Next time I tell you someone from Texas
should not be president of the United States,
please pay attention.
Molly Ivins
"Shrub Flubs His Dub"
The Nation, June 18, 2001
There has not been so much time for me to write in the last days.
I would like to write much about this theme of USA and the presidential elections.
More than one third of my readers are from the US.
I have many ancestors living in the US, emigrated from Italy in the last centuries.
I have always had a strong intellectual and artistic connection to the US,
deeply and genuinely appreciating some of the best authors in the world.
I grew up in a very pro-american family, happy of being liberated from the Fascist regime,
and with a very idealized picture of America.
I have seen American films, read American writers and essayists,
was even trained by a great American psychologist, Carl Rogers.
Listened to fabulous musicians, like Tori Amos, for ex.
And now, the miracle of meeting someone so wonderful, coming from California, who will possibly change my life.
All considering, no one can ever accuse me of having prejudices, or being anti-american
or riding any wave of destructive critics of the USA.
First of all, as you know, nationality means nothing to me, so I do look at any single American
as I would do for anyone else in the world.
For the second, the more I love some American people and some positive aspects,
the more it is my right and duty to criticize the bad aspects of the very same nation.
Unfortunately there is a lot to criticize, especially after the sad last years of
involution in the American society.
Knowing myself, I know this will surely get as hard and direct as possible a critics of the war against Iraq,
of the Bush administration (if it can be called so), and of all the mess the world has been pushed into
by its cynical, brutal and obstinate arrogance.
Keeping always serious and based on facts, as that is what counts, in the end.
For the sake of the many good Americans, for the sake of the entire world, I really have a mission here,
saying to my dear friends: wake up!
This situation is a disaster, your country is at risk even more than you ever imagine, and it is about time
you go out and do something about it. Tuesday, November the 2nd, 2004, the day of the presidential elections, is an historic chance to stop
this depressing and dark period in your history, to reconnect with the rest of the world,
and join it to solve the troubles of this planet.
Please, do take this blog not as an attack, but as a positive chance to change and grow,
out of respect and consciousness.
So, how am I going to write about USA when I have never been there?
Yes, I know it could sound pretentious to do that. But USA is not a common country,
it has been influencing so much of our life, even here in Europe, that somehow I feel like I have
partly been living in America anyway.
I grew up in Italy, and the country is even more American then America itself.
Contrary to their tendency to be overbold at times, Italians have usually little self-worth.
They always think everything coming from abroad is better. And America has always been an idealized
font of inspiration and unrealistic dreams.
There is really one fundamental idea in common between the two folks: basing their society on that
magic idea of “dream”.
That is: not a down to earth, solid, laborious, ascetic, egalitarian and realistic society,
like in Scandinavia, for ex., but some irrational and superstitious expectations about something magically
happening one day, choosing right you out of the crowd, and suddenly getting you rich, giving you success,
and making you live a wonderful adventure.
The American dream indeed, and the Italian dream, even more.
Together with the related idea of any poor and underdog guy becoming the President, or something like that,
that is the essence of how Americans build their society.
That vision of life is deeply hypocrite and unrealistic, I will explain why.
For now, I can say that it is based on competition and privilege, on promising big things,
well-knowing that it only will work for some people, while the vast majority won't get that much.
It is the foundation of this particular form of capitalism that has the more and more smelted with,
and being confused with, globalization.
The world is afterwards nearly completely dominated by this 'unique thought', this economical
world's order based on expansion, growth, competition, domination, destruction of nature and environment,
'the bigger the better', money, organizations, multinationals and national states all above the single
citizen and his universal rights and 'insignificant' needs and dignity of life.
There is clearly a tight connection between this ideology and religion.
The Catholic in particular has a lot to do with that, and, no surprise, it is also the declared
foundation of the radical right-wing dominating ideology in USA, with the Bush administration
as its illustration and incarnation.
There is a very interesting book, just published, by Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller, Danish Ambassador
and, former State-Secretary in the Royal Danish Foreign Ministry:
Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller
“En ny verdensorden - eller slet ingen”
[“A New World Order, or No Order At All”]
Thorups forlag, Copenhagen, 2004
It is actually one of the most advanced essays I have ever read, going in the same direction as what
I write in United People, a world community based on universal values and rights.
Well, that is definitely not conforming with the direction the world has had since USA took the lead
and imposed its methods.
I am sorry to say, but the truth is the spreading of the American ideology has been one of the worst
catastrophes in the world, and it is also what is leading humanity to self-destruction.
The alternative is to re-establish a serious alternative to that, ruled by the international community
as a whole, as no single individual or corporation or state or nation or Empire has the right to
dominate the rest of the world.
George W. Bush, and the band of cynical charlatans he is surrounded by, is completely hopeless
under this respect. John Kerry is still rhetorical in this electoral times, but he has definitely
a better grip on these vital international issues.
I have soon to go to work, so I am not going to write that much today.
Anyway, opinions are many and can be very different, but facts are facts, and if solid and well documented,
they can't be ignored.
I think then it would be a good idea to visit the following sites, before continuing:
You may not agree United States are to be called imperialistic,
and sorry to reference to a communist site, but I couldn't find those facts in the CIA's one...
Facts are true, unless something else is demonstrated.
Let's discuss about them tomorrow.
Did you follow the link to the Basic Statistics for United States Imperialism?
Interesting, wasn't it? I am sure you found many facts you were not aware of.
For ex., this typical pattern of financing all kind of brutal dictators, and then act as proud liberators,
when the same dictators are not usable and convenient any more.
Possibly bombing some hundred-thousands innocent civil victims, as, you know, war is war.
Sounds like Saddam Hussein and Iraq? Yes it does.
But the crimes of the Bush dynasty started apparently much earlier.
Did you notice in the list: “Alphabetical list of rightwing dictators, reactionary movements,
and other reprehensible figures empowered/materially supported by the US”
a very famous name was included: Adolf Hitler.
USA financing that dictator, the same they liberated us from?
Surprise, guess who profited of the German nazi regime: Prescott Bush, the grandfather of George W. Bush!
Read this article in The Guardian from a few days ago:
“How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power”
Am I only going to write negative facts about America?
