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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (39630)	8/2/2004 8:40:42 AM
From: Richnorth	Respond to of 81568

All the Pretty Words By BOB HERBERT Published: August 2, 2004 They were able to sustain the eloquence for most of the week, which had to be a surprise. Bill Clinton told us that "strength and wisdom are not opposing values." Barack Obama called America "a magical place." John Kerry said, "The high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place." There was no shortage of pretty words and promises at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last week. But there's a big difference between the rigidly crafted reality at the heart of a political campaign and the reality of the rest of the world. "Practical politics," said Henry Adams, "consists in ignoring facts." The facts facing the United States as George W. Bush and John Kerry joust for the presidency are too grim to be honestly discussed on the stump. No one wants to tell cheering potential voters that the nation has sunk so deep into a hole that it will take decades to extricate it. So the candidates are trying to outdo one another in expressions of sunny optimism. President Bush and Dick Cheney deride "the same old pessimism" of the Democrats. Mr. Kerry counters by saying to the president, "Let's be optimists, not just opponents." The voters deserve better in an era of overwhelming problems. Consider Iraq. Neither the president nor Mr. Kerry knows what to do about this terrible misadventure that has cost more than 900 American and thousands of innocent Iraqi lives. The war is draining the U.S. Treasury and has made the Middle East more, not less, unstable. Dreams of democracy taking root in the garden of Baghdad and then spreading like the flowers of spring throughout the Middle East have given way to the awful reality of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. You won't hear straight talk about this all-important matter from either camp. And you can forget the chatter about an exit strategy for American troops. There isn't one. Or consider Afghanistan. Not long ago American officials were claiming a decisive victory and the Bush administration was trumpeting the liberation of Afghan women from the clutches of the Taliban. But the proclamations of success were premature. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar are nowhere to be found. Warlords and insurgents are in control of much of the country and the growth industry is the opium trade. The extraordinarily courageous group Doctors Without Borders is packing its bags and withdrawing from Afghanistan after 24 years because five of its staff members were murdered and the government will not bring the killers to justice. On Friday the U.S. government warned American citizens against traveling to Afghanistan because of the danger of being kidnapped or killed. Some victory. Employment here in America is another topic on which the presidential candidates will not tell the voters the cold, hard truth. There are not nearly enough jobs available for the millions upon millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who want and desperately need gainful employment. The population in need of jobs is expanding daily and no one has a viable plan for accommodating it. Families are being squeezed like Florida oranges as good jobs with good benefits - health insurance, paid vacations and retirement security - are going the way of the afternoon newspaper and baseball double-headers. These are incredibly difficult issues and an honest search for solutions can only come from a sustained effort by the broadest array of America's brightest and wisest men and women. What the U.S. really needs is leadership that could marshal that effort. Unfortunately, we've become a society addicted to the fantasy of a quick fix. We want our solutions encompassed in a sound bite. We want our leaders to manipulate reality to our liking. So there was President Bush in a hard-hit industrial region of Ohio over the weekend telling voters, "The economy is strong and it's getting stronger." And the Kerry-Edwards team is assuring one and all that "help is on the way." The voters may deserve better, but there's a real question about whether they want better. It may well be that candidates can't tell voters the truth and still win. If that's so, then democracy American-style may be a lot more dysfunctional than even the last four years has indicated. nytimes.com

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (39630)	8/2/2004 8:40:57 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Canadians Support Democrat John Kerry For Next U.S. President Majority Of Canadians (60%)Would Vote For John Kerry As Next President of The United States Versus George W. Bush (22%) Strong Majority (73%) of Canadians Agree They Like And Admire Americans, But Only 29% Say They Like And Respect Current Bush Administration Canadians Expect Kerry Would Do Better Than Bush In Being A Friend to Canada (56%) And Dealing With Prime Minister Paul Martin And His Government (54%) ipsos-na.com

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (39630)	8/2/2004 9:52:25 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

They're Not Neo-Cons, They're Con Men ___________________ by Guy Reel Published on Thursday, July 29, 2004 by CommonDreams.org Every day as I drive home from work, angry men are shouting on my radio. I'm told I'm un-American, unpatriotic, and stupid. I'm told I can't think for myself. I'm told I can't win in the arena of ideas. I'm told I don't think. I'm told I'm a liar, and that I believe in liars. Then if I fight back with words in a column, I'm told I'm a hater. This is what the political atmosphere of the United States has become. When did it happen? Two pundits were on National Public radio arguing precisely that point - when did the nastiness in today's politics begin and whose fault is it? The "conservative" commentator said it was because of Democrats' behavior during the not-pretty Robert Bork confirmation hearings; the "liberal" said it happened when Newt Gingrich made political disagreements personal in the 1990s. They're both wrong. It happened with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and the hundreds of Limbaugh drones on local talk radio stations across the country. They are loud, they are mean, and they never cease. They even go on at night; some of the most outrageous lunatics you've ever heard are on your local radio dials well into the wee hours. And they are given national platforms for their endless, paranoid propaganda. Often they just spew outright lies. Other times they will commit logical fallacies - grossly mischaracterizing their opponents' positions, then arguing against those mischaracterizations (a favorite tactic of the Bush campaign's attack machine against John Kerry). Usually they will offer little analysis, just condemnation and hatred for anyone who doesn't share their views. They villify anyone who disagrees with them. They attack our morality, our humanity. Then they accuse us of doing that to them. And that is their dirty little secret: A popular ruse of propagandists is to accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they're doing. It keeps the opponent on the defensive; it doesn't matter if it's a lie. Thus we hear or see: * Limbaugh telling millions of self-proclaimed "dittoheads" that it is actually Democrats who don't think for themselves; * Bush accusing Kerry of running a negative campaign when Bush has cheapened his office and the incumbency by offering nothing but pathological criticism of Kerry, with no justifications for his own policies; * A Republican Party obscenely accusing Kerry of an "extreme makeover" when the GOP candidate claims he's a war president one day and a peace president the next - and that he's compassionate and not a divider; * Conservative talk-mongers claiming Democrats are full of hate while they accuse Democrats of treason and immorality; * Radio blowhards calling Democrats the party of the elites when it is the elite Republicans who are profiting from the greatest imbalance of wealth and power in our nation's history; * Republicans accusing Democrats of not supporting the troops, then chuckling as their president cuts benefits for veterans; * Rightist politicians claiming Democrats are tax-happy, when it is their policies that have solidified tax increases for generations; * The same politicians claiming Democrats are fiscally irresponsible, when in the last three years the GOP has presided over increased budgets, government and pork like pigs to the trough; * Radio commentators consulting their talking-points memos to help them lie about Democrats' willingness to fight terrorism - when the Republicans let the murderer Osama bin Laden walk free while they fought a war that had nothing to do with 9/11; * Party spokesman questioning the patriotism of John Kerry - when Bush avoided real service while Kerry risked his own life to save his men when he hunted down and killed an enemy gunner in Vietnam. In short, they're not neo-cons, they're con men. They're what a friend calls the "rightie-tighties." They don't speak for America. They are the elite, speaking for more wealth and power for the elitists. Of course, I don't have to listen to it. I can change my radio dial. But that doesn't stop the talk; it just stops me from hearing it. I'd rather hear it to know what the enemies of America are saying, so I can fight back against it. ____________________ Guy Reel is an assistant professor of mass communication at Winthrop University. He can be reached at reelg@winthrop.edu. ### commondreams.org