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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (13745)	3/3/2000 12:27:00 PM
From: Racey_Gracey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

As I gaze into my crystal ball, here's my prediction with regard to what's going to happen in the next eight years. George W Bush is going to win two terms. He will slowly but steadily move the country toward three important new strategic initiatives. 1. Vouchers and choice in education. 2. Privatizing the social security system. 3. A Flat tax. All the rest, like Flags, religion, playing the race card, abortion and so forth is just smoke and mirrors designed by the liberal mainstream media to prevent a serious national discussion regarding these issues. I like your statement soooo much I had to view it again. Your crystal ball IMO, is very astute. The media knows that George W is big on education but they seldom asks him to elaborate. He's very big on vouchers and an education for those less educated. His focus is to bring those less fortunate up to the "fortunate" level, hopefully so they will be self sufficient and productive. The Dems want to leave these people helpless, dependent and non thinking and on welfare. I hear on CNCB, that Bush is leading John McCain in CA, by a large margin.

To: greenspirit who wrote (13745)	3/3/2000 2:09:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

It IS all entertainment. Your message is particularly entertaining, in light of what the local neoconservative political theologian in chief views as important. All the rest, like Flags, religion, playing the race card, abortion and so forth is just smoke and mirrors designed by the liberal mainstream media to prevent a serious national discussion regarding these issues. You'll have to talk to Neocon about the race card, with his little brown ones and the Eddie Bauer jackets. Then, there's abortion. Here's Andrew Sullivan, from the NYT last fall, digging into the issue a little. But there is one issue above all others at the center of this new conservatism. That issue is not adultery or even homosexuality, although both have come to play a significant part in it. It is abortion. Its importance to the new generation of conservative intellectuals is easily underestimated, and far too easily ascribed simply to the influence of religious activists. In fact, abortion is at the center of current Republican orthodoxy as much because of conservative intellectuals as evangelical activists. Since this may not be self-evident, I'll let one of those intellectuals stress it himself. Here is a writer in The Standard, taking a rare break earlier this year from the Lewinsky obsession: "Republicans talk a lot about being a majority party, about becoming a governing party, about shaping a conservative future. Roe and abortion are the test. For if Republicans are incapable of grappling with this moral and political challenge; if they cannot earn a mandate to overturn Roe and move toward a post-abortion America, then in truth, there will be no conservative future. Other issues are important, to be sure, and a governing party will have to show leadership on those issues as well. But Roe is central." Who wrote this paragraph? Pat Robertson? Patrick Buchanan? Randy Tate? The answer, again, is William Kristol. His seamless merging of the Lewinsky scandal with the right's other social concerns is perhaps what makes him so integral to the new conservatism. Always, however, the key social issue is abortion. He put the argument most revealingly in the February 1997 issue of the neoconservative political monthly Commentary. "The truth is," Kristol wrote, "that abortion is today the bloody crossroads of American politics. It is where judicial liberation (from the Constitution), sexual liberation (from traditional mores) and women's liberation (from natural distinctions) come together. It is the focal point for liberalism's simultaneous assault on self-government, morals and nature. So, challenging the judicially imposed regime of abortion-on-demand is key to a conservative reformation in politics, in morals, and in beliefs." The choice of words is revealing here. Not just "politics," a realm conservatives were once comfortable restricting themselves to, but "morals" and "beliefs." And not revolution or reform but "refoimation." Rristol's conservatism is happy with the vocabulary of religious war. Earlier this year, Kristol argued that "abortion is likely to emerge as the central - issue in the Presidential campaign of 2000." In the 1980's, the outlawing of abortion was framed in the somewhat liberal terms of saving human life, and protecting human rights. And that is why a smattering of left-leaning intellectuals also signed on as anti-abortion advocates. But in the 1990's, the conservative emphasis has changed. Now the banning of abortion is linked primarily to an attack on the Supreme Court's judicial activism in other areas as well (prayer in schools, women's equality and gay rights foremost among them) and to the more general sexual liberty of the society as a whole. Abortion is central to a reassertion of what Kristol called "traditional mores" and of "natural distinctions" between the sexes. It is not unrelated to the Lewinsky obsession and the anti-gay crusade. In fact, it is the anchor of both. On at least one occasion, Neocon didn't weasel on that one, see Message 7536109. Well, there was a little bit of weaseling, the currently fashionable "state's rights" dodge. Personally, all I want to see is the Republican candidate be straightforward on the issue. Overturning Roe is going to be dogma on Supreme Court appointments, and it doesn't matter if it's Bush or McCain. Smoke and mirrors come in while they try to dodge the issue.