Not at all, you will see later, and do notice that most of my links and references are to American sites. There is America and there is America.
The urge to contribute for a positive change in USA's politics, makes it necessary to reveal
all historic and Bush's infinite bad acts. I am in favor of John Kerry's election, as everything cries for it.
Not because he is ideal, but, for God's sake, he is mileages ahead of Bush, and at least to send
that scandal of president back to where he belongs.(the political rubbish bin).
I mean, he is so bad even American Republicans have decided to make a campaign for the change:
“We are ordinary Republicans from across the political spectrum
-- moderate, conservative, and progressive --
who believe in the sanctity of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
This unites us in our desire to return our country and our party to the traditional values
that have been abandoned by the present extremist administration and their exclusionary
allies in Congress. We have taken the unusual step of supporting a Democrat, John Kerry,
because we believe he more honestly represents these values so vital to the health and
well-being of our democracy. On the important issues of foreign policy, fiscal responsibility,
tax policy, energy, the environment, media consolidation, civil liberties and trust,
history has shown us all too clearly that John Kerry will be a far better steward
than the present administration. We believe that all Americans should heed
George Washington's wisdom and put country before party.”
Republicans for Kerry 04 .com {dead link}
see also:
Republicans Against Bush .info {dead link}
Or even Texans:
“Bush's dishonesty about missing from service during Vietnam goes to the heart of his presidency.
He was dishonest then just as he is misleading us about why we went to war with Iraq.
He dodges responsibility then just as he dodges responsibility for Iraq today.”
Texans for Truth .com {dead link}
Other campaigns going on for the truth about Bush: Move On,
where you can also get help if you still haven't registered as a voter
(time is running out for that, so do it now!)
And then the 'against' list: Americans Against Bush .com {dead link} Bands Against Bush .org {dead link} Bikes Against Bush .com {dead link} Run Against Bush Librarians Against Bush .org {dead link} Kids Against Bush [kab .bravehost .com] {dead link} Bluetooth Users Against Bush The World Against Bush .org {dead link}
The list is infinite, just a few more: Cats Hate Bush .com {dead link} Dogs Hate Bush .com {dead link} Bush Sucks Web Ring [public .artcontext .net/search/rings/bushSucks/index.php] {dead link}
And finally, the literally "not in my name": Bushes Against Bush .com {dead link}
If you feel stressed about all these possibilities and have very little spare time, then you just need 30 seconds: Bush in 30 seconds
As a change and little break from these political sharks that ruin our world, I would like to quote
some wonderful words by Carl Rogers.
He was one of the most influential American psychologist, and if you have followed with attention so far,
you will remember I have a personal relation to him, as I studied psychology and specialized at
one of his supervised institutes.
I will still warmly suggest you to read his books, they are so inspiring. You really find a lot of humanity
and emotional wisdom in them. If only America was always like that!
There are also tons of materials available on the net.
You just need to write "Carl Rogers" in a search engine and you will get infinite resources.
The woman you see in the picture is his daughter, Natalie, who nicely continued his work.
She has got a web site:
Natalie Rogers {update: was nrogers.com, but she died in 2015}
[ remembering her here ]
I would love to remind his beautiful work, not without some nostalgia, with some quotes:
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination”
“The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area,
leads one that much closer to what is true”
“In a person who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system,
without being distorted by any process of defensiveness.”
“Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience.
No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience.
It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth
as it is in the process of becoming in me.
Neither the Bible nor the prophets -- neither Freud nor research --neither the revelations of God nor man
-- can take precedence over my own direct experience.
My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible. It is the basis of authority
because it can always be checked in new primary ways. In this way its frequent error or fallibility
is always open to correction.”
“If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values,
of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning
which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.”
“I think my deepest criticism of the educational system at that period [junior high and high school],
and that also applies to other periods, is that it's all based upon a distrust of the student.
Don't trust him to follow his own leads; guide him; tell him what to do; tell him what he should think;
tell him what he should learn. Consequently at the very age when he should be developing adult characteristics
of choice and decision making, when he should be trusted on some of those things, trusted to make mistakes
and to learn from those mistakes, he is, instead, regimented and shoved into a curriculum,
whether it fits him or not.”
“When we accept others as they are, they change.
When I accept myself as I am, I change.”
“This concept of trusting the individual to be himself has come to have a great deal of meaning to me.
I sometimes fantasize about what it would mean if a child were treated in this fashion from the first.
Suppose a child were permitted to have his own unique feelings - suppose he never had to disown
his feelings in order to be loved. Suppose his parents were free to have and express their own
unique feelings, which often would be different from his, and often different between themselves.
I like to think of all the meanings that such an experience would have.
It would mean that the child would grow up respecting himself as a unique person.
It would mean that even when his behavior had to be thwarted, he could retain open "ownership"
of his feelings. It would mean that his behavior would be a realistic balance, taking into account
his own feelings and the known and open feelings of others. He would, I believe,
be a responsible and self-directing individual.”
I haven't had time to write today, then I will only leave you with this very instructive article in today's
Daily Mirror: "20 reasons we should fear dangerous Dick" {dead link, you can find a copy of the article
here ; and, no, it is not porn, worse than that...}
about the vice-president candidate Dick Cheney.
Do you really get what kind of people is governing America, oh my gosh?
If that was not enough about Cheney, I will add that he referred to the wrong web site under the debate with
John Edwards.
He said the accuses by Edwards about Halliburton were not true and one could check it at:
Factcheck.com
That's in reality the wrong address, and even funnier is they are critic of Bush, and their site redirects
to one of the most powerful opponents of him,
George Soros!
The disaster was made because Cheney confused that site with the right one: Factcheck.org
Both Soros' site and Factcheck are worth a visit, by the way.
In all the desolation of this world, a few good news can be heard from time to time.
And the Nobel Peace Prize going to
Wangari Muta Maathai
is not only a good but a wonderful news. She is truly a remarkable woman, working from Kenya in Africa
for a universal ethics, united with sustainable development, global ecological conscience, planting of trees
and reforestation (she has actively provided for tens of millions of trees), and social justice,
especially for the African women's feeling of worth.
