|
Mandate, Shmandate
I was interested in responding to Clifton Fox’s letter [Nov. 18] in which he claims that the 59 million and some odd number of votes in Bush’s favor is a clear mandate for him to continue his policies.
Let’s examine what those mandates would be in light of the current situation. Bush claims to be a fiscal conservative. Presumably, he means that he is prudent with taxpayer money and is a good steward of the resources available to him.
In the debate on Oct. 8, Bush said: “Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising at 15 percent a year when I got into office. And today it’s less than 1 percent, because we’re working together to try to bring this deficit under control.”
Poor grammar aside, Bush also went to great lengths to make fun of John Kerry, saying: “And here he says he’s going to be a fiscal conservative, all of a sudden. It’s just not credible. You cannot believe it.”
Well, John Kerry says many things that we shouldn’t believe. But George Bush also says a great deal that we shouldn’t believe.
Modern presidents spend far, far too much on the military—since it goes for national offense, rather than national defense. This leaves America undefended at home while U.S. troops run around the world enforcing the reckless desires of American presidents.
Let’s look at the yearly non-military spending by presidents since John F. Kennedy adjusted for inflation (ranked in order of spending increases):
Richard Nixon + 8.6 percent
John F. Kennedy + 8.3 percent
Lyndon Johnson + 6.7 percent
Gerald Ford +6.2 percent
George W. Bush + 3.8 percent
George H.W. Bush + 3.5 percent
Jimmy Carter + 2.7 percent
Ronald Reagan + 2.1 percent
Bill Clinton + 1.6 percent
George W. Bush is a first-class spender. And he doesn’t have a democratic Congress to blame for it. Clinton has actually been the most conservative president since 1960.
Furthermore, when the “debates” are controlled by the Republicrat duopoly, and the corporate media acts like a whore in relation to the duopoly, it figures that the people aren’t able to hear from other presidential candidates such as Michael Badnarik or Ralph Nader.
People are left with the impression that there are only two choices on the ballot. I am sure most people who voted for either Bush or Kerry held their breath.
If you vote for Bush, you might as well vote for Kerry and vice versa.
Since I have been eligible to vote for president, I have never voted for a republican or democrat. They haven’t given me any reason why I should vote for them.
Chris Fortner
Knoxville
Just the Facts, Please
Such a pleasure to FINALLY hear an intelligent discussion of the presidential election in the MP. Thanks Clifton for the real facts.
Jim Gay
Knoxville
Dear Clifton Fox
First, let me make it perfectly clear. I am a liberal. I am not ashamed of the word, and even though I’m sure when you speak the word, you probably say it out of the side of your mouth—as if merely saying the word without this extra-negative emphasis might somehow contaminate you. It doesn’t bother me one iota. The world has a very long list of great liberals that have impacted even your ability to speak your mind (ridiculously off the mark as it may be) in a public forum such as the Incoming section of the Metro Pulse. Here’s a short list of some of my favorite liberals: George Washington, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, and Jesus of Nazareth. Do any of those names sound familiar? I doubt you hear much about them on O’Reilly or Limbaugh, but rest assured they were all great human beings with one thing in common: their aversion to Conservatism.
Second, while you gloat about the fact that Dubya received more votes than any other president in history, you fail to add that Mr. Kerry’s tally also tops all previous presidents—yes, it looks as though he lost the election, but let’s get the facts straight. You then go on to tell us that the 55 million people who voted for Kerry in this election were (and I’m paraphrasing) either gay, single, atheist, or a union member. Hmmmm. Somehow, I don’t think you’re right on this. By the way, even as I sit here writing on my computer, the election (contrary to what the conservative-corporate media may be telling you) is not over. Three presidential candidates (none of them Kerry) are going through the legal motions to have statewide recounts in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and New Mexico due to rampant problems with vote counting, voter suppression, and malfunctioning electronic voter machines—all of those problems seem to have helped your candidate win in those states.
