BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks

Subject: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:05 PM

Seems to me the important questions in this election should supercede the individual personalities of the candidates, and that what we are seeing is the dominance of personal attacks to the detriment of a useful discussion of real problems...and if there ever was a time to address real issues, it is now. These are questions that have helped me to decide who I will support. Do you have questions of your own (other than if Kerry lied to get his medals, or if Bush is on sedatives)? What are the REAL issues that need to be addressed?

Do you believe that the people of the United States were intentionally deceived into supporting a war in Iraq?

Do you believe that the continuing war in Iraq is productive or counter-productive to the spread of terrorist attacks against the United States?

Do you believe that the government-appointed 911 Commission has made an honest effort to investigate events leading up to the World Trade Center attack, or do you believe that its members conducted a biased witch-hunt against the Bush Administration?

Do you believe that infingements on the Bill of Rights are a necessary means of rooting out terrorists, or do you think these infringements strike at the heart of our freedom and our form of government?

Do you think that the Bush tax cuts are benefitting the people of this country?

Do you see the existence of the largest federal deficit in history as unimportant and at best a means of reducing the size and scope of the government? Or do you think that using social security tax funds to pay interest on this debt and borrowing the balance from Japan and Europe is irresponsible ?

Do you think less time should be spent studying alternative energy sources and more time devoted to going after remaining petroleum sources?

Do you think that, confronted with numerous small-scale wars, nuclear proliferation in third-world countries, and terrorism on a global scale, the United States best serves the interest of its people by "going it alone", or by building a consensus among the countries of the world to gain support for global solutions?

Should tax advantages be given to companies to use as they see fit, or should they be more closely tied to manufacture and employment based in this country?

Do you think that our schools would function better if the Ten Commandments were a part of the curriculum?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:14 PM

Lonesome EJ,

Your questions are excellent and timely. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:15 PM

You're suggesting that your electorate might actually decide whom to vote for on the basis of actual political judgements? That's a bit radical isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:25 PM

Let me pretend for just a little while, McGrath...

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:32 PM

A few answers:

No to ten commandments in schools.

No to thinking we were deceived about the seriousness of the Iraq situation.

Yes to more way more alternative (hardly can be called alternative anymore, some of them) fuels, with emphasisis on small household systems.

Yes to better sewage and garbage systems (although you didn't ask), with some research into using them for the alternative fuels.

Yes to tax advantages to create jobs, employ underpriviledged people.

Yes to consensus if possible, but if not must be eternally vigilant and prepared to go it alone.

The mental state of the current and the possible president are entirely relevant and especially in wartime we should be assured of their mental stability.

Yes to Bill of Rights infringement necessary for increased security and yes it does strike at the heart of our freedom and way of life.

Yes to tax cuts benefitting some people..those who got jobs as a result, those who got houses because of lower interest rates. Some would have preferred more direct assistance. Has to be a balance between not killing the goose that laid the golden egg and providing for the needy (who should have in a sense a contractual relationship with those providing them necessities of life..i.e., they should not use drugs, engage in violence or abusive behaviors, break the law, damage public housing, insure that their children stay in school, etc. And I am not blaming the victim here, I am saying firmly that things could be improved in some social areas.)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,m. garvey
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:32 PM

that was from me.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:36 PM

"No to thinking we were deceived about the seriousness of the Iraq situation."

But surely there's no disputing that now? It's just that Bush (and Blair) claim that they were themselves deceived rather than being the deceivers.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 07:50 PM

What a wonderful idea----sadly it was done in the years that conventions actually meant nominating the candidate. Granted there were deals. But, strong and different candidates emerged---think JFK/Nixon. FDR/Hoover, DDE/ Adlai. etc;

All the talk today is of dollars in advtsg---meaning selling a candidate.

I have to say, sadly, that Kerry is, to me, the best choice simply because of the alternative.

To digress, for a moment, the new ads that the Bush people deny being involved in (again---advtsg to sell the job) are truly disgusting. Self serving "patriots" which the NY Times has now, in a long and detailed piece, linked to Rove.   Swift Boats For Truth. They spent little money on the ads and the things are receiving more free publicity because of their blatant banter of bull and character assasination.   Check what these alleged patriots said one year ago about Kerry.

But back to the main topic. Issues. Sure would be nice and I will admit that they do need more than one liners. Something that W is not capable of it seems.   Kerry can deliver some depth at least. Is he correct---remains to be seen, but sure beats what we have. The answer to the pertinent question is really this:

Are we better off now in any area (security, employment, etc;) than we were 4 yrs ago---and will we be better off 4 yrs from now---with the same administration?