The other good news: it seems John Kerry has done it well, also in the second debate with Bush. Let's see
what the polls will say in the next days. The decisive issue is what will happen with the swing states
and with the many still undecided electors.
Best compliments to the city of Arcata (California).
From Los Angeles Times, yesterday:
“Impeachment of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld Urged
The City Council has passed a resolution calling for President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney
and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to be impeached.
Council members in the coastal hamlet passed the resolution 3 to 1 Wednesday.
The resolution says Bush violated numerous international laws in waging war against Afghanistan and Iraq.
A similar resolution calling for Bush's ouster last year failed to pass.”
It should be the minimum to impeach them, together with their allies
Blair, Howard, Berlusconi, Fogh Rasmussen.
Just read the names again, some of the most arrogant, populist, corrupted or directly criminal politicians
in the world. That's a band of gangsters not the leaders of nations that can rule the world by killing,
bombing, destroying or surreptitiously making their own interests or those of the lobbies supporting them.
They lied on the real motives for the war against Iraq, all evidence is now available for stating that.
They undermined the international institution. They killed more than 13,000 innocent civilians in Iraq,
and still continue.
What are we waiting for? They ought to meet in front of the International Court of Justice as soon as possible.
Incidentally, shame on Australians, really, re-electing John Howard as prime minister,
after he refused to even just apologize for his support to the war, is really unbelievable.
To have such a cynical politician as prime minister is a disaster, but having more than half
of the electors in a nation as accomplices is a dishonor.
"It's the Economy, stupid!", they use to say.
Bush's administration has been a catastrophe also under that respect.
Just read the open letter that 170 university professors have sent to him
(some of them had him as one of their students):
“October 4, 2004
Open Letter to President George W. Bush
Dear Mr. President:
As professors of economics and business, we are concerned that U.S. economic policy has taken a dangerous
turn under your stewardship. Nearly every major economic indicator has deteriorated since you took office
in January 2001. Real GDP growth during your term is the lowest of any presidential term in recent memory.
Total non-farm employment has contracted and the unemployment rate has increased. Bankruptcies are up sharply,
as is our dependence on foreign capital to finance an exploding current account deficit. All three major stock
indexes are lower now than at the time of your inauguration. The percentage of Americans in poverty
has increased, real median income has declined, and income inequality has grown.
The data make clear that your policy of slashing taxes – primarily for those at the upper reaches
of the income distribution – has not worked. The fiscal reversal that has taken place under your
leadership is so extreme that it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. The federal budget
surplus of over $200 billion that we enjoyed in the year 2000 has disappeared, and we are now facing a
massive annual deficit of over $400 billion. In fact, if transfers from the Social Security trust fund
are excluded, the federal deficit is even worse – well in excess of a half a trillion dollars this year
alone. Although some members of your administration have suggested that the mountain of new debt
accumulated on your watch is mainly the consequence of 9-11 and the war on terror, budget experts know
that this is simply false. Your economic policies have played a significant role in driving this fiscal
collapse. And the economic proposals you have suggested for a potential second term – from diverting Social
Security contributions into private accounts to making the recent tax cuts permanent – only promise to
exacerbate the crisis by further narrowing the federal revenue base.
These sorts of deficits crowd out private investment and are politically addictive. They also place a
heavy burden on monetary policy – and create additional pressure for higher interest rates – by stoking
inflationary expectations. If your economic advisers are telling you that these deficits can be defeated
through further reductions in tax rates, then you need new advisers. More robust economic growth could
certainly help, but nearly every one of your administration’s economic forecasts – both before and after
9-11 – has proved overly optimistic. Expenditure cuts could be part of the answer, but your record so far
has been one of increasing expenditures, not reducing them.
What is called for, we believe, is a dramatic reorientation of fiscal policy, including substantial reversals
of your tax policy. Running a budget deficit in response to a short bout of recession is one thing.
But running large structural deficits over a long period is something else entirely. We therefore urge
you to consider the fiscal realities we now face and the substantial burden they are placing on our economy.
We also urge you to consider the distributional consequences of your policies. Under your administration,
the income gap between the most affluent Americans and everyone else has widened. Although the latest data
reveal that real household incomes have dropped across the board since you took office, low and middle
income households have experienced steeper declines than upper income households. To be sure, the general
phenomenon of mounting inequality preceded your administration, but it has continued (and, by some accounts,
intensified) over the past three and a half years.
Some degree of inequality is inherent in any free market economy, creating positive incentives for
economic and technological advancement. But when inequality becomes extreme, it can be socially corrosive
and economically dysfunctional. Problems of this sort are visible throughout much of the developing world.
At the moment, the most commonly accepted measure of inequality – the so-called Gini coefficient – is far
higher in the United States than in any other developed country and is continuing to move upward. We don’t
know where the breakpoint is for the U.S., but we would rather not find out. With all due respect, we believe
your tax policy has exacerbated the problem of inequality in the United States, which has worrisome
implications for the economy as a whole. We very much hope you will take this threat to our nation into
account as you consider new fiscal approaches to address the nation’s most pressing economic problems.
Sensible and farsighted economic management requires true discipline, compassion, and courage – not just slogans.
Given the tenuous state of the American economy, we believe that the time for an honest assessment of the problem
and for genuine corrective action is now. Ignoring the fiscal crisis that has taken hold during your presidency
may seem politically appealing in the short run, but we fear it could ultimately prove disastrous. From a policy
standpoint, the clear message is that more of the same won’t work. The warning signs are already visible,
and it is incumbent upon all of us to pay attention.
Respectfully submitted,”
Barbara Bird, David Levy, Alvin Silk
+ lots of signatures follow
Open Letter to the President .org {dead link}
Sorry for writing so late, but I am full immersed in my work with music. As a signal of being serious
about that, I am revamping my
Music
site.
Unfortunately the MP3s of my music are not there yet, as I am still working on a huge load of materials.
Another open-letter initiative:
some Norwegian organisations collected 340,000 NOK (Norwegian Crowns) to print an ad in
the American newspaper The Washington Post, yesterday edition:
“The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
Washington, DC
Mr. President
As friends of the United States, we respect your country’s strength, creativity and generosity.
