(no subject)
> GUESTWORDS: By E.L. Doctorow
>
> The Unfeeling President
>
> September 9, 2003 - Easthampton Star
> I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer
> the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On
> the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives
> of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was.
> Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war
> of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.
> But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for
> it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the
> weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at
> rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the
> carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.
> He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is
> satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn
> for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the
> ultimate sacrifice for their country.
> But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an
> emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has
> no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the
> 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.
> They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or
> wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly
> torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance
> of aborted life . . . they come to his desk as a political liability,
> which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of
> their coffins from Iraq.
> How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets
> nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he
> knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled
> plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a
> disaster. He does not regret that, rather than controlling terrorism,
> his war in Iraq has licensed it. So he never mourns for the dead and
> crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice.
>
>
> He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the
> costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not
> understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options but
> when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because
> you have to.
> Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer
> the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president
> and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing -- to
> take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of
> themselves and their friends.
> A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The
> country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does
> not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church
> with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the president
> who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead, he
> does not feel for the 35 million of us who live in poverty, he does not
> feel for the 40 percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not
> feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working
> people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half
> to pay their bills - it is amazing for how many people in this country
> this president does not feel.
>
>
> But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is
> relieving the wealthiest 1 percent of the population of their tax burden
> for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we
> breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the
> quality of air in coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he
> is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half benefits for overtime
> because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the
> professional class.
>
>
> And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the
> flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our
> democracy is choking the life out of it.
> But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember
> the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the
> war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm
> and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After
> all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are
> little wars all over the world most of the time.
> But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of
> people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of
> mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy
> was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in
> history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary
> power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of
> civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated
> with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring
> their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.
> The president we get is the country we get. With each president the
> nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable
> national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of
> lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people
> he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us
> into, is his characteristic trouble.
> Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather report.
> He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. How can we
> sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and
> ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and
> the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a
> figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.
>
> http://www.easthamptonstar.com/20040909/col5.htm
>
>
>
>
> The novelist E.L. Doctorow has a house in Sag Harbor, NY.
>
> Doctorow, E. L. (1931-...), is an American novelist. His works are
> noted for their mingling of American history and literary imagination
> through the interaction of fictional and real-life characters.
I just took action on this issue and thought you might find it interesting too.
Click on this URL to take action now http://capwiz.com/thenation/utr/2/?a=6264521&i=52337666
If your email program does not recognize the URL as a link,
copy the entire URL and paste it into your Web browser.
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Only 39 days left until the election. In many states, there are less than two weeks left to register to vote!
The race is extremely close and your vote can make a difference in this election. Now is the time to make sure that you are registered and ready to vote on November 2.
If you are already registered to vote, are your friends and family registered? If everyone who receives this email registers 10 other people imagine what an impact we can make. For materials to register others to vote http://www.getouthervote.org/toolkit.asp
Finally, please do not assume you are registered. Whether you participated in a registration drive at school, went to the Board of Elections in person, or registered through Get Out Her Vote, if you have not received a voter registration card and two weeks have passed since you registered to vote call your Board of Elections and have them confirm your name is on the rolls.
Every vote makes a difference, don’t sit this one out!
Dear Amy Truax,
Yesterday, I wrote to you asking you to send your financial support to the Democratic Party. Today, I'd like ask you to join me in protecting our most crucial human rights: a woman's right to choose, advances for people of color, essential protections for workers, consumers, and the environment, and other pillars of our progress as a nation.
Four more years of George W. Bush, and all of the rights and protections that we and the generations before us have worked so hard to secure will be wiped away. Our rights will be under attack if Bush is re-elected and has the opportunity to appoint our next Supreme Court Justices.
So many voters don't even know about this threat. That's why I'm writing today with an urgent request to help us educate all voters. Please join me and host a Save the Court House Party on Saturday, October 2.
http://www..democrats.org/events/
It could be the most important contribution you make to helping win this election. Sign up right now by clicking on the link.
http://www..democrats.org/events/
When you invite your family, friends, and neighbors to your home, you can join Save the Court Campaign Chair Kate Michelman and me in a conference call. We will talk about just what is at stake and what the next four years could bring, but more importantly, what it could bring to future generatio ns.
It's simple to host a house party.
http://www..democrats.org/events/
October 2 is exactly one month to the day until Election Day. Kick off that countdown by energizing your friends, family and neighbors. Get them to join us in this fight. It's one we simply cannot afford to lose.
With your help, November 2 will be a day for celebration. We'll defeat George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, elect John Kerry and John Edwards and Save our Court!
With my most sincere thanks and appreciation,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Dear Feminist Activists:
Urge the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to immediately hold hearings on Afghanistan.
The Taliban is reemerging in increasing numbers, stepping up its attacks with the intention of disrupting the October 9 th presidential election in Afghanistan. These terrorists are using violence and intimidation to stop women from registering to vote and to stop women registrars. In June and July, four women election officials were killed. In some areas we hear not a single woman has registered. According to the UN, only 19% of women are registered to vote in southern Afghanistan because of the lack of security. Girls' schools continue to be the targets of arson and destruction by the Taliban and other militia extremists in the country. Masooda Jalal, the only woman presidential candidate, has reported that she has received death threats because of her candidacy.
