eb wrote:I predict Republicans will home in on the author while ignoring the message.
Well, just to be contrary, here ya go:
NOTICE: Opinon Follows :wink:
What I see there is a thorough misapprehension of the situation, a disconnect from reality bordering on the psychotic.
Quote:Will America revive a global coalition against terrorism or will it continue in arrogant isolation, bearing the burdens virtually alone, while generating hostility across the world? President Bush's Iraq debacle squandered the global support this nation enjoyed after September 11, and divided a nation that came together as one in the wake of that attack. He destroyed his own credibility when everything he said about Iraq turned out to be wrong. He rushed into a war without allies, without sufficient forces and without a plan for victory. We pay the price in casualties, with over 1000 lives lost, and in cost, growing at $1 billion a week, while providing al Qaeda with a cause that has won it new recruits across the world.
What nations are not US partners in the global coalition against the war against terrorism? For what war in which The US has fought has any nation born more of the cost than The US once The US became involved? Antipathy and even hostility toward The US is hardly a new and singular phenomonon, such is the lot of a Super Power, and as the sole extant Super Power, the US becomes by default the focus of all such mistrust and envy. The President's credibility has been damaged not at all among those who understand both the stakes and the role of Saddam's Iraq in Middle Eastern and global insecurity. The forces used were sufficient to topple in turn both The Taliban and Saddam in a matter of weeks at unprecedentedly low cost both to own forces and to indigenous non combatants and civilian infrastructure. $1 Billion a week is a steep cost to be sure, but pales in comparison to the Trillions 9/11 cost the Global Economy. Any recruiting success al Queda may have had has not brought them any tactical or strategic success, other perhaps than to some extent in Spain, while since 9/11 the leadership and infrastructure of al Queda and its associate and kindred entities have been devastated.
Quote:Senator Kerry offers a fresh start, a promise to engage allies in the region and the world and the credibility to make that possible. Kerry would rebuild a powerful coalition against terror, empowering our military force by isolating al Qaeda rather than isolating America.
Poppycock. Kerry has enunciated no plan, only an endless series of claims to have plans. The coalition against terror is today the largest partnership of nations history has seen, even given that some nations, notably France, Germany, Russia, and China, alonfg with some close associates, persist to one extent or another in efforts to sabotage the liberation, stabilization, and rehabilitation of Iraq. Bereft of any State-based sanctuary, al Queda and the jihadist movement already is as isolated as so amorphous an entity can be. The perception The US is isolated is absurd on its face. A number of nations are at odds with certain particulars of US foreign policy, as alwys there have been and likely always there will be. None the less, The US remains the dominant entity in global trade, both import and export, and is the overwhelming destination-of-choice for the preponderance of The World's would-be immigrees. A more unisolated condition hardly may be imagined.
Quote:All the wild charges, groundless accusations and fear mongering that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have issued in their deplorable campaign cannot hide the fact that their misjudgments have left America less admired, more isolated and less safe than before.
Wild charges, groundless accusations, and fear momgering more adequately describe such things as questioning Bush's National Guard service, the Democrat-fommented rumors of Draft reinstatement and the gutting of Social Security, and "Tax Cuts For The Rich" than such things as maintainining focus on and effort against the greatest threat civilization has seen since The Second World War. Some folks just don't get that.
Quote:The American dream is on the ballot. Will America put people first or continue the failed policy of trickle down economics? Mr. Bush has the worst jobs record of any president in fifty years, while racking up record budget deficits and record trade deficits. He celebrates an economy in which profits are up, but jobs are gone, wages are down, health care and education costs are soaring, and working families can't keep up. He has waged war on unions, stripped millions of workers of their right to overtime pay and opposed any increase in the minimum wage. He's done nothing as health care costs have soared and broke his own promise to fund public school reform. His prescription drug plan actually prohibits Medicare from negotiating a better price for seniors. His energy plan lavishes subsidies on oil and gas companies while increasing our dependence on foreign oil.
Mr. Kerry would return us to the policies of putting people first that provided hope under Bill Clinton. He would repeal the top-end tax cuts and invest that money in making health care and college more affordable. He would invest in pre-school and public schools. He would stand with workers who want to organize, extend the right to overtime, and increase the minimum wage. He supports moving to energy independence, providing good jobs as we build energy efficient buildings and appliances, fuel-efficient cars, and capture the green markets of the future.
In a global economy, Mr. Bush's tax cuts rack up deficits without producing jobs in America. His tax and trade policies have generated more jobs in Shanghai, China, than in Cincinnati, Ohio. By putting people first, by generating growth from the bottom up and using our resources to build schools, hire teachers, make college affordable, and move to energy independence, Mr. Kerry will generate far more jobs with better wages and benefits at less cost to the taxpayer.