At this point in history however, we are compelled to speak out. Four out of five Norwegians oppose
the U.S.-led war on Iraq and our government has failed to clearly express the majority opinion of its people.
Mr. President – we urge you to change your foreign policy. To pursue a flawed and failed policy is a sign
of weakness. We want the United States to be strong and creative enough to apologize to the Iraqi people
for an unjust war, and to the Allies for having misled them. We want the USA to be generous enough to
compensate the innocent victims of violence, looting and trauma inflicted by torture. We firmly believe
that the quest for peace in Iraq is best led by the United Nations and a democratically-elected
Iraqi government.
Mr. President – your country can once again be a leading example of democracy and freedom,
inspiring a world where terrorism can no longer breed. Your present policy only fosters resistance,
more than ever, everywhere.
Mr. President – the choice is yours.
Sincerely”
The home site of this initiative:
Tellhim .no
{dead link; some discussion here:}
TellHim.no's anti-war ad
So, the third, and last, public debate between Bush and Kerry is over.
I haven't seen it directly, due to the funny habit Americans have to do things during the night,
while we are sleeping :-)
Funny then to read the reports and comments, the day after, as it always seems they have seen different debates.
European newspapers are in tune with the European readers, who definitely find Bush ridiculous, and can't even believe
he can be a president.
There is, for, ex. a poll going on in one of the major Danish newspapers, Politiken, a mainstream,
moderate and slightly leftist one. The results are, at the moment: (answering the question: who would you vote for, if you could vote for the American President election?)
Bush: 6%
Kerry: 80%
Nader: 8%
none of them: 7%
Interesting the fact Bush would not even gain more votes than Nader (??) or the protest/don't care/undecided voters.
And that Kerry, actually, is very popular in Europe.
Does that preference influence the way we look at the debates?
Yes, it seems, as all European newspapers I read, even the very conservatives ones, proclaim John F. Kerry
as the clear winner of all three of them.
Reading the American ones is completely another story. That is very good, for the most, as they don't just try
to find a 'winner' (how meaningless to talk that way, as if it was a sport, and not a choice that will have a
determinant role in the world's politics). I find the American reports very detailed, confronting facts,
analyzing the factual truths of both candidates statements.
On the other side, this fair objectivity do becomes too stiff and artificial sometimes, when newspapers make
a lot of effort to pack even evident truths, not to appear unbalanced.
For ex., when Los Angeles Times writes, a survey from CBS: "gave a slight edge to the Massachusetts senator".
Well, the results were:
Bush: 25%
Kerry: 39%
Tie: 36%
I wouldn't call it slight, honestly.
But the picture is clear, now. There are 'cowboy' States (like Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska and so on),
where Bush wins devastatingly. They don't read European newspapers, they like the strong dumb man with the funny grin,
they hate liberal intellectual New York gay leftists; defending America's borders against the Arab terrorism is their
obsession, even if there are billions people more dying of red meat and McDonalds than the probability of
being struck by a terrorist attack in North Dakota.
And there are educated people, who hate this illiterate Bush and, even not being so convinced Kerry is the man,
they would do anything to vote for a change.
They either live in traditionally alternative or liberal or 'cultural' States like California, District of Columbia
(Bush: 11%, Kerry: 78%!), New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts.
Anyway, being the American election system based on the "winner-takes-all" principle, the determinant
will be swing-states, and there are lots of them, so, it will probably get as tight as the last one
between Bush and Gore.
And do expect Osama Bin Laden to suddenly show up, in one or another way.
Or some other kicks under the belt.
Or just plain mad randomness.
I am still very busy, there is a lot going on in my mind, in my music, and I have a lot to do in my real life
(yes, I do have one :) so, you will get a free Friday today, as I am not gong to write that much.
I could just remind you of all the 'small' tragedies going on in the US at the moment. Not many seem to care
so much, as talking about another Vietnam, as it is, is not politically correct yet. But there are a lot of
coffins coming back from the 'liberated' land Iraq.
No one sees them, as known the compassionate Bush doesn't want spots of blood on his newly-ironed jacket,
but a couple of people do come close to them and cry: the parents of the soldiers. Robert Oliver had only been one month in Iraq, but he probably didn't expect to become a number,
the 1061th officially American soldier victim in Iraq.
Last week his mother, Karen Unruh-Wahrer, 45 years from Tucson (Arizona), was greeting him in the coffin,
for the last time, and she fell down of grief and died herself.
Life is made of individuals, not of countries, wars, power, flags and all that.
Good news: the Republicans are trying all sorts of tricks. They are probably fearing they can only
win that way.
They obviously know how to do it, trained in the scandal 2000 election.
Minister John Ashcroft, the one who believes dance is a sin, is not doing so much about this huge problem
of frauds.
In Nevada, Oregon, West Virginia and other key States, the forms of the electors declaring themselves
as Democrats are being destroyed.
In Florida many of the black voters excluded from the last elections are still not registered.
In some other cities not enough electoral forms are being printed, despite the expectations of a big mass of
electors this time.
And the list could continue.
Don't forget the Bush family is a dynasty of specialists in frauds.
It would take too much time and space to explain that in my own words (I just let you imagine them),
but you can click forward to this link:
"The Bush Family Saga"
It's Sunday, and one has to be peaceful, magnanimous and relaxed.
So, I won't make any tirade about Bush today.
Are you tired of spin and exaggerations, of dog-fights and nasty exchanges?
Then it is time to look rationally at both sides and facts.
There is a home site claiming that, even though I am still of the opinion: some things are wrong, dot,
it doesn't make it better to be politically correct and give the same weight to two opposite views.
It is healthy, sensible and needed to do that in general, but we can't keep on discussing about anti-values.
They are wrong, once for all, dot.
Like killing, for ex., it is monstrous and unethical, dot, should we give the same space to people defending
this brutal act, just because there is the possibility to do that? No, obviously we shouldn't,
just to appear 'balanced'.
That is actually the result of the degeneration of the political systems, reducing the shared common
effort of finding solutions good for everyone, to the biased fight of two opposite lobbies.