With the election less than a month away, there have been assassination attempts on Afghan President Hamid Karzai and one of his vice-presidents. Just last week, a rocket was fired at a helicopter carrying President Karzai, preventing him from landing in Gardez in southeastern Afghanistan, and four days later a remote-controlled bomb was detonated near the convoy of Vice President Nematuallah Shahrani as he was traveling with other officials in the northern province of Kunduz.
Taliban-led attacks are also causing aid agencies that provide essential health and humanitarian aid services to pull out or cut back operations in the region. This month, a United Nations aid agency put all staff on hold in southeastern Afghanistan after two aid workers were killed in Gardez. In addition, the French humanitarian group, Doctors Without Borders, ended its work in Afghanistan after 24 years following the killing of five of its employees this past June.
The Bush Administration is refusing to discuss the real situation in Afghanistan and is even supporting the inclusion of so-called “moderate Taliban” in the Afghan government. The House International Relations Committee held a hearing yesterday on US security policy in Afghanistan. At this critical time, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee must also step in and demand from administration officials how it will improve security, stabilize the country and ensure women and men are able to vote in the upcoming elections. We cannot leave Afghan women to the brutality of the Taliban once again.
Please send a message today to Chair Richard Lugar (R-IN) and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to immediately hold hearings on the current crisis in Afghanistan .
We cannot forget Afghan women nor allow the constant misinformation of the Bush Administration to give the impression that Afghanistan is moving towards democracy when, in reality, the country is unraveling.
For Women’s Equality,
Norma Gattsek
Deputy Director of Policy and Programs Sara Hasan Nagy
Deputy Director of Global Programs
OP-ED COLUMNIST Let's Get Real
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Never mind the inevitable claims that John Kerry is soft on terrorism. What he must address is the question of how his policy in Iraq would differ from President Bush's. And his answer should be that unlike Mr. Bush, whose decisions have been dictated at every stage by grandiose visions and wishful thinking, he will get real - focusing on what is really possible in Iraq, and what needs to be done to protect American security.
Mr. Bush claims that Mr. Kerry's plan to secure and rebuild Iraq is "exactly what we're currently doing." No, it isn't. It's only what Mr. Bush is currently saying. And we have 18 months of his administration's deeds to contrast with his words.
The actual record is one of officials who have refused to admit that their fantasies about how the war would go were wrong, and who have continued to push us ever deeper into the quagmire because of their insistence that everything is going according to plan.
There has been a lot of press coverage of the administration's failure to do anything serious about rebuilding Iraq. Less attention has been given to its parallel failure to take the security problem seriously until much of Iraq had already been lost.
Long after it was obvious to everyone else that we were engaged in an escalating guerrilla war, Bush appointees clung to the belief that they were fighting a handful of dead-enders and foreign terrorists.
As a result, they casually swelled the ranks of our foes - remember, Moktada al-Sadr was never going to be our friend, but he didn't have to be our enemy. They even treated Iraqi security forces with contempt, not bothering to provide them with adequate training or equipment.
In an analysis titled "Inexcusable Failure," Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies details how the U.S. "failed to treat the Iraqis as partners in the counterinsurgency effort." U.S. officials, he declares, are "guilty of a gross military, administrative and moral failure."
That failure continues. All the evidence suggests that Bush officials still think that one more military push - after the U.S. election, of course - will end the insurgency. They're still not taking the task of fighting a sustained guerrilla war seriously.
"Three months into its new mission," The New York Times reported, "the military command in charge of training and equipping Iraqi security forces has fewer than half of its permanent headquarters personnel in place."
At the root of this folly is a continuing refusal to face uncomfortable facts. Confronted with a bleak C.I.A. assessment of the Iraq situation - one that matches the judgment of just about every independent expert - Mr. Bush's response is that "they were just guessing." "In many ways," Mr. Cordesman writes, "the administration's senior spokesmen still seem to live in a fantasyland."
Fantasyland extended to the Rose Garden yesterday, where Mr. Bush said polls asking Iraqis whether their nation was on the right track were more positive than similar polls asking Americans about their outlook - and he seemed to consider that a good sign.
Where is Mr. Bush taking us? As the reality of Iraq gets worse, his explanations of our goals get ever vaguer. "The security of our world," Mr. Bush told the U.N., "is found in the advancing rights of mankind."
He doesn't really believe that. After all, he continues to praise Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, even as Mr. Putin strangles democratic institutions. The subtext of Mr. Bush's bombast is that because he can't bring himself to admit a mistake, he refuses to give up on his effort to turn Iraq into a docile client state - an effort that is doomed unless he can figure out a way to come up with a few hundred thousand more troops.
We don't have to go there. American policy shouldn't be dictated by Mr. Bush's infallibility complex; our first priority must be our own security. And in Iraq, that means setting realistic goals.
On "Meet The Press" back in April, Mr. Kerry wasn't as forthright about Iraq as he has now, at long last, become, but he did return several times to a point that shows that he is on the right track. "What is critical," he said, "is a stable Iraq." Not an Iraq in our image, but a country that isn't a "failed state" that poses a threat to American security.
The Bush administration has made such a mess of Iraq that even achieving that goal will be very hard. But unlike Mr. Bush's fantasies, it's still in the realm of the possible.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
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Put Away Your Hankies...a Message from Michael Moore
MichaleMoore.com
Monday 20 September 2004
Dear Friends,
Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is
embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, "Oh, it's all over! We are finished! Bush can't win! Waaaaaa!"
