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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (13794)	7/19/2002 2:58:45 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 93284

thought you might like this inspired post by churnemburnem over at ragingbull.... What is the "average" american anyway? I always figured if I aired my true feelings on that one I'd lose a lot of friends, make a lot of new enemies, be accused by right-wing Rush Limbaugh wannabees of being a bin Laden supporter, and maybe have my sanity challenged by the intelligentsia. I was just thinking about this very thing on the way home today. Who are the core, bread and butter, down home Americans anyway? Who are these people who pledge this 76% support to our current leaders? Are they such mental simpletons that they get behind a political party 100% and never consider the possibility that they are being lied to by that party or ever being told the truth by the opposition party? Can a mind really be closed off this tightly that no logical reasoning - no questioning of what a political party tells you can ever be performed? Are they so gullible that they can be spoon fed a carefully adjusted mixture of fear, uncertainty and doubt guaranteed to win their vote no matter how mind-numbing the incompetence and outright corruption of their adopted party? Can they really stand around condemning something like extramarital sex as an impeachable offense but justify corporate fraud and political corruption that has wiped out trillions of dollars worth of wealth and hundreds of thousands of jobs for American families - even put the capitalist system in peril - justify it as the treasury secretary did as "the genius of capitalism" or as the president refers to it as "shenanigans"? Do they believe they can talk incessantly about faith and prayer and put on airs of piety while passing by the poor, the homeless, the hungry - and cursing all of them for being lazy and stupid without knowing their story - and insisting that every one of them - the handicapped and the elderly alike - got what they deserved, and then believe that they will have a reserved seat waiting for them in heaven just for uttering the right words and singing the right songs once a week? I was thinking about the soldiers in Afghanistan (and in the past in Vietnam, Korea and countless other hells on earth), getting limbs blown off and getting killed "protecting our freedom". Freedom to be fat, mean and stupid and to spend our time watching television and men driving cars around in circles for hours. Freedom to spend our incomes on beer and cigarettes and watching grown men get paid an average of $2.5 million to hit a ball with a stick - men who will go on strike because they don't make enough for all their hard work, and then complain that taxes are too high. Freedom to drive a gas guzzling SUV with no passengers and whine about high gasoline prices and supporting a government that wants to drill the arctic refuge but not do a single thing to encourage conservation and recycling or discourage pollution and habitat destruction. Freedom to drive countless species of animal and plant to extinction for profit or convenience, because they believe it is their birthright to do so. In short, I had a very negative picture of the "average" American. I was easily able to understand that 76% approval rating. Easily able to be pessimistic that the country (perhaps the world) had entered one of its darkest periods. And yet people wholeheartedly supported the men behind this darkness. But then I thought about other perhaps extraordinary Americans I have personally known or at least heard or read about and it made me feel more optimistic. I thought about the great teachers I had as a child, who though paid very little, taught me so much. I thought about that "ordinary" guy whose image I'll never forget - jumping into the icy Potomac river to rescue a nearly-dead flight attendant, a person he didn't know until that moment, from a plane that had just crashed into the river - a woman who was too exhausted and hypothermic to hold onto the rope a helicopter had lowered to her. I thought about those young firemen we saw pictures of walking up the stairs at the WTC while everyone else was walking down. And I thought about my dad, who worked his butt off for 42 years to make sure his family had it good. To him, real morality was working as hard as you could and being honest and not stealing from or hurting others - it wasn't about memorizing scriptures saying "praise the lord" 1,000 times a day. I'm sure he's not unlike a lot of dads. I thought about these things and then I started to believe there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. But we will only see it if we open our eyes.

To: MSI who wrote (13794)	7/19/2002 11:55:53 AM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Hillary in Senate Screamfest New York Sen. Hillary Clinton blew a gasket during a closed door Senate meeting yesterday, reportedly "shouting" at campaign finance reform crusader Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis. - in an embarrassing scene that broke all rules of Senate collegiality and decorum. Clinton failed to suppress her notorious temper after Democratic Party campaign lawyer Bob Bauer warned senators that the kind fund-raising tactics employed by her husband could send her and her colleagues to jail under the recently passed McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. When Sen. Feingold dismissed the legal concerns, the short-fused former first lady to boiled over. "Russ, live in the real world," a tight-faced Clinton screamed at the campaign finance advocate, sources told the New York Daily News. "They will be all over you like a June bug," she angrily warned. "I also live in the real world, Senator, and I function quite well in it," Feingold shot back. Still, Clinton predicted a deluge of politically motivated investigations unless Senators were careful about how they implemented the McCain-Feingold law. When Feingold complained that such concerns were "not rational," the former first lady "hammered him," the News said. Clinton said the new campaign finance law, which she voted for, had the potential to allow "political adversaries" to make senators' lives hell. She reportedly cited her own experience as first lady, complaining that her own enemies did much the same thing. "Yesterday's outburst appeared to be Clinton's first big blow up with a colleague in such a meeting," the News said. But Mrs. Clinton's Senate meltdown is just the latest such incident alleged by insiders over the years, a series of tirades and tantrums going back to the 1970's in which she's reportedly berated everyone from campaign colleagues to Secret Service bodyguards, often using profanity and even ethnic slurs. One Arkansas State trooper bodyguard has even claimed Hillary once tried to kick him when he didn't respond quickly enough to one of her orders. An aide to her husband's losing 1974 congressional campaign revealed two years ago that she blew up as the loss became clear, screaming that he was a "f - - king Jew bastard." Minutes before her husband's 1993 inauguration as president, the Clintons had a profanity-laced shouting match over whether she should occupy the office reserved for Vice President-elect Al Gore, witnesses say. newsmax.com