Anyway, the link to the site I was mentioning above is: The American Voice 2004 .org {dead link; now available here:}
American Voice 2004: Ask Dr. Dave
with the thorough Dr. Dave (it seems you have to be a doctor in America to be listened to :),
who actually seems to do a good job.
Sorry for the long pause, but the amount of work I had was overwhelming.
Anyway, enough with Bush. You have all possibilities to know who he is, and he is not a nice person,
he is not wise, he hasn't a clue of what he is doing. He is just a man of power, used to make his own
and his own family's interests, no matter how much that costs, also in terms of human lives, and surrounded
by cynical people of the same league. There is really not so much more to say about him politically.
His re-election would be sending this earth on four more years of destruction, waste of resources, pollution,
wars, depression, loss of dignity, restriction or abolition of civil rights, and incurable sickness in all the
international order. A catastrophe, materially, psychologically and morally.
But from now on I would like to stress that my choice for John F. Kerry is not only this murderous desire
for the absence of Bush.
Kerry is really an uncommon person, under many respects. I might be wrong, as most leaders have this nasty
tendency to disappoint, entangled as they are in their need to conserve the power they achieved.
But it really seems to me, it would be a kind of miracle to have him as a president, as he represents an
incredible change in comparison to all other previous presidents. He is not perfect at all, as I wrote before.
There are many facts in his story showing he has used truths in questionable ways.
We can start from the beginning, when he made the famous testimony on what he experienced in Vietnam.
I find that very touching. He went to Vietnam as a volunteer, but he learned from what he saw, and wanted
to do something about it, when back home. There are still many doubts and perplexities about the whole story,
but let's read what he said in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
“Decorated veteran John Kerry, testifying before the House Foreign Relations Committee,
questions the War in Vietnam, Washington, D.C., April 22, 1971.
Thank you very much, Senator Fulbright, Senator Javits, Senator Symington and Senator Pell.
I would like to say for the record, and also for the men sitting behind me who are also wearing the
uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John Kerry. I am
here as one member of a group of 1,000, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of
veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table, they would be here
and have the same kind of testimony. I would simply like to speak in general terms. I apologize if my
statement is general because I received notification [only] yesterday that you would hear me, and, I am
afraid, because of the injunction I was up most of the night and haven't had a great deal of chance to
prepare.
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago, in Detroit,
we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans
testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes committed
on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to
describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit--the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men
who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country,
in a sense, made them do.
They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,
randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs
for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam,in addition to the
normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing
power of this country.
We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term "winter soldier" is a play on
words of Thomas Paine's in 1776, when he spoke of the "sunshine patriots," and "summertime soldiers"
who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now.
We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what
went on in Vietnam, but we feel, because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which
we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.
I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them
after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in
the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the
chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense
of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.
As a veteran and one who felt this anger, I would like to talk about it. We are angry because we feel we
have been used it the worst fashion by the administration of this country.
In 1970, at West Point, Vice President Agnew said, "some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while
our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse," and this
was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam.
But for us, as boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion
from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion. Hence the anger of some of the men who are here in
Washington today. It is a distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country,
because those he calls misfits were standing up for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to,
because so many who have died would have returned to this country to join the misfits in their efforts to
ask for an immediate withdrawal from South Vietnam, because so many of those best men have returned as
quadriplegics and amputees, and they lie forgotten in Veterans' Administration hospitals in this country
which fly the flag which so many have chosen as their own personal symbol. And we cannot consider ourselves
America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.
In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically
threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam,
Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse,
is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this
country apart.
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their
liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but, also, we found that the Vietnamese, whom we
had enthusiastically molded after our own image, were hard-put to take up the fight against the threat
we were supposedly saving them from.
We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted
to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages
and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign
presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of
survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong,
North Vietnamese or American.
We found also that, all too often, American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support
from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial
regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag,
and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American
bombs and search-and-destroy missions as well as by Viet Cong terrorism, - and yet we listened while this
country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality
as she accepted very coolly a My Lai, and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand
out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
We learned the meaning of free-fire zones--shooting anything that moves--and we watched while America
placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.
We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts.
We listened while, month after month, we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought
using weapons against "oriental human beings" with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons
against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using, were we fighting in the
European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken,
and, after losing one platoon, or two platoons, they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by
the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas,
because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies
were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and
Fire Base 6s, and so many others.
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that
we can exercise the incredible arrogance of "Vietnamizing" the Vietnamese.
Each day, to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam, someone has
to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world
already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President
Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."
Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others?
We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? We are here in Washington to say that the problem
of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying,
as human beings, to communicate to people in this country--the question of racism, which is rampant in the
military, and so many other questions, such as the use of weapons: the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the
Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty
than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free-fire zones;
harassment-interdiction fire, search-and-destroy missions; the bombings; the torture of prisoners; all
accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel
of everything.
An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly:
He told me how, as a boy on an Indian reservation, he had watched television, and he used to cheer the
cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said,
"my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped.
And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.
The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never even leave their dead. These men
have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude.
We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country?
Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others?
Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who
have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never
leave their wounded. The Marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the
casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their
reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....
We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this
administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done, and all that they
can do by this denial, is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission:
To search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war; to pacify our own hearts; to conquer the
hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so, when, thirty
years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys
ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean
instead where America finally turned, and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.
Thank you.”
So, what has John Kerry done since the seventies?
Well, he has been a Senator for 19 years, voting more than 6,300 times, quite a lot. Few of the bills
he proposed became law.
He has been quite liberal especially in the first years, with some important exceptions, more moderate in the
last years.
He has been one of the most conscious and active environmentalist senators, and that's also the most important
difference and strength I see in him.
Can you really imagine what if would mean to have him as a President, especially in comparison with Bush
who has been a true criminal against the environment?
Some of the laws approved with his support:
1991: Funding the National Sea Grant College program, and other projects “to promote better
understanding, conservation and use of America’s coastal resources.
1994: Protection of Marine Mammals, dolphins in particular.
1995: Clean Water Act
1999: $53 million over four years to provide grants to woman-owned small businesses.
He gave support for abortion, and opposed to assault guns, weapons programs, tax cuts for wealthy
Americans and a law designed to discourage homosexual marriages.