The meme of "Trickledown Economics" betrays either total ignorance of or total disregard for the fact that without employers there are no employees. While job growth following the Clinton Recession and the 9/11 shock, more people are employed today in America than ever before in history, earning a higher wage whether calculated by median or average, for a shorter workweek, than ever before in history, while the current unemployment rate of 5.4% is below the average unemployment rate since the beginning of the keeping of such records. Neither the current Budget Deficit notr the current Trade Deficit, as percentage of GDP or GNP, are at all out of line with historic averages. The Overtime Pay legislation will greatly benefit millions of folks who untill now were exempted from overtime pay ... folks like retail managers, food service employees, and temporary workers. Those negatively impacted are minimally impacted, if at all, and comprise a far smaller proportion of the population than the millions of kids and second-job-in-the-family workers who untill now were classed as "Management" though having no organizational, oversight or operational authority while essentially sharing the job duties and responsibilities of non-exempt hourly employees. The Bush Administration has increased Education Funding more than any Administration since Kennedy's. Throwing yet more money at an inefficient system without demanding and receiving accountability and improved results is simply unsupportable. Nearly 2/3 of every dollar spent on healthcare in the US goes to something other than medication and hands-on medicalk care ... it goes to "Overhead", much of which has been mandated by thoroughly partisan legislation. Perhaps a point may be made for allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription prices, but it was The Clinton Administration that legislated negotiation of the price of flu vaccine, and we now see what came of that. Our dependence on foreign oil would be greatly lessened ny incentivizing construction of domestic refineries and pipelines, and encouraging exploration and exploitation of domestic reserves, coal, gas, and oil, and the vigorous pursuit of both fission and fusion power generation technologies, all anethema to The Democrats.
Quote:Mr. Kerry would return us to the policies of putting people first that provided hope under Bill Clinton. He would repeal the top-end tax cuts and invest that money in making health care and college more affordable. He would invest in pre-school and public schools. He would stand with workers who want to organize, extend the right to overtime, and increase the minimum wage. He supports moving to energy independence, providing good jobs as we build energy efficient buildings and appliances, fuel-efficient cars, and capture the green markets of the future.
In a global economy, Mr. Bush's tax cuts rack up deficits without producing jobs in America. His tax and trade policies have generated more jobs in Shanghai, China, than in Cincinnati, Ohio. By putting people first, by generating growth from the bottom up and using our resources to build schools, hire teachers, make college affordable, and move to energy independence, Mr. Kerry will generate far more jobs with better wages and benefits at less cost to the taxpayer.
Kerry promises entitlements, not incentivization, equal results, not equal opportunity. That is not what made this nation the greatest locus of opportunity on the planet, that is not what has brought this nation to its pre-eminence among the global community of nations. This nation has gained what it has by working for it. If it is to keep what it has and to expand on that, it must continue to work for it, and to work all the harder in the face of stiffening competition, something this nation has proven time and again it can do. "Hope" is not a plan of action, it gets nothing done. Nothing Kerry proposes can be accomplished without significant additional tax burden placed on The Economy, and taxing a thing is the surest way to inhibit the growth of that thing, more effective even than legislating against that thing. To achieve energy independence, all we need do is unshackle the American Energy Production Industry. To lower the costs of healthcare and educatuion, all we need do is make both accountable for performance and eliminate mandated unproductive overhead.
Quote:Justice is on the ballot. Will America expand opportunity and equal justice or will we roll back the rights of women and minorities, while trampling the very liberties that make us free? Mr. Bush's judicial nominees are radical activists, committed to rolling back the women's right to choose, affirmative action, and the rights of the disabled. Bush benefits from a politics of division that turn us against one another. He bowed to the gun lobby and turned his back on America's police by allowing the ban on assault weapons to expire.
Mr. Kerry stands clearly for equal opportunity and basic justice. He sees our diversity as our strength. He would defend civil rights and a women's right to choose. He would empower science, not cripple it. He would seek to bring people together, not drive us apart.
Leadership or isolation. People first or trickle down. Extending rights or rolling them back. A fresh start or more of the same. The differences are apparent. And we have the power to choose. Vote, and make certain that your family and your friends vote also.
Opportunity and equal justice are precisely the platform of The Republican Party. Entitlements, "Special Rights", and standing firml;y against the erosion of such liberties as the right to free speech, untrammelled worship, private enterprise, the bearing of arms (the so called Assault Gun Ban, by the way, was an embarrassing joke at best; it went to the appearance, not the function, of a firearm. Research that, if you wish ... its true) and the sanctity of unborn life are paramount to the American conservative philosophy. Nothing Bush has done nor proposed in any way "cripples science", despite the wails of those who would farm the unborn for remedies spare parts that might or might not have use. It is The Democrats who have moved from the Mainstream, distancing themselves from the principles and values on which this nation was founded, and by which it prospers. It is The Democrats, or more properly those who make up the leadership of The Democratic Party, who choose to remain apart, and it is the policies of The Democrats which foster and further the divisiveness troubling The Nation today.
The foregoing comments, of course, are my opinion. Some folks mileage most likely will vary.
All that aside, whoever may be your candidate, whichever the party, for whatever office, get out there and
VOTE
One who fails to excersize the right and obligation to participate in elective politics hasn't any basis from which to complain about policies and legislation with which that one might take exception..
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace