Okay, let's talk about "naïve."

I am not dedicated to Kerry. Nor, as I have said before, am I a Democrat. As I have also said before, my primary aim in the coming election is to get Bush out. I believe that any one of the Democratic candidates would be better for the country, and for the world, than another four years of George W. Bush.

My actual preference is for Dennis Kucinich because of his policies (Ten Key Points), but unfortunately Kucinich has something of a charisma deficit and I'm not so naïve that I think he could actually win against Bush. This is a pathetic state of affairs, but unfortunately these things seem to matter to the electorate. I would also vote for Nader if I thought he had the best chance of defeating Bush, but due to his lack of foreign policy experience (non-existent, to be precise) I seriously doubt that Nader would make a very good president, nor am I not naïve enough to believe he could actually win. Independents and third parties have never done well in this country. Read your history.

I would like to see this country join the rest of the civilized world in terms of progressive programs such as universal health care, a solid and unassailable Social Security program, guaranteed high-quality education, workers rights (such as a livable minimum wage, overtime pay, and a maximum number of hours that someone can be required to work), curbs put on the excesses of corporate greed, a fire lit under the Securities and Exchange Commission to make them do their job, rational attention paid to environmental issues, full restoration of the Bill of Rights, genuine separation of church and state (and keeping the government the bloody hell out of people's bedrooms), start abiding by our treaties, support the United Nations—and I especially like Kucinich's intention to establish a "cabinet-level Department of Peace, to establish non-violence as an organizing principle in both domestic and international affairs." I am not so naïve, however, that I believe that any candidate put forth by the Democratic Party (or any other party, for that matter) will—or can—bring all of this about, except through hard struggle and over a period of time. Because of the forces at work, the country will have to be dragged there kicking and screaming. But the Democratic Party has historically leaned in this direction, still at least pays lip-service to some of these principles, and would offer less resistance to being pushed in this direction than the Republican Party.

And if you seriously believe that Nader has the chance of a snowball in a blast furnace, then I ask, who is the naïve one here?

And as to accusing me, or anyone for that matter, of "vociferously . . . trying to shout down the dissenters," in the light of the tantrums you keep throwing, you, sir or madam, verge on the ridiculous!

Don Firth