Hell no. It's never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished -- they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.
They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself "Republican," yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the
governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.
Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the
frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!"
No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you
expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.
Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter, kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for president -- Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah just
gave 300 women a... Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and moaning and screaming, "Oh God, NOT a friggin' Pontiac!" Of course not, they were happy. The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You want more than that, well, I can't help you. I had a Pontiac
once and it lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year.
My friends, it is time for a reality check.
1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently
voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they
are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are
being snookered if you believe any of these polls.
2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.
3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a sugar-coated lie).
4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11" (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to
call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their deaths -- and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush
bothered to show up when he was in the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going
to cook his goose come this November.
So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush people need you to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into your easy chair and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate another four years of George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a
candidate who didn't windsurf and who was just as smart as we were when WE knew Bush was lying about WMD and Saddam planning 9/11. It's like Karl Rove is hypnotizing you -- "Kerry voted for the war...Kerry voted for the war...Kerrrrrryyy vooootted fooooor theeee warrrrrrrrrr..."
Yes...Yes...Yesssss....He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting now...what I need is sleep...sleeep...sleeeeeeppppp...
WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault weapons are back on the street -- and 54% now believe the war is wrong. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS -- YOU JUST
HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU DO THAT?
Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our hands. Not another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you want about how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had the courage to stand up for something. Personally, I think that
kid is still inside him. Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold out a hand to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat the forces of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice?
Yours,
Michael Moore
Mr. Bush and His 10 Ever-Changing Different Positions on Iraq: "A flip and a flop and now just a flop."
9/22/04
Dear Mr. Bush,
I am so confused. Where exactly do you stand on the issue of Iraq? You, your Dad, Rummy, Condi, Colin, and Wolfie -- you have all changed your minds so many times, I am out of breath just trying to keep up with you!
Which of these 10 positions that you, your family and your cabinet have taken over the years represents your CURRENT thinking:
1983-88: WE LOVE SADDAM. On December 19, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld was sent by your dad and Mr. Reagan to go and have a friendly meeting with Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq. Rummy looked so happy in the picture. Just twelve days after this visit, Saddam gassed thousands of Iranian troops. Your dad and Rummy seemed pretty happy with the results because The Donald R. went back to have another chummy hang-out with Saddams right-hand man, Tariq Aziz, just four months later. All of this resulted in the U.S. providing credits and loans to Iraq that enabled Saddam to buy billions of dollars worth of weapons and chemical agents. T he Washington Post reported that your dad and Reagan let it be known to their Arab allies that the Reagan/Bush administration wanted Iraq to win its war with Iran and anyone who helped Saddam accomplish this was a fri end of ours.
1990: WE HATE SADDAM. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, your dad and his defense secretary, Dick Cheney, decided they didn't like Saddam anymore so they attacked Iraq and returned Kuwait to its rightful dictators.
1991: WE WANT SADDAM TO LIVE. After the war, your dad and Cheney and Colin Powell told the Shiites to rise up against Saddam and we would support them. So they rose up. But then we changed our minds. When the Shiites rose up against Saddam, the Bush inner circle changed its mind and decided NOT to help the Shiites. Thus, they were massacred by Saddam.
1998: WE WANT SADDAM TO DIE. In 1998, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others, as part of the Project for the New American Century, wrote an open letter to President Clinton insisting he invade and topple Saddam Hussein.
2000: WE DON'T BELIEVE IN WAR AND NATION BUILDING. Just three years later, during your debate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, when asked by the moderator Jim Lehrer where you stood when it came to using force for regime change, you turned out to be a downright pacifist:
I--I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president [Al Gore] and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I--I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place. And so I take my--I take my--my responsibility seriously. --October 3, 2000
2001 (early): WE DON'T BELIEVE SADDAM IS A THREAT. When you took office in 2001, you sent your Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and your National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, in front of the cameras to assure the American people they need not worry about Saddam Hussein. Here is what they said:
Powell: We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they have directed that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was 10 years ago when we began it. And frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. --February 24, 2001
Rice: But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt. --July 29, 2001
2001 (late): WE BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US! Just a few months later, in the hours and days after the 9/11 tragedy, you had no interest in going after Osama bin Laden. You wanted only to bomb Iraq and kill Saddam and you then told all of America we were under imminent threat because weapons of mass destruction were coming our way. You led the American people to believe that Saddam had something to do with Osama and 9/11. Without the UN's sanction, you broke international law and invaded Iraq.
2003: WE DONT BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US.. After no WMDs were found, you changed your mind about why you said we needed to invade, coming up with a brand new after-the-fact reason -- we started this war so we could have regime change, liberate Iraq and give the Iraqis democracy!
2003: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Yes, everyone saw you say it -- in costume, no less!
2004: OOPS. MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED! Now you call the Iraq invasion a "catastrophic success." That's what you called it this month. Over a thousand U.S. soldiers have died, Iraq is in a state of total chaos where no one is safe, and you have no clue how to get us out of there.
Mr. Bush, please tell us -- when will you change your mind again?
I know you hate the words "flip" and "flop," so I won't use them both on you. In fact, I'll use just one: Flop. That is what you are. A huge, colossal flop. The war is a flop, your advisors and the "intelligence" they gave you is a flop, and now we are all a flop to the rest of the world. Flop. Flop. Flop.
