influential still, particularly in close races. Voters are looking for answers in an election like this one." The decision not to endorse was "an agonizing process," he said, noting that the News has backed every Republican seeking the White House since Ulysses S. Grant.
All told, Kerry leads Bush 142 to 123 in endorsements, and when measured by circulation, 17.5 million to 11.5 million, Editor & Publisher says. The Massachusetts senator has won the backing of the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Des Moines Register and both Seattle newspapers. The president has the support of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, the Arizona Republic, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Columbus Dispatch, the Dallas Morning News, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Washington Times and both Cincinnati newspapers.
Others that switched from Bush in 2000 to Kerry in 2004 include the Morning Call of Allentown, Pa.; the Idaho Statesman in Boise; and the Bangor Daily News in Maine.
Kerry won over some editorial boards through personal campaigning. Earlier in the year, said the Sentinel's Healy, she believed that "Kerry was too liberal for us as a senator from Massachusetts." But through an hour-long interview with the board and the presidential debates, "we became convinced he would be moderate as president, and more moderate than President Bush in terms of fiscal responsibility and the war, in terms of bringing in international cooperation."
Kerry also spoke by phone with the Plain Dealer's Larkin and Machaskee.
In its no-one-to-endorse editorial, the Tampa Tribune put it this way: "We cannot support Bush because of his mishandling of the war in Iraq, record deficits pending, assault on open government and failed promise to be a 'uniter not a divider,' but what Kerry stands for is unclear."
� 2004 The Washington Post Company
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