But we shouldn't forget he voted for the Patriot Act, for Bush's "No Child Left Behind",
for the war in 2002, and he now supports capital punishment for terrorists.
Was he always tired and sleepy when he did that?
It is difficult to know how much Kerry has meant for the approval of many laws, not directly but indirectly,
working effectively behind the scenes, as he explained himself, when confronted by Howard Dean,
during the democrats' presidential campaign:
“Well, one of the things that you need to know as a president is how things work in Congress if you want
to get things done.
And one of the things that happens in Congress is, you can in fact write a bill, but if you're smart
about it, you can get your bill passed on someone else's bill and it doesn't carry your name.”
I have sympathy for that, as I also use to work that way, as catalyst, more than appearing in front.
His positions can no doubt be called fickle many times, it is still an open question if he does that
for opportunism or because he dares to change views when he matures and gets better facts.
Probably both are true.
Anyway his strong international and environmental engagement are out of discussion.
Incidentally, John and his wife Teresa met at an Earth Conference in Brazil, not surprisingly.
Someone could ask: "If the environment is so important for you, why don't you vote for Ralph Nader instead of John Kerry?"
Sure, Nader's program is better than Kerry's. Reading the latter's one on the net, you get a lot of
agreeable proposals, but they are very generic, for the most. Kinda: 'We will work for the protection of
the environment'. Yes, sure, anyone would agree with that, even Bush. It is not by chance they write so
generic programs, they do it to capture the sympathy of many voters without alienating others, as it would
happen if they really wrote what it practically means to protect the environment.
I have already explained before why I don't consider Nader as an alternative. I did it in June, commenting
the European elections:
“Let's take a clear example: the American elections. You might hate both Bush and Kerry. Still, no doubt
you ought to eliminate Bush, it is simply a moral need. He has been a catastrophe for the entire world.
Kerry is not at all ideal, but he is relatively better than Bush, so do vote him, at least for the
environmental sake.
Wait a moment, I hear you say, there is a third choice available: Ralph Nader.
No, there isn't, because this is not a proportional vote, it is a simple or-or vote in practice, no matter
how wrong that actually is. Ralph Nader is evil, because his need is to make Kerry loose, as he did last with
Al Gore. Now, does anyone think Gore would have been a worse president than Bush? No way, so Nader is a moral
responsible of Greenhouse effect killing all of us on some years. That's reality, not those paranoid little
ambitions of someone who could candidate for the rest of his life and get his miserable 2% every time.
He has all the rights to fight for his good reasons and programs, but before the elections, not when
it is clear that only two people will have the possibility to win.
When this is said, very loud and clear, then the first moral urge for all of us 'throwing up' voters, will be
to change the "democratic" system, to something more decent, not to end in the same situation again and again.”
I was very hard with Nader at that time, but I don't regret. I have nose for people not to be trusted. And I was
right: the scandal of his false signed petitions tells a lot about who the man is. You could say that's nothing in
comparison with the criminalities of Bush, and you would be damn right, but how can you trust a man doing such
things, honestly?
The attorney of Columbus, Donald McTigue said:
“I have never seen a fraud so pervasive in this state”
in his more than 20 years experience.
So, even if I would clap my hands for Nader's program, let's forget about this obstinately narcissist
politician and let's concentrate on kicking Bush in the butt and get a good job for Kerry.
Well, what shall I say, right the day I gave my support to Kerry, he couldn't find anything better than
playing with guns and rifles, and hunting and shooting geese, with blood in his hands!
I take all what I wrote back, the man must be a complete idiot. Still can't find out if he his such an
ingenuous person or the most cynical flip-flopper, but this last performance was really disgusting.
Can we trust a person who is doing things like that, even if surrounded by bad advisers? What if he had his
finger on the nuclear release button, would he push it, just for fun?
I know that was electoral panic and that is America, and that he will probably be better, after the eventual
election (honestly, how many democrats or other decent people has he alienated in one day, with that dumb act?),
but, oh my gosh, how much will we have to throw up to support him?
Held a pause, and reflection day, as I still was too angry at the man.
I tried to remind myself, he has consistently been coherent and restrictive about bans of weapons,
and their lobbies have been also quick to state no matter how many geese Kerry will shoot the last days
before elections, they would never be fooled he will be on their side. Good, I will also try to forget about
that (DUMB!) performance.
I am still longing to see an American President elected who, for once, seems to be just himself, a calm,
knowledgeable, wise, fervent man, not resorting to the classic and void Reaganian media propaganda make-ups.
John F. Kerry would be still a complete new start in American politics, despite some major faults. I pray God
(as a secular), it will happen, and that he will stay true to his values, when in power.
Anyway, the last polls from Rasmussen Report show Kerry is now at 48%, Bush 46% (could that be the
Clinton effect?). It is the first time he is ahead since last August. Still the electors in the Electoral
College would be 222 for Bush and 207 for Kerry, but that can tip if Bush looses in one or more of the swing states.
Talking about other elections for a moment, yesterday there were some in Italy, where Bush's best friend,
Burlesquoni, was loudly beaten by the opposition, and actually even his own electors don't believe to his
lies any more (they didn't even go to vote).
Could it be a good sign for America too?
Here in Denmark, the other friend in the war-gang, Anders Fogh Rasmussen is quite down in the polls. Blair will probably have to emigrate to Toscana, in early retirement, soon.
Good, let's leave the looser aussies alone with their re-elected Howard.
I am still very busy, and I am going to sleep, then I would just remind you of a couple of things:
please read the instructive latest Amnesty International report about:
"Torture and accountability in the 'war on terror' ".
Very instructive indeed.
To that I would just add the fantastic world's record achieved by John Ashcroft's Patriot Act: 5000 people arrested and none useful at all.
Few days left to get rid of that stuff.
Goodnight.
I would have liked to cheer up and talk about positive things, but the last days did pull all the tragic
issues of the time around the war in Iraq back to our attention.
There has been lots of food for thoughts in the international press, in the last few days.
The most serious, I'll tell you here because you probably won't read so much about that in the English-speaking
newspapers.
