- America's increasingly bitter race for the White House
hit a new low as the two candidates traded insults with each other in the
aftermath of last week's first presidential debate.
-
- John Kerry is seeking to capitalise on his widely perceived
victory in the debate, while George W Bush is seeking to bounce back from
a poor performance. Kerry's campaign appearances now include a parody of
Bush as an Elmer Fudd-type character who cannot speak clearly on the issue
of the Iraq war.
-
- 'He keeps trying to say, "Well, we're-not-we-don't-no-we-don't-you-know,
we don't want somebody who wants to leave [Iraq]"', Kerry told a cheering
audience at a rally in Florida.
-
- Democrats are delighted at Kerry's performance in Thursday's
Miami debate. Nearly all pundits and polls of viewers showed he had bested
Bush in the 90-minute talk about foreign policy, dominated by Iraq. Bush
appeared rattled and angry on several occasions. He mispronounced several
words and phrases and even Republican spin doctors privately concede he
was not at his best.
-
- Perhaps seeking to regain lost ground, Bush has also
hit the campaign trail with an all-time high level of hostility. In New
Hampshire he slammed Kerry on Iraq and said the Democrat would end up letting
America's national security decisions be vetoed 'by countries like France'.
He also lampooned Kerry as a man who loved to talk but never made decisions.
'I've never seen a meeting that would depose a tyrant, or bring a terrorist
to justice,' Bush said.
-
- However, while round one of the debating season may have
gone to Kerry, both candidates are preparing for round two in St Louis,
Missouri. The state is a barometer of political opinion and has voted for
the winning candidate in every presidential election bar one since 1900.
At the moment Bush has a healthy lead in the state, but Democrats hope
they can chip away at that as the second debate will focus more on domestic
policy. Though polls show Bush's strength among voters lies with his image
as a tough leader on national security, Kerry does much better on issues
such as the economy and healthcare.
-
- The debate will be different from Florida in that it
will employ a 'town hall' format where ordinary Americans will ask the
questions, not a professional journalist. However, there are likely to
be few surprises from the carefully picked audience of nominally undecided
voters. All questions have been submitted in advance and a moderator will
silence anyone who departs from a pre-approved script. The subject matter
is also decided by the two campaigns as a mix of domestic and foreign topics,
no matter what people in the debating chamber might believe is more important.
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1318758,00.html
-
- Comment
From Mary Sparrowdancer
- 10-4-4
-
- Bush and his father have been mainly about one thing
- "intelligence."
-
- It is, perhaps, ironic that this "intelligence"
matter is being delivered to us now by someone who is being described by
a growing number of observers as, "The Village Idiot."
-
- Let there be no mistake about it (read my lips) - the
strange, strange, "Patriot Act," is all about the promotion of
"government intelligence." The "war on drugs," as
well as "the war on terrorism," are all about the strange, strange
promotion of government intelligence.
-
- People need to understand what "government intelligence"
means.
-
- It means government spying and government empowerment
at the loss of the individual privacy that belongs to the citizens for
whom the government is SUPPOSED to be working.
-
- It also means windfall profits for corporations when
citizens can be charged with yet more crimes, have their freedom and property
taken away from them and then be incarcerated, or have them forcefully
medicated.
-
- We now have another "intelligence" matter apparently
being suggested, and this one will ensure ongoing windfall profits for
the pharmaceutical corporations that are running this country: forced
mental examinations.
-
- People need to understand that "mental examinations"
are not like physical examinations. Physical examinations are primarily
objective measurements. Mental examinations, however, are primarily based
upon subjective interpretation. In the wrong hands, it's anyone's ball
game.
-
- Incarceration is a major, profiteering industry in the
US. The corporations
- growing rich on people being imprisoned are looking with
increasing greed upon children, and no one seems to be understanding it,
yet.
-
- Prosecutors have been granted strange, strange license
to magically wave their wands and change children into adults so that the
children might receive the harshest and lengthiest of penalties - life.
Children are the healthiest of the population, and therefore, the cheapest
inmates to keep.
-
- Remember, children have no voice. They have no vote.
Having them "turned into adults" so that they might receive
the harshest of all sentences - when they have no voice - is worse than
draconian.
-
- The Bush family and their friends need to release the
world from their bloody strangle-hold. They need to release us from their
corporate greed and the corporate wars that demand: more wars,
- the taking of human rights, the taking of children's
lives, the taking of our health, the taking of our peace of mind, the taking
of our privacy and our civil liberties - and the destruction of last shreds
of democracy on Earth.
-
- Enough is enough.
-
- This world needs compassion and wisdom in its leaders,
and we need those qualities
- now.
-
- mary sparrowdancer
- <http://www.sparrowdancer.com>www.sparrowdancer.com
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