Hi, we are Americans. We like to elect actors. And post 9/11, Ah-nold sells.
W. simply plays better on tee vee (he does working class drag well) than Brahim Kerry who talks down to most Americans, "To the contrary...". The Dems, except for Bill Clinton, come off as indecisive and ineffectual, which are traditionally not leadership qualities. The Dems cannot get away with being GOP lite -- it doesn't work. And, Kerry's kitesurfing photo-op, not too manly...
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Wenzel <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 8:32 pm
Subject: Kerry -vs- Bush
> Dear Jason,
>
> Here are some of the central differences I see between Bush
> and Kerry:
>
> As an independent, I was continually fascinated by how the
> differences between the two candidates were framed. Palestinians, of
> course, see no difference between them. On the other hand, the
> millionsof voters could see the difference between providing
> healthcare coverage
> for an additional two or three million [Bush-Cheney] versus providing
> such coverage for an additional 27 million [Kerry]. To seek to
> provide27 million more Americans with the same health coverage as
> US Senators
> have
> is laudatory. That's one a real difference in my eyes.
>
> Reframing irresponsible pollution policy as a 'Clear Skies'
> initiative or irresponsible logging as 'Healthy Forests' or a
> boondogglefor the wealthy elite as 'tax relief' is another such
> difference. This
> extreme Orwellian reframing in the Bush-Cheney campaign is
> breath-taking. Orwellian framing of issues always expose the lie
> of a
> claimed mandate.
> I found no such Orwellian tendencies, of corresponding magnitude,
> in the
> Kerry-Edwards campaign. Kerry's policy record on legislation designed
> to promote sound environmental stewardship is out in the open and is
> simply terrific.
>
> Kerry's 1980s Senate investigation of the Reagan administration
> murderous Contra-Cocaine abuses were finally vindicated in the 1990s.
> That tells me that Kerry has the guts to go after big game without
> batting an eye. [We would have pushed him to do the same in Israel.]
> He put is political career directly on the line by going after
> Reagan at
> the height of his 'popularity'. Those abuses brought cocaine into
> minority nighborhoods [in order to pay for weapons for the CIA-backed
> Contra murders of Nicaraguans] in the 1980s at orders of magnitude
> heretofore unknown. By contrast, George Bush has shown no such guts.
>
> Kerry's willingness to stare down the Bush tax cuts is another such
> difference. That difference comes to rest on the principle that those
> who are fortunate to have more have a strict obligation to help those
> who have less. That's both a principled Republican, Conservative,
> Democratic, and Liberal value. Bush seems to hold the converse
> principle: those who have less have a strict obligation to help those
> who have more. If Bush swears allegiance to neoclassical economics,
> then he must believe in the principle of diminishing marginal
> utility of
> income: for each additional dollar of income, less satisfaction is had
> and so there is less 'suffering' when that addition to income is taxed
> away. It hurts less to be taxed more. His tax policies put him
> at odds
> with the economics he professes to believe in.
>
> Kerry's perception of the absolute need to sustain and nourish
> international cooperative alliances in order to work for global peace,
> justice, and prosperity simply must be set alongside the utterly blind
> Bush-Cheney disdain for such cooperative alliances. The very
> dreams of
> empire coming out of the White House actually require the
> existence and
> good functioning such alliances to attempt to clean up the terrible
> crises such empire begets in the first place.
>
> Finally, the Kerry-Edwards vision of a global community is a vision
> of doing the works of justice with compassion and mercy, with the
> exception of Israel. It bothers me that he didn't have the guts
> to take
> that on like Howard Dean did. Dean, you'll remember, told an audience
> that we must be 'even-handed' in Israel. Many Jews in the
> audience got
> right up and walked out.
>
> For those of us who've followed the Bush-Cheney policy record over
> the past 46 months, it was clear that they needed ousting for the good
> of all. Did some fifty-eight million voters pull the lever to
> give the
> extreme policies of a first Bush-Cheney administration another four
> years? I don't believe that at all. They were sold a bill of goods.
> And the US media are so complicit in that. But! A millions of
> Americanshave gotten the democratic process all over them in the
> past year and
> they tell us they love and won't stop! If anything can help to
> transform the democratic party its surely that energy. And yet we
> alsoneed to work for a progressive party with an international
> base in order
> that we come to hold ourselves and others strictly accountable for
> doingthe works of justice with compassion and mercy.
>
> Best,
>
> Mark Wenzel
>
>
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>
> Sisters and brothers under the skin.
>
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