The Lancet, one of the most authoritative medical magazines in the world, assesses
at least 100,000 people have died in Iraq as a consequence of the war, many children and women,
among them.
And think about all other people living in terror and in the disastrous conditions they are forced to live in.
Consider there is not yet anyone who can say when that will be concluded. Consider the US forces have only control
over a very limited part of Iraq, that there is still a big risk for a civil and religious war.
I could continue with all these problems. I am still very angry about that, because that was what I said,
and a huge mass of people also said it would happen, and we got ridiculed because of that. Who was right?
Let us state it once for all: war against Iraq was fraudulent and illegal, destabilizing the international order.
It has been an unnecessary and cynical massacre on people who already had suffered so much under the bloody dictator,
and the sanctions. There was no decent plan for what would happen after the "end" of the war, and for how the country
would build up peace.
The responsible for this disaster is George W. Bush, how can anyone consider him as a good leader and even
think about re-electing him?
Honestly, this is a bad film we have seen many times before.
As announced, it didn't need a psychic to guess it, Osama Bin Laden showed up in a transmitted video
from Aljazeera.
Very timely, just a few days left to the elections.
The media pictured him as a scared rat, always running away, changing location every day, chased everywhere,
ill and debilitated.
And then, here he is, fresh like a rose, as if just coming out from his Jacuzzi, and with the finest Arabic
clothes.
Making not a religious, but a political speech. Talking directly to the Americans, in a nearly no-global way,
I would say.
That is: Bush is not your president, you decide, America's future is in your hands.
He did the same after the terrorist blasts on a Spanish train. He also talked to Europeans offering to suspend
the terrorist actions if they pulled out from their alliance with Bush.
Remember I warned you in the first days of this blog, that the risk you are running is even higher than you think.
Al Queda has the final weapon of mass destruction, I know they are thinking about that: an assault on some
nuclear plants. It is so easily clear that could be the final weapon.
Don't know what the effect of this apparition will be on the presidential campaign.
It is likely to give Bush that final boost he needs, and that didn't come by itself.
That¨s obviously making it suspect, being Osama Bin Laden's family notoriously good friends with the Bush family,
as any schoolboy should know, afterwards.
Any case, it is so absolutely needed for Americans to wake up, and work on a complete change in their politics,
and mentality, first of all.
Reading the many letters sent to Aljazeera by Americans, and knowing it from all other sources, it is desolating
to witness how much naivety or plain arrogance is spread across the American society. You could believe in
Santa Claus and be less naive.
I am not saying at all it is an American exclusivity. It is the same in Europe, about its colonial past and present,
and typical of any nationalism.
Not to talk about the developing countries own home-made imitation of that.
To get free from the nationalist and populist agendas requires a great deal of freedom and courage, I know not
so many posses that, but it is so incredibly important.
I have been absolutely coherent through all my life on the side of nonviolence, I have nothing at all to share
with terrorists, no matter on which side they are.
If our voices, the voices of nonviolent, civil, passionate people are not listened to, then only weapons
on one side and terrorism on the other will be left.
What is needed is: first of all a shift in the energy politics.
From oil and other non-renewable sources to solar/wind/other alternative sources.
From car traffic to sustainable public transport.
From irresponsible unlimited consumption to essential, creative living.
That's the most important single factor to save this world.
American politics there, is completely unacceptable, and that's what you are paying for with terrorism.
Bush is the incarnation of miserable environmental and energy politics.
Kerry's election would signal a new start, and I insist that's the difference between the two.
Then the shift from arrogant unilateral power to multilateral egalitarian global co-operation.
USA has not the right to act unilaterally, like no one else has.
It is incredible to witness how many Americans believe they have this "natural" right to dominate the world,
considering even God on their side. Come on, that's ridiculous.
Bush's preemptive war(s) and contempt for the international balance has been in fact a declaration of war
against the rest of the world.
Undermining the UN is a criminal act.
Not signing all the most important international treaties, like the Kyoto agreement,
the World Crimes Tribunal, and so on, are criminal acts against humanity, feeding terrorism and
being serious terrorist acts in themselves.
It is about time you nonviolent, civil, passionate Americans let us seriously hear your voice about all that,
it is already too late.
Just a couple of days, and we will know the name of the next President.
Can't wait for that, as what he will actually do after the elections is the real matter, not what he says
before (bunch of well-spin lies mostly).
The run is still as tight as possible, with a prevalence of Bush in most polls.
Actually, what has been characteristic of this election is that both candidates are loosing, being under 50% of
the voters preferences all the time.
Bush is not considered worth a reelection but people is still skeptical about Kerry as a substitute. Nader appeals
to only a very little minority under 2%. All the others will get their 15 minutes celebrity and will be forgotten
the day after election.
The risk is to get a photocopy of the previous elections in 2000.
A president elected with a few votes, with heavy suspects of frauds, and a nation split exactly in two,
extremely divided and in bitter contrast.
That is not unusual or surprising. It is becoming the same story in most democracies in the world. Due to
this degradation of politics as a fight between opposite lobbies, and not as a shared consensus to improve life
for everyone.
So, I am not interested in any of the candidates to win for the sake of it.
Just believe Bush is a scandal and Kerry will do a better job, but I haven't got any illusion he will
radically change America, or the state of democracy in that country.
Still hope that he, when freed from the binds of electoral propaganda, will show his real face and give us
a couple of surprises. That he will feel the responsibility it is to have so much power, and all the
possibilities that it gives you to give people a better life.
Have a nice Sunday, anyway, and remember your daily good deed.
There is not so much to say any more, I feel.
I really tried everything I could to avoid an unbearable tragedy.
To hell with fake and obliged objectivity, this is so clear, there is no choice, you simply ought to send Bush
home, to take back the power from him he didn't deserve and cheated for to get...
It is a family of sharks, their life-story is filled with all kind of immoral acts.
What should you really think about? About a war that was decided long ago and completely independently of
Saddam Hussein? While the real terrorists were protected, and still are, and even trained by the CIA, and
let comfortably out of the country after the 9/11?
Do you even realize what is really going on?
A war that is causing uncountable tragedies every day, evoking the worst nightmares, and the worst instincts
in the fighters of the invading forces.