And you have the audacity to criticize John Kerry with what you call the "many positions" he has taken on Iraq. By my count, he has taken only one: He believed you. That was his position. You told him and the rest of congress that Saddam had WMDs. So he -- and the vast majority of Americans, even those who didn't vote for you -- believed you. You see, Americans, like John Kerry, want to live in a country where they can believe their president.
That was the one, single position John Kerry took. He didn't support the war, he supported YOU.. And YOU let him and this great country down. And that is why tens of millions can't wait to get to the polls on Election Day -- to remove a major, catastrophic flop from our dear, beloved White House -- to stop all the flipping you and your men have done, flipping us and the rest of the world off.
We can't take another minute of it.
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label
By John F. Harris
The Washington Post
Thursday 23 September 2004
One of this year's candidates for president, to hear his opposition tell it, has a long history of policy reversals and rhetorical about-faces -- a zigzag trail that proves his willingness to massage positions and even switch sides when politically convenient.
The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed.
Democrats working for John F. Kerry cite these twists and turns with glee -- but even more frustration. Polls have shown overwhelmingly that Kerry -- with his long trail of confusing and sometimes contradictory statements, especially on Iraq -- is this year's flip-flopper in the public mind, a criticism that continued to echo across the campaign trail yesterday.
Once such a popular perception becomes fixed, public opinion experts and strategists say, virtually every episode in the campaign is viewed through that prism, while facts that do not fit with existing assumptions -- such as Bush's history of policy shifts -- do not have much impact in the political debate.
Why these impressions became so firmly fixed in the first place is a source of debate. Bush strategists say the popular perception is true. The president's principles on such issues as low taxes and confronting overseas threats are not in doubt, no matter some occasional tactical shifts, they say, while Kerry's maneuvering on Iraq and other issues raises questions about whether he can stand steady for core beliefs.
Kerry defenders say the flip-flop charge has resonated through purposeful repetition by the Bush campaign, which began striking the theme in ads in the spring and has never let go. In the latest Bush campaign spot, released yesterday, Kerry is shown windsurfing as the ad, scored with Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Blue Danube" waltz, says the Democrat shifts positions on Iraq, health care and education "whichever way the wind blows."
As Democrats see it, the flip-flopper allegation is this year's equivalent of how the GOP four years ago portrayed Al Gore as a chronic truth-stretcher, and now, as then, blame the news media for accepting and promoting a caricature.
For a while this summer, Kerry's team tried to answer Bush's charge that Kerry is equivocating and inconstant by alleging that Bush is just as much or more so. But lately the campaign has laid off this line of argument after concluding it was ineffective against an opponent who surveys show is seen by a majority of voters as decisive, even to the point of stubbornness.
"When it comes to shifting positions, he can shift with the best," Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart said of Bush. "We are prosecuting a different case. We are not arguing that he's a flip-flopper -- he is -- but that the policy choices he has taken have failed miserably."
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, said voters' perceptions are too settled at this point to allow easily for alternate arguments. Once the public concludes that a politician is strong in general, he or she has more freedom to be flexible on certain delicate particulars, Kohut said, adding that in the case of this year's nominees, "Bush can get away with a little more, and Kerry can get away with a little less."
Stuart Stevens, one of Bush's media advisers, argued that the public's judgments are fair. Voters do not believe that Bush has never changed his mind, or penalize Kerry for every change of position, he said, but over time have reached conclusions about both men's priorities and leadership styles.
"I think all these issues resonate with any candidate if they strike people as part of a pattern and reasonable and true," Stevens said. "The president is someone who has a core set of beliefs and values that are guiding him as he tries to make decisions.
"I don't think he hesitates to change an approach if he feels it's not working, but I don't think people sense remotely that he's doing it [based on] a political compass," he added.
The record, however, suggests a fair degree of political calculation has gone into some of Bush's about-faces. During his first term, the paramount goals -- such as cutting taxes or pursuing a confrontation with Saddam Hussein -- have been fixed. But this has allowed room for tactical maneuvering on other questions.
In 2000, Bush said he would include carbon dioxide on a list of air pollutants requiring federal oversight, a stand he abandoned within weeks of taking office. A month after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush's spokesman said the president believed a homeland security department that Democrats proposed was "just not necessary." A year after that, Bush had switched course and was lashing some Democrats for not moving quickly enough to approve the agency.
While Bush professes himself a strong free-trader, most other free-trade proponents said he bent on principle in March 2002 when he ordered tariffs on imported steel -- a move that resonated politically in electorally important industrial states such as Pennsylvania. Facing an escalating global trade dispute, he lifted the tariffs at the end of last year.
In some cases, Democrats say, Bush's position stays the same even as his reasons flip. The most famous examples involve taxes and Iraq. He supported tax cuts in 2000 because he said they were affordable in a time of large government surpluses, and once in power he supported them amid rising deficits because he said the economy needed stimulation. The president's principal rationale for the Iraq invasion was to end Baghdad's suspected mass-weapons program and links to international terrorism. In the absence of compelling evidence of these, the main post-invasion rationale has been to rescue Iraq from a tyrant and support democracy in the greater Middle East.
