And if you are still undecided as to whom to vote for, here is a scorecard:
American Soldiers Dead: 1122
American Total Wounded: 8039
Iraqis killed in the war: 100,000+
Cost of the war to the US $130,000,000,000+
Weapons of Mass Destruction Found: 0
Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda discovered: 0
Osama Bin Laden: still at large and taunting America
From truthout.com:
An Honest Election
By Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 02 November 2004
We stand at a crossroads for our nation. At issue is the fabric of American life. There is a perception that choosing the right leader is the most important thing. Surely that will matter, but even more crucial is our commitment to American values.
If you are thinking about voting twice, don’t do it. If you are thinking of putting fear in the heart of your neighbor as he goes to cast his vote, think again. How we conduct this election will have more to do with the safety and security of our nation than who wins.
We have throughout our history held our free elections as a pillar of our democracy. Remove that pillar and you undermine all that is freedom. Even if this election is conducted fairly, the result will be disappointment for some. That is as it should be. The pain of that disappointment pales in comparison to the price we will pay should we fail to protect the integrity of the process itself.
When the Founders had concluded their work on the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin walked outside and seated himself on a public bench. A woman approached him and inquired, “Well, Dr. Franklin, what have you done for us?” Franklin quickly responded, “My dear lady, we have given to you a republic – if you can keep it.” A quiet debate is being waged in the shadows of the country, once again, as to whether America is a republic or a democracy. It will be neither, if we fail to protect our right to vote.
Help your neighbor vote. Not just the one who agrees with you but the one who differs. Why? Because when this is over, that’s the one you’re really going to need the most.
Good luck to us.
What is your home town?
How do you define that? Is it the place you live now? The place you were born? The place you spent most of your life? The place where your ‘heart’ is?
I’ve always had trouble answering the question “Where are you from” since my family moved so much when I was young… I never felt comfortable or “at home” any place, But I usually answered that I was from Louisville Ky, since that was where I was born, where much of my family lived, and where I had some of the best memories of my youth.
Louisville has come through for me again. In a state which is strongly pro-Bush, the Louisville Courier Journal has endorsed Kerry. I’m sure this stand will cost them in the largely reactionary state. In fact, they have endorsed him in one of the most cogent and damning indictments of the inept Bush adminisitration I have read.
I am, again, willing to admit to being a Kentuckian. Thank you, Courier-Journal.
(more…)
From the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire:
A Matter of Survival
By George Sprague
Concord Monitor | Letter
Thursday 28 October 2004
When I was home in New Hampshire on leave last month, a lot of people approached me to tell what a good job we’re doing here in Iraq.
I appreciate the support, but I don’t need the media or those people to tell me what I see every day. We are not getting the job done.
People ask me, “How’s it going over there?” Cities have been overrun and are in a state of lawlessness. My job brings me into the streets. I see these things as they happen. They aren’t just headlines for me. All we are doing here is treading water, and at this rate we can’t keep afloat much longer. I’m just a simple man, but I can see that everything this administration has done with Iraq has been dead wrong.
We appreciate your support, but we can’t see those yellow ribbons from here. I ask that you let your vote show your support. I don’t know what you go to bed thinking, but I go to bed wondering not how many more years of this administration I can handle but how many more days I might survive.
George Sprague
Balad, Iraq
The writer, who lives in Hillsboro, is a member of a National Guard unit serving at Camp Anaconda, a large logistical support area about 45 miles north of Baghdad.
Reuters is reporting that an independent estimate of civilian deaths in Iraq which are a direct result of the US war now exceeds 100,000.
Wonderful. We have now not only killed more civilians than were killed in the World Trade Center attack, we have killed more Iraqi’s than Sadam Hussein did in his 12 years or so of power.
I am so proud to be an american these days.
What continues to floor me is that roughly 50% of the population continues to support the administration, and Bush. I would make some remark about knuckle-draggers, but that would be an insult to Gorillas and Orangutans, who somehow manage to live in peace with each other.
What cannot be disputed is, that by definition, 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
I fear for my country.
There is a fundamental bias, which the right has encouraged, that believes that patriotism, or christianity for that matter, are the purvue only of the conservatives.
Recently I saw a truck with 8 different “christian” logos or bumperstickers on the back. Through the rear window, I could see two large American flags on the front window.
While I have no particular objection to either sentiment in the abstract, I can’t help but wonder how Jesus would have viewed the juxtaposition. He taught, as near as I can tell, the acceptance of everyone regardless of nationality, the true worth of people based on their actions, rather than their rituals or professed beliefs, and the inconsequentiality of earthly kingdoms and nations.
When did patriotism and christianity become the captives of the conservative right?
I am a Christian. Maybe not in the context that many self-professed Christians would believe, but I believe Christ taught that the primary rule was to love your neighbor as yourself, and the fundamental worth of every human being.