People is being beheaded nearly daily, tens of thousands of innnt children and women are dying because of
the US bombings, in the most complete indifference of the world outside.
Because we are doing nothing about it, not even punishing with contempt the criminals and mass-murderers who
supported that war.
At least go out and vote decently tomorrow, for Christ's sake.
So, this is my final comment about all this month's blog.
First of all my thoughts go to Elizabeth Edwards.
The vice-president candidate's wife, right the same day the elections were lost, was diagnosed cancer.
Poor John, what a day must have been for him. Wish the very best for all family.
Then: final considerations after the American Presidential Elections.
The USA are a fundamentalist religious regime, very similar to Iran, with a President elected not for any
particular sdeed but because he represents the populist tribal chief.
I am talking about a regime because a democracy is never a formal one, it has to be a substantial one, or
it is not a democracy at all. Giving people the real possibility of practising their civil rights. How can
USA be called a real democracy when its electoral administration is so poor and corrupted?
The level of respect for the rights of the electors in USA can be compared to that in a banana-republic.
What about money? Has political leadership anything to do with how rich one is, and how much money one can
spend on a campaign?
A democracy can't depend on that, and this election was the most expensive ever, approaching the $1 billion total.
How do they dare talking about 'every vote counts', when, once again, we have no idea of how many votes
exactly have been given?
There have been thousands of reports about frauds and the simple voting electronic machines were a disaster in
this third world country that managed to send some men up to the Moon in 1969.
After the scandal in 2000, external observers from OSCE were needed. In many places they couldn't do
their job, they were expelled from the polls.
An American journalist was arrested and beaten (!) by a sheriff in West Palm Beach, just because he was
taking some pictures of the electors in a row in front of the polls.
And fundamentalist? Well, what else, when in 11 states out of 11 it was voted to ban marriage for homosexuals.
Next thing will be the burqa for all women, believe me.
Well, if not that, Bush is planning to replace some judges with some of his friends and then make a ban
for abortion possible.
I mean, how anti-human one can be to deny a wish for union between two individuals, no matter of which sex?
If it was for me I would ban marriage for everyone, as it notoriously is the tombstone of love, but do you
have any sense of living in the 21rst century over there?
And besides, do you ever learn not to be hypocrite? You bet there are tons of homosexuals among Republicans,
it would not surprise me if more than in the other camp.
Not to talk about something different like pedophiles, perverted, sex maniacs and so on.
If you want to visit an organized club for that kind of things, then you just need to get into any
American fundamentalist institution.
One very strange thing about this election: the show up was around 60%, about 15 million more people than in 2000.
This is a very high percentage. There were cues everywhere. Everyone expected that would strengthen the democrats,
as it was them trying to activate the young electors, the black ones, and so on. It is very strange that effect
didn't happen, nearly the contrary. It does make me suspect big frauds.
An alternative explanation is the shift to the right of the entire American society is so large, the democrats'
mobilization only covered it a bit. Or even: this talking all the time about an historic choice, mobilized more
the patriotic republicans in the end.
Or, as someone else wrote, Bush convinced the poorest people to vote for who will go and rob their poor little
money to give it to the rich people. Victims and glad to be.
Land of opportunities. For whom? How come Barack Obama, elected in Illinois, will be the only
black senator, and only the third one in all history?
Even during the election day, a man, Lorenzo Morris, was executed in Texas.
A man killing another man is convicted death penalty, another one killing 100,000 innocent people is elected
President.
The practice of death penalty is so barbarian and the worst index of how brutal and uncivilized the American
society can be. It is so clear you can't teach anything to the world when you can't solve your own problems
in a civilized way.
One of the worst things about all this has been for me to look at the face of Bush when re-elected.
His really mean butt-face laughing at all the world and like saying:
'See, I don't give a sh., I am stupid, full of BS, a liar and a murder, but I am the President, I have got
the power, and I will do whatever I like, so what?'.
The other unbearable thing was to read the comments of the usual butt-lickers in the press, always ready to jump
on the winner's caravan, from day one.
For example, Angelo Panebianco, political analyst at Corriere Della Sera, Italy's major newspaper.
First he insults anyone who made any wrong forecast about the vote. You are welcome to find any single person
or institute anywhere in the world who didn't. You won't find any I guess. But Panebianco obviously can be so
smart after the election.
Then he calls "ridiculous" the arguments in the film "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Michael Moore,
winner of the Cannes Film Festival. And obviously also all the other radical-chic music stars of
Vote For Change, like Michael Stipe or Bruce Springsteen.
Then he states people voted for Bush because he stands firmly against the Islamic terrorism, even if Bush
hasn't done anything related to that, on the contrary, he is dearly protecting the most fundamentalist, dictatorial,
repressive and terrorist regime in the world: Saudi Arabia. Yes, there is where his friend Osama
comes from.
If that wasn't enough, another major commentator of the same newspaper, Gianni Riotta, writes this
exhilarating sentence: "...Bush could become again the moderate he was as governor of Texas...",
I was nearly dying of laugh when I read that. Bush a moderate as governor of Texas? Ha, ha, ha, that was really good.
The major hangman in the history of the world, and the most cynical, cruel, pitiless, careless one.
Honestly, Panebianco and Riotta: go home.
Finally, the nearly complete dominance of the two-parties system is actually the worst enemy of a democracy,
as it only leads to bitter fights, partisanship, and lack of dialog and innovation. Besides it is actually
against the intentions of who wrote the American constitution in 1787, they tried to separate and balance
powers as much as possible.
So, I don't feel like writing more, even if I could still express a lot of concerns about this big Nation
having the highest power on the world and being the less deserving it.
But my wish was from the beginning to highlight also the positive sides of it.
There was not so much space and energy left, after all this election stuff.
Now, do not forget, in the end it was still a slight majority of the voters (that is, not of the entire population)
to decide who will be the next President.
There has been a huge mobilization and a feeling of hope and enthusiasm and political passion in so many people.
And there are so many other positive things going on in the USA, like anywhere else in the world in fact.
Let's really begin to build a world's consciousness and unity, instead of focusing so much on the national stuff.
That's the real battleground.
And we vote every single day, with any of our thoughts of our acts and of our habits.
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