Iraq, however, has been the source of the most damaging charges of equivocation and wind-shifting against Kerry. The Massachusetts senator voted for the Iraq war in October 2002, but a year later voted against Bush's request for $87 billion for military and reconstruction spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latter vote came when former Vermont governor Howard Dean's antiwar candidacy was ascendant. The vote may have been wise politics at the time, but came with a high price -- lending an aura of plausibility to the subsequent charges by Bush that Kerry is motivated by opportunism.
Kerry's statements have compounded the damage. In September 2003, he said at a Democratic debate, "We should not send more American troops" to Iraq. "That would be the worst thing." In April, he said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "if it requires more troops . . . that's what you have to do." In August, he told ABC's "This Week" that if elected, "I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops." This week, he said that, as president, he would not have launched an invasion if he had known that there was not clear evidence of weapons of mass destruction or ties to al Qaeda, though last month he said, knowing these things, he still would have voted to give Bush congressional authority to wage the Iraq war.
Polls make clear the extent to which Bush's flip-flop charge has stuck. A poll released last week by Kohut's Pew Center showed that 53 percent of voters believe Kerry "changes his mind too much." This was down a few percentage points from a poll the week earlier, apparently showing that the effects of the Republican National Convention -- in which delegates swayed in unison chanting "flip-flop, flip-flop" about Kerry -- are wearing off. Even so, the latest data show that 62 percent said the attribute "takes a stand" applies more to Bush than to Kerry, while 29 percent said the opposite. Bush won by 57 percent to 34 percent on which candidate more deserves the phrase "strong leader."
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) blames the news media for such perceptions. "Journalists decide a type, and then write to type," he said. "Gore as the 'exaggerator.' John Kerry has not done anything that George Bush has not done in spades, but you guys all decide he's 'resolute.' "
Stevens, who has been studying Kerry since advising then-Massachusetts Gov. William H. Weld (R) in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the senator in 1996, said Kerry's very manner exacerbates the flip-flop impression: "He says these things with great condescension, [suggesting]: 'If only you were as smart as I and understand this that these issues are too complicated to have a consistent position.' . . . People have a good internal detector of the difference between nuance and confusion and opportunism."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092404X.shtml
Dear Amy,
We all know the harsh realities of Iraq. Unfortunately, George Bush has no plan to get us out of Iraq. Now George Bush thinks the future of Iraq is brighter than the future of America. He actually said that yesterday, "I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America."
We don't need to tell you how important this election is and why you need to be involved. The news speaks for itself. Online supporters like you have supported this campaign and the Democratic Party with your contributions. We'll need your help with next week's deadline and we also need you to take action in other ways.
The result of this presidential election will be decided by slim margins in a few states. A vote-by-vote battle is now shaping up that will decide the winner on Election Day.
Now the Democratic Party is putting in place the largest and most aggressive field program ever. Tens of thousands of people are working every day, but more help is needed.
What do we need the most? The maximum number of volunteers working on the ground in "battleground" states every day until Election Day. And you can help us make that happen.
There are two ways you can help:
Join the new JohnKerry.com "Phone Corps" to activate volunteers in swing states by making phone calls. We need your help to call and schedule volunteers for shifts to go door-to-door and perform other tasks. Every volunteer you schedule will make dozens of voter contacts.
http://johnkerry.com/calls
Go to a swing state! Battleground states are ready to put out-of-state volunteers to work for a weekend or even full time from now until Election Day. Change your life for the next six weeks and move to a swing state -- organizers even have housing ready for a limited number of volunteers. Or get together with a few friends and make a weekend trip.
http://johnkerry.com/roadtrip
In 2000, Al Gore won Iowa by 4,000 votes -- that's two per precinct! He won New Mexico by 400 votes. The Democratic Party's "road trippers" and the Kerry Phone Corps will move more votes than that in 2004.
You've known all along what's at stake in this election. With less than seven weeks left, now is the time to get active to guarantee that we take back the White House.
Please sign up for Road Trip to Victory or for the Kerry Phone Corps today.
Thank you,
Mary Beth Cahill
Campaign Manager
P.S. Don't forget to check out the new ad:
http://johnkerry.com/tv
Week In Review
September 24, 2004
A Personal Message From Ann F. Lewis: Join Us To Take Five!
With just 39 days to Election Day, women want to know what we can do to make a difference. The answer is TAKE FIVE, the new program of the DNC Women's Vote Center that enables women to connect with five new voters: women you can reach who have not voted, or don't intend to vote, because they don't understand what this election can mean to them. Think about the women at the grocery store, the child care center, or the dentist's office -- let them know what's at stake in this election and stay in touch until their votes are cast.
TAKE FIVE materials give you information and language you can use to talk with these women, to encourage them to register, and then to vote early if that is allowed in your state. The TAKE FIVE coordinator in your state will work with you to follow up and be sure that your effort is part of the campaign's get-out-the-women's-vote effort.
More than 125,000 active Democratic women read the Week in Review each week, and many of you circulate it to your friends. If each of you joined TAKE FIVE, we would add more than a half million new voters -- and elect John Kerry President of the United States!
So print out your "how-to" kit, and sign up to TAKE FIVE today!
George Bush Won't Tell The Truth Abut Iraq -- But Military Moms Are Speaking Up! While George Bush continues to claim that we're doing well in Iraq, the facts are very different: In the first 17 days of September, 52 U.S. soldiers died, threatening to make September the second deadliest month since the war began. Two more American hostages have been brutally murdered, major cities are off-limits to Americans -- even American military forces, and every day's news is of "...suicide bombings, kidnappings, rising casualties, cities under siege and ambushes."