Third, yes, the wrong side made some serious gains in both the House and Senate. Interestingly, on the first day back in session after the elections, the republicans managed to lower the ethical standard of their party. That’s right, they rewrote their party’s rules to allow House Majority Leader Tom Delay (You know him right? He’s the guy that re-mapped the Texas voting districts, which helped republicans gain five seats in the House, and his name is now synonymous with gerrymander) to keep his post even if he is indicted by a grand jury for accepting illegal campaign donations. Oh, the right-wing pundits are already crying foul and claiming that District Attorney Ronny Earl is merely on a partisan witch hunt. But if you look up the facts for yourself, you will find that during Mr. Earl’s career as DA, he has had much success going after republicans and democrats alike.
Finally, your assumption that the Democratic Party needs to abandon the Left Wing and steer closer to moderation due to the outcome of this election is just absurd. How much more centrist could Kerry have been? I for one believe that many of the moderates in the country who are anti-war actually voted for Bush because Kerry did not give them a viable option—he merely said he was going to “hunt and kill the terrorists” better. For these moderate voters opposed to the Occupation, it was the age-old adage about changing horses in midstream that helped them decide between two hawk candidates.
The democrats made a similar mistake in 1968. Before Robert Kennedy was killed, it looked as though he would win his party’s nomination on an anti-war platform and then trounce Nixon for the White House. As it turned out, the democrats nominated the hawkish LBJ protÉgÉ Hubert Humphrey and lost. Contrary to what the insta-pundits would have us believe, the deciding issue in this year’s election was not “moral values” but the war in Iraq. Bush was able to use fear and intimidation to scare the American people into four more years. We can only hope that this conflict will be over by the next election, if it is not then the dems had better have a clear anti-war candidate waiting or else face another loss in 2008.
R.J. Fernandez
Knoxville, TN
Watching the Watchdog
House republicans have done something truly appalling. They’ve knocked down an ethics rule that banned House members from holding leadership positions if they’ve been indicted on felony charges.
They did it on behalf of House majority leader Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX). A number of his associates have already been indicted by a Texas grand jury and he’s expected to take a similar hit in the near future.
I strongly urge you to editorialize against this move. What’s astonishing about it is that the republicans just repealed a provision that they put in place back in 1993 when they said they were cleaning up Congress.
This is no mere act of hypocrisy, though. Nor is it just a Beltway issue that’s only relevant in Washington. This is a national moral lapse that cuts to the heart of our government. It’s an utter outrage, and you need to stand up for the public good and shine a spotlight on it.
Tom DeLay has already been rebuked four times by the House Ethics
Committee for various violations. It makes people like me—who play by the rules and pay the taxes that provide for Tom DeLay’s salary—even more cynical about politics and American democracy. Just imagine how great republicans like Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt would react. It’s a disgrace.
Please devote some of your coverage to addressing this dirty move. Have the vision to editorialize against it and play the role of the public watchdog. We, the people, are ultimately the caretakers of our democracy. When politicians fail to govern with dignity, we must stand up, speak out and hold them accountable.
Debra Stacey
Kingston
Greed, Fear and Religion
Clifton Fox represents most Bush voters very well. Like most who voted republican, he seems unaware that Bush’s victory was by a very thin margin. One state, with a margin of 100,000 votes or so, decided the outcome. Both candidates received record numbers of votes, so claiming a mandate based on the raw number of votes received while disregarding the nearly equal of votes against Bush/for Kerry is just silly.
Additionally, despite the resultant larger republican majority in the Senate, democratic senatorial candidates as a whole received more votes than republicans.
Bush’s political capital, as he refers to it, is inconsequential.
On 9/11, two states and the District of Columbia were actually attacked. All three voted for Kerry. If New Yorkers and Washingtonians weren’t swayed by the republican post 9/11 brain wash campaign, how were the 59 million that voted for Bush?
I work in sales, and have the pleasure of interacting with East Tennesseans from all social strata on a regular basis. From the myriad pre-election conversations I had with a broad variety of politically inclined people in the Knoxville area, I realized that most of the electorate in East Tenn.—and in the U.S.—would vote for Bush for one or more of the following reasons: greed, fear or religion. The GOP did a masterful job of separating the country with these basic factors. Bush’s tax cuts to the wealthy and to large corporations, his administration’s exploitation of the post 9/11 trauma, and his pandering to the religious right, combined with a very weak effort by Kerry and the DNC, won him the election. They did not win him a mandate, and they do nothing to close the deep divide in this country.
Greg Miller
Knoxville
November 24, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 48
© 2004 Metro Pulse
|
| 
