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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ColtonGang who wrote (124)	9/2/2000 9:40:22 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

David, Although it may not sound sensible to leave Saddam in power, those who understand the politics of the region know why we could not involve the US in an occupation of an Arab nation. Iraq is 55% Shiite Arab, some 20% Kurdish, and the rest a mishmash of Sunnis and seculars. Every nation in the region has one claim or another on Iraq, from the Kurds to these Shiites (since some of Shiism's holiest sites lie in Iraq), which then make Iran have a claim. But Iran is Persian, and Iraqi's are Arabs, so although they may share the same Shia religion, they hate each other on a national level. And the Kurds claim northern Iraq, as well as a large part of Turkey. So if we gave them the north, they would use it as a base against the Turks and thus the Turks would invade, and then Iran, Syria, and Turkey would go at each other's throats....etc, etc, etc... (you get the picture). As for Cheney and his stock options... WHY SHOULD HE DEAL WITH THEM UNTIL HE IS ELECTED??!!! They are his and they belong to him. Why should he divest himself until after the votes are cast?? I mean... Al Gore has been the executor of a trust which contains somewhere between 1/2 and 1 million dollars in Occidental Petroleum stock. Why hasn't he divested the portfolio of that? Of why didn't he put it in a blind trust since he is like the majority inheritor (now that his sister died of lung cancer from smoking Daddy's tobacco) of those assets? And why didn't he sell that stock BEFORE he got involved and assisted Occidental in obtaining that $3.6 billion dollar plot of Federal Land they wanted drilling rights on?? (Btw, if you doubt me, you can asked all of those protesters at the democratic convention. They were protesting Gore's involvement with Occidental). As for running government, what experience does Al Gore have? He has NEVER been the executive officer of a company, a state, a town, or any other corporation or agency. He has run NOTHING, but merely played second string to others, including Clinton. I mean, how much say do you think Bill and Hillary let him have?? They just wanted he and Tipper to go out and raise money and cover his @ss on the various scandals he got involved in. But even though we'll never know if GW would have reached executive level without his father's name, he can still affirm that he HAS run companies, states, and baseball teams. And besides.. we all know that NO EXECUTIVE creates a political or business plan solely on their own. That's why they have a staff and a cabinet of advisors. What I want from a CEO or President is someone who can take wise council, separate the fluff from the facts, BS from basics and make the right decision. Leaders are there to set an agenda and then bring in the quality people who can create it and put it forward. And btw, one more thing... with oil prices rising the way they are due to monopolistic OPEC manipulations, I would suggest you ponder how valuable it would be having oil men in office who understand how to make the US less dependent on foreign oil. Re-invigorating the domestic oil and energy sectors from the derelict condition they have been in for the past 10 years is one of the greatest accomplishments the US could undertake. It would not only drastically reduce the trade deficit (paying for imported oil), but it would maintain flexibility in regional security issues (not necessarily imperative to bail out another Kuwait), but it would DRASTICALLY reduce the cost of living of many poor and working class people throughout this country. Why would these groups benefit you ask?? Because they pay the largest percentage of their take home pay for gas and fuel oil. Rich people have all electric, or natural gas... and fat wallets to pay for filling their gas tanks. The poorer class doesn't. Thing about that next time you think about "big oil". Without it, we'd be a nation at the mercy of a bunch of monopolistic non-democratic regimes in the Persian Gulf and we'd be fighting and dying over it to boot. Regards, Ron

To: ColtonGang who wrote (124)	9/2/2000 10:23:14 PM
From: Rarebird	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Gore's assessment of Governor Bush is quite correct and the public is beginning to get the picture as Gore widens his lead: Governor George W. Bush has made some anti-democratic connections of his own. His association with the neo- Confederate group, the United Daughters of the Confederacy is a case in point. The UDC operates as a cultural heritage organization and erects monuments to honor confederate soldiers across the South. The UDC proudly displays Confederate flags on the cover of its magazine and is closely tied to the Far Right. One of the darlings of the neo-Confederate movement is Michael Andrew Grissom. Grissom is a member of the national advisory board of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a group which claims that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Communist and that whites are superior to blacks in such traits as "intelligence, law abidingness, sexual restraint, academic performance" and oddly, "resistance to disease." Grissom is the author of Southern By The Grace Of God, which includes justifications of the worst of Southern racism. Among Grissom's claims, "No one can doubt the effectiveness of the original Ku Klux Klan. The Klan did a tremendous amount of benevolent work among the poor." He also claims that the Klan hoods were useful protection by providing "a measure of anonymity to thugs and criminals who eventually destroyed the effectiveness of the Klan." The UDC has collaborated with Grissom on the construction of a statue on the site of the Battle of Vicksburg. While most would be shocked at the thought of an organization allied with an apologist for the Ku Klux Klan, Governor George W. Bush has congratulated the UDC for its "dedication to others" and for the group's "high standards" in a letter which appeared in UDC Magazine in 1996. Does Governor George Bush sound like a compassionate conservative to you?