Now, Moms with a Mission -- mothers and wives of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have kicked off a Home Front Tour, sponsored by the DNC, to tell the truth about the real costs of George W. Bush's failed foreign policy and his failed record for military families.
"I want to let Americans know we have been lied to about Iraq, about the rationale, about the costs, and about our preparedness," said Nita Martin, who has had two sons serve in Iraq. The White House doesn't want to talk about Iraq, but we do. And we will."
Members of Moms with a Mission have watched the campaign in Iraq deteriorate while the President continues to mislead the nation about the developments of the war. Now they are taking action to make sure Americans know the truth about Bush's wrong choices and failed policies. Be sure to come and see them if they go to your state!
And He Won't Tell The Truth About Health Care, Either. Last week, we learned more about how the Bush White House concealed the truth about rising costs while their Medicare bill was going through Congress -- and how they're distorting the facts about the resulting increase in Medicare payments now -- the biggest increase ever!
This week, another misstatement, this time about the future cost of health care and the difference John Kerry's health care plan could make. While President Bush's campaign tried to cite a health care study on behalf of Bush's policy, the actual study by the highly respected Lewin Group showed just the opposite:
The Lewin Group study finds that the average family will see their health costs go up by $68 under the Bush plan and down $451 under the Kerry plan. In addition, it finds that health premiums would go up for all income groups making over $10,000 under the Bush plan and down for all income groups under the Kerry plan.
The White House website says that the Bush plan "results in more than 11 million and as many as 17.5 million newly insured Americans." The Washington Post said, "But when the Bush-Cheney team was asked to provide documentation, the hard data fell far short of the claims."
The Bush-Cheney campaign also made misleading claims about the cost of the Kerry health care plan. As the Lewin memorandum says, "...the cost estimates of the Kerry plan are substantially overstated. This is not surprising given that the costs estimates appear to be based on assumptions that do not accurately reflect the Kerry proposal."
Misleading claims, inaccurate numbers. Yep, they're consistent all right.
Another Bad Idea From This Republican Congress: Higher Taxes On Low Income Families. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) led the effort to protect tax relief for low-income working families, but the Republican leadership prevailed -- and families lost. "I am continually astounded that some members of Congress don't understand how challenging it is to raise a family in today's economy," Lincoln said. "While the cost of everything from milk to laundry detergent continues to rise, tax relief for low-income working families decreases."
The legislation effectively raises taxes on three million low-income families -- so while George Bush calls for making permanent his tax cuts for the highest end of the income spectrum, he's leaving low income working families even further behind.
According to a statement by Leonard Burman of the Urban Institute and John Karl Scholz of the University of Wisconsin, "for many low-income families whose earnings have not kept pace with inflation, the [change in the child-tax credit] provision actually magnifies the damage done by inflation."
See for yourself the impact of George Bush's so-called "compassionate" policies by watching "Left Out: The Children and Families Left Behind by the President's Tax Proposal", a film sponsored by the American Progress Action Fund, in which parents chronicle what this missing tax credit means to their families.
Democrats Taking The Lead
John Kerry Pledges To Protect Social Security From Privatization. Citing a new study by the University of Chicago that finds George W. Bush's Social Security privatization plan will provide a $940 billion windfall to the financial industry while cutting benefits for seniors, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said the president is wrong to put the interest of his friends and contributors above seniors and families.
We know that Social Security is a lifeline for older women -- because we live longer, are paid less and are less likely to have other pension benefits, women make up 60% of Social Security recipients -- and Social Security is the only source of income for one-quarter of elderly women living alone.
"Our mothers, our grandmothers are the first ones hurt when benefits go down," John Kerry said, pledging that he will oppose attempts to cut benefits or privatize the Social Security System.
The Bush plan would cost $2 trillion from Social Security over the next decade, though we have no idea where that money would come from. It would increase the budget deficit through 2050.
A Congressional Budget Office study found that the President's plan will cut Social Security benefits by up to 45%, while costing $2 trillion over the next ten years. On the other hand, the financial services industry would reap billions of dollars as part of the largest windfall in financial history!
For more about the importance of Social Security to Women -- and why George Bush's plan is so dangerous -- check in with the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Host A Women's Debate Watch Party! The Presidential debates are quickly approaching -- and they are a perfect opportunity to host a women's debate watch party! Invite your friends and family members over so you can watch John Kerry debate George W. Bush in what's sure to be the most interesting Presidential debate in recent history.
Here's what you can do: Sign up your women's debate watch party on the John Kerry website so we can document it. Be sure to print out TAKE FIVE packets and encourage your guests to commit to participating -- tell them we need their help to get out the women's vote!
Don't forget to email us your feedback -- what did you think about the debate? How did your mother or neighbor think John Kerry or George W. Bush did? Your comments are important -- so let us know!
What Will You Do This Week To Save The Court? Sign-Up To Host A House Party. October 2, 2004, National House Party Day for the Save the Court Campaign, is just a week away. Many thanks to those who have already signed up to host. But if you haven't yet, sign up now!
If you host an event, your party is invited to join in a conference call with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Save the Court Campaign Chair, Kate Michelman.
Plus, if you sign up to host a party by noon, Eastern Standard Time, on Monday, Sept. 27, we'll send you a short film to share with your guests on the threat to the court, narrated by Kathleen Turner. (If you sign up after Monday, Sept. 27th, we'll still send you a copy of the film, but it may not arrive until after you've held your party.)
If you can't host a house party, make it your mission to find someone else who can! Forward this invitation to hold a Save the Court House Party to a friend or relative -- across the street, across the state, or across the country. It's not just that these parties are fun -- they educate and mobilize voters.
Women's Leadership Forum Conference. Wondering where can you toast Elizabeth Edwards at Senator and Mrs. Ted Kennedy's, lunch with Leader Nancy Pelosi and party with Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and women Members of Congress?
Would you like to discuss issues like national security, the Supreme Court, civil rights, human rights, the media, and reproductive rights, just to name a few, with experts like: Senator Joseph Biden, Congresswoman Jane Harman, Gloria Steinem, Lt. General Claudia Kennedy, Ambassador Wendy Sherman, Roger Altman, Governor Jeanne Shaheen, Ann Lewis, National Chair of the Women's Vote Center, Laura Murphy, Director of the Washington National Office of the ACLU, Kate Michelman, Chair of the DNC's Campaign to Save the Courts, David Brock and many more?
Then you need to join with women from across the country and register for the WLF National Issues Conference in Washington, DC on September 29th-October 1st. For more information on the conference, please click here. Email us or call us at 202.488.5014 for further information.
WIR Readers -- Taking Five! "As I promised yesterday to bring five women to the poll with me on Election Day, I am working towards that. As of today I have given and collected six voter registrations forms which will be in the mail by tomorrow morning. I have promised to take these women to the polls come Election Day. I have also recruited three very reliable women in my work place who will take five women to the polls. My goal is to convince these five women to bring five women along with them on Election Day. My husband and I are trying to get transportation for these people if we have to, but do not worry about this; we can still use our own transportation."
- Angela, whose efforts will bring 21 women voters to the polls!
"I recently signed up for the Take 5 program and will be tracking 42 of my friends, family members and co-workers to ensure not only that they vote, but that they vote for the "right" candidate (Kerry, of course!). As a young woman, it is so crucial to get involved and truly take an interest in your country and hopefully this election will be the stepping stone for many more women to do so."
- Jennifer, Miss North Dakota USA 2004
BEATINGBUSH.COM Democrats around the country are organizing to make sure that the 2004 election is fair this time and that ALL Democrats are counted. Your state Democratic Party is at the center of these critical on-the-ground efforts.
Ready to be counted? Visit the website and start the chain of victory this November -- and link with Democratic state parties in their on-the-ground efforts to ensure that this election is fair.
We can't let Florida happen again. Can we count on you?
Quotes Of The Week
"The President talks often about the progress we've made in places like...Iraq." - President Bush's press secretary, Scott McClellan, 9/15/04
"The fact is we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble in Iraq." - Senator Chuck Hagel, R-NE 9/19/04
"If anybody doesn't support the troops it's George W. Bush -- he sent my sons to war with no plan. They were ill-prepared and the result is more and more casualties everyday." - Nita Martin of Pennsylvania, mother of two sons who served in Iraq, 9/21/04
America's Future | www.ourfuture.org
Dear Amy,
I'm excited to report that this past Wednesday, nearly 4,000 House Parties for Great Public Schools were held across the country with over 50,000 people in attendance. The event was covered in hundreds of news stories from CNN and the Boston Globe, to the Orange County Register and Channel 10 in St. Petersburg. The message was clear: the President and Congress have failed to live up to their promises on education, and citizens are now taking up the fight.
These house parties were just the first step in this citizen-led fight for great public schools. Please join us for round two:
WHAT: The National Phone-Blitz for Great Public Schools
WHEN: Next Wednesday, September 29th
http://www.ourfuture.org/action_center/gpscall.cfm
Sign up for a time to call by Monday, September 27. We will send you an email with your time to call on the National Phone-Blitz Day - Wednesday, September 29. Together we will keep their phones ringing off the hook (literally!) in this coordinated campaign for great public schools.
Tell your Senators not to leave Washington this year without providing their promised funding to our schools, and demand that they reject the Bush plan to gut education funding after the election.
The President and Congress made big promises to our schools in speeches about the so-called "No Child Left Behind" law. But their rhetoric hasn't matched reality. The president and Congress are $27 billion short on their promises, but expect congratulations. In terms that students and teachers clearly understand - the president and Congress have failed our schools. Mission NOT Accomplished!
Please sign up to take part in next Wednesday's Phone Blitz, and join thousands to demand Senators fulfill their promise to our public schools:
http://www.ourfuture.org/action_center/gpscall.cfm
Washington needs to hear from you, and they won't be hearing from you alone! Tens of thousands of participants from this week's house parties are passionate and determined to build a real movement for great public schools. Working together, phone-in-hand, we will send our lawmakers a clear message: the promise of funding to our public schools must be kept, and the Bush plan to gut education funding must be rejected.