I am a Patriot. I love my country (as I love all people), and believe that what makes my country worth that love is the respect and support of everyone, as written into our constitution; not the unconditional acceptance of whatever foolishness our leaders take us into.
I am a Patriot. I am a Christian. I am a Liberal, and I reject the attempt to limit these terms to the self-righteous right that has highjacked them.
My country is poised to re-elect (assuming he was elected the first time) a president who rejects reason, rejects the ruled of law, and rejects the basic teachings of Christ. God forgive us for what we are about to do to ourselves, and to the world.
I pray (literally) that the citizens of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida will see this election as it is, and reject the hatred and bigotry implicit in the current republican administration.
God help us all, God Bless America, and God Bless the rest of the world.
Is it any wonder the republicans are for this war? They have no idea what it is about. Here are the service records for prominent republicans:
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Spencer Abraham: Did not serve Eliot Abrams: Did not serve John Ashcroft: Did not serve Roy Blunt: Did not serve Michael Bloomberg: Did not serve George H.W. Bush: Youngest Navy pilot in WW II; awarded DFC George W. Bush: Texas Air Nat. Guard; didn’t take physical; suspended from flying Jeb Bush: Did not serve Saxby Chambliss: Did not serve Dick Cheney: Did not serve Christopher Cox: Did not serve Tom DeLay: Did not serve Bob Dornan: Enlisted after fighting was over in Korea John Engler: Did not serve Douglas Feith: Did not serve Gerald Ford: Lt. Commander, Navy in WWII Bill Frist: Did not serve Newt Gingrich: Did not serve Rudy Giuliani: Did not serve Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer Phil Gramm: Did not serve Dennis Hastert: Did not serve Tim Hutchison: Did not serve Jack Kemp: Did not serve. “Knee problem,” continued in NFL for 8 years Jon Kyl: Did not serve Trent Lott: Did not serve Richard Lugar: Intelligence officer in Navy 1957-1960 John McCain: POW in Vietnam, Silver star, Legion of Merit, DFC, many more Mitch McConnell: Did not serve John McHugh: Did not serve George Pataki: Did not serve Richard Perle: Did not serve Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard Ronald Reagan: Served in WWII making movies Dana Rohrabacher: Did not serve Karl Rove: Did not serve Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor Rick Santorum: Did not serve Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base Richard Shelby: Did not serve JC Watts: Did not serve Vin Weber: Did not serve Paul Wolfowitz: Did not serve |
Oh, and for the record, here are many prominent democrats:
David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72 |
I guess actually living up to your principles is for the little people.
On another note, how can there be young activist republicans? If they truly believe Bush is right and the war in Iraq is morally justified and necessary, why haven’t they enlisted? It’s easy to have “principles” when you only send other people to fight, and die, for them.
Why I will vote for John Kerry for President
By JOHN EISENHOWER
THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.
Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.
The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.
Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.
In the Middle East crisis of 1991, President George H.W. Bush marshaled world opinion through the United Nations before employing military force to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Through negotiation he arranged for the action to be financed by all the industrialized nations, not just the United States. When Kuwait had been freed, President George H. W. Bush stayed within the United Nations mandate, aware of the dangers of occupying an entire nation.
Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? I wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.” I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.
The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation’s financial structure sound.
The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.
Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically.
I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.
John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, served on the White House staff between October 1958 and the end of the Eisenhower administration. From 1961 to 1964 he assisted his father in writing “The White House Years,” his Presidential memoirs. He served as American ambassador to Belgium between 1969 and 1971. He is the author of nine books, largely on military subjects.
Bush said in the debate: “Gosh, I don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama Bin Laden. That’s kinda one of those exaggerations.”
What he said in 2002: In 2002 Bush said: “Well, as I say, we haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I–I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
Bush said in the debate: “I proposed a constitutional amendment. The reason I did so was because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage, and the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the constitution.”
Bush said in 2000: In a 2000 Republican primary debate, Bush responded to a question about same-sex marriage as follows: “The state can do what they want to do. Don’t try to trap me in this state’s issue.” (2/15/00 Republican primary debate, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/15/lkl.00.html )
Bush said in the debate: “Most of the tax cuts went to low and middle income Americans, and now the tax code is more fair, 20 percent of the upper income people pay about 80 percent of the taxes in America today because of how we structured the tax cuts.”- GWB, 10/13/04
The non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorites says: In 2004, Top One Percent Will Receive Average Tax Cut Of $35,000; Middle Class Will Receive Average Tax Cut Of $647. The benefits of Bush’s tax cuts primarily benefit the rich. The top one percent of households will receive tax cuts averaging almost $35,000–or 54 times more than middle-class families. Households with incomes above $1 million will receive tax cuts averaging about $123,600. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/14/04)
Gee, debating is easy when you can ignore what you have said before, and make up facts as you go along.