Please register before Monday, September 27th to join thousands in what promises to be a power-packed Phone-Blitz for Great Public Schools.
http://www.ourfuture.org/action_center/gpscall.cfm
Best,
Adam Luna, Policy Director
Campaign for America's Future
Dear MoveOn member,
For weeks we've been testing and tuning Leave No Voter Behind, our neighbor-to-neighbor vote drive to turn out 440,000 new voters for Kerry this November. Our army of 500 organizers (you can see some of them in the picture on the right) spent the past three days training in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They're pumped up and ready to hit the pavement. Today they head out into the battleground states, and Leave No Voter Behind begins.
We're officially launching the program next week, and we want you to be a part of the kick off event. Wednesday night, we're holding a nation-wide online launch party and briefing, where we'll explain how the program works in detail, hear from organizers and MoveOn members who are doing the work in the field, take questions from all of you, and tell you how you can make the biggest impact in the upcoming election. And after the briefing, we'll spend an hour hitting the phones, recruiting volunteers in key neighborhoods to help run the program. To join the effort, all you need is a computer with a high-speed internet connection and speakers, or a phone.
Can you make it? RSVP today at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/launchparty.html
Two years ago, MoveOn members were part of a historic movement to stop the war in Iraq. Together, we warned that the war would make the world less safe, that the inspections were working, and that the Bush administration had no exit strategy. And when the zealots in the Bush administration recklessly went to war, we vowed to hold George Bush accountable for this enormous and tragic blunder on November 2nd.
And that's what Leave No Voter Behind is all about. Like the movement against the war, it's driven by MoveOn members at the grassroots. Our 500 battleground-state organizers will help 10,000 MoveOn Precinct Leaders and tens of thousands of local volunteers systematically reach out to people in their community who might not vote.
And those of us who are not in the battleground states are just as important. In millions of face-to-face and phone conversations, we'll explain to occasional Democratic voters why this election is the one they can't sit out -- and why they need to vote for John Kerry.
The methods in Leave No Voter Behind are proven to work. The organizers are on the ground. Now we need your help. Can you join our nation-wide briefing next Wednesday and help get this program off to a running start?
Sign up to be a part of Wednesday night's launch at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/launchparty.html
Today we're also launching the next in our series of "10 Weeks" countdown web ads. This week's web ad features actor Donal Logue as "Jimmy the Cabdriver," a character originally popularized on MTV. It's a funny, satirical take on Bush's obsession with Iraq -- sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of the Bush administration's logic.
You can check out the video now at:
http://moveonpac.org/10weeks/
Thanks for everything you do, and see you Wednesday.
Sincerely,
--Eli Pariser and Adam Ruben
MoveOn PAC
September 24th, 2004 (38 days to go!)
PAID FOR BY MOVEON PAC www.moveonpac.org
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
Dear MoveOn Student Action,
President Bush's war of choice has taken a heavy toll on our generation. Young
people have suffered the vast majority of the 1046 deaths and 7026 injuries
sustained in Iraq. We've lost friends, classmates and siblings. The situation is
deteriorating so rapidly that even top Senate Republicans are saying we are in
"deep trouble" and bemoaning Bush's "incompetence."(1)
That's why last week we launched our open letter to President Bush demanding a
plan to end the war. So far, we have gathered almost 60,000 student signatures.
The letter will be printed next week in the New York Times with the total
signature count. Please sign today:
http://www.moveonstudentaction.org/iraqletter
The total consequences of this war for students and young people are staggering.
The military is now so badly overstretched that military experts say a national
draft is a real possibility. (2) All of our lives may literally be on the line
to pay for Bush's failure.
Throughout all of this, Bush has expressed no surprise, no regret, and no plan
to change course to save lives. He now is asking our generation for four more
years of blind faith. In our view, that's not how democracy works.
That's why we are demanding answers. It's simple really - the justification for
the war turned out to be false, and the occupation is a painful failure that is
killing our troops, dragging us toward a draft and leaving us less safe. So we
are asking the obvious: WHAT IS THE PLAN TO END THE WAR?
To make sure we are heard, we will be printing our ad in the national edition of
the New York Times - the first student group ever to do so. Every signature we
get will be counted in the printed version, so please sign today.
http://www.moveonstudentaction.org/iraqletter
To donate toward the cost of printing the letter, please visit:
http://www.moveonstudentaction.org/donate
Below is a full copy of the letter:
--
Dear President Bush,
As students and young Americans, we demand an explanation.
The vast majority of the 1000 brave soldiers killed and 7,000 wounded in Iraq
have been young people. We have lost friends, classmates, and siblings.
Before you launched this war you promised it would be swift. Over a year ago,
you declared that our mission was accomplished. Since then, the casualty rate
has only continued to rise.
Experts are now saying that poor planning for the occupation has overstretched
our armed forces and put us on the road to a draft.
Now you ask our generation to trust you with our vote, and with our lives. But
first, Mr. President, there are a few things we deserve to know.
* What is your plan to end this war?
* What is the mission now, and when will it be truly accomplished?
* Most importantly, when will we know that the last of our friends has died?
We await your answer.
Respectfully,
The Undersigned [Final Number Will Go Here] Students and Young Americans
--
To sign this letter, just visit
http://www.moveonstudentaction.org/iraqletter
Thanks for all you do.
- Ben, Noah, Meighan, Paul, Manasee
The MoveOn Student Action Team
(1) Quotes from Senators Richard Lugar (R, IN) and Chuck Hegel (R, NE) as
reported by the New York Times, September 19th 2004
(2) For more information see: http://www.allianceforsecurity.org/draft and
http://www.optruth.org