A comedy group says: I am Geo W Bush---remember--war starts with W. Nuff said there.

Now Cheney---I saw him a while back for the 10 minutes I could take prior to clicking off on C Span in front of a planted audience asking the obvious puff questions (they had been screened I found out)---good chance to blast the UNs alleged corruption and never mention the corruption in Halliburton---thanks to a questioner who profusely thanked dear old Dick (aptly named) for all his public service.

Could they at least not have made it so obvious as to what a plant and stooge the questioner was?

He really does not talk out of both sides of his mouth---only one--the right I believe.

Let us hope for no power outages and dead batteries to disrupt his pacemaker.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:00 PM

McGrath is right. The least that can be claimed by Bush is that he had bad intelligence information. The worst is that the information was fabricated to justify the incursion and frighten the American people into supporting the effort. Whether it was the right thing to do is another question.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:16 PM

LEJ: I am sure we are not privy to what is really going on.   That scenario has long since left our purvey.

       Perhaps the Capitol Steps have it right---

Laura B. : Don't be upset dear---The CIA defends you.

Geo. W: :   How?

Laura B. : They say you have had little intelligence. And, the people think a lot of you

Geo. W. I don't care what the people think--hell, they did not even vote for me.

MUSIC /

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:24 PM

Lonesome EJ,

Hey, Karl Rive is the Lee Atwater of these times. He is very adept at dirty tricks and will not let the campaign be subverted into anything of substance...

Guarenteed...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:26 PM

LEJ...the current thinking seems to be that the electorate is NOT well-informed and has a short attention span, so the way to win is to paint the other candidate with a broad brush of negative associations.

The Republicans have been doing this since the Dukakis campaign showed how well it could work...The Democrats are not above trying it, but don't have quite the 'spirit' of it. Guys like Rush Limbaugh have raised ridicule and insinuation to an art form....and I will bet you that Bush's advisors are telling him that he is weak on several major fronts, so "keep touting Kerry as a 'flip-flopper' and let others fill the airwaves with insinuations about Kerry's war record"

To top it off, we have some current issues that are ready made for smear campaigning...Terrorism (soft on it?)...War (for or against?) and War *service records*...(did Bush show up? was Kerry really wounded?)

Worse, the news media thinks they have to entertain and have 'hot' issues every program, so they dig into the superficial and barely mention the real issues you note.

I sure hope Kerry has some plan to introduce the needed rebuttals at the right time and give ol' Shrub tit for tat on the war record business. It would be even better if he could get Bush into 1 on 1 debates ABOUT the issues you list...

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 08:32 PM

Bill H. I would be interested in knowing what your credentials are for slamming the "self-serving patriots", who are going to be sued if possible, slandered, possibly have their lives threatened, harrassed in every way possible. They are speaking the truth as they saw it. It might not be the truth that others saw. I believe everyone who has a stake in this as I have no way of determining anything. If you were there I am sure you must and I defer to you. As a veteran, as a officer with the Army Transportation Corps who put out troops equivalent to the Swifties of the Navy, I do not wish to have their characters maligned, unless you have some superior, on-the ground, or on the river knowledge that I personally do not have. I believe everything Kerry's team said, I believe everything the others said and if there are conflicts so be it. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:17 PM

Mary Garvey:I think I prefer the witnesses that were on his boat---not those on other boats. I would also question their veracity since they (or some anyway) were praising him less than one year ago.

Check the lineage of who financed this little bit of mudslinging.

Your note ---and mine--sadly shows how much mileage they have gotten at little expense from this biased ad.   Please do recall the line---"..and mine" --since that shows how this has mushroomed to even a larger audience than I think they ever anticipated.

So---for me, I shall not address this nefarious bit of blatant piece of misleading (by inuendo and no facts) paid political advertising any longer. All that would do would be to give them more than their money's worth.

By the way---Mary---as the old radio cliche goes---vas you dere charlie

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 09:50 PM

Hey, not that it makes much different but it seems that the Bush "River Boat Crew" is starting to unravel. Seems that there's a little flip-floppin' going on is the Bush boat with reports that some of his guys have told different stories in the past? Hmmmmm?

Well, it still doesn't endear me to Kerry and he's a long way from convincing me that it really doesn't matter either Bush or Kerry is the next president. Both are so tied to corporate interests that whatever they are saying now is nuthin' but pure unaltered crap!

Vote Nadar!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 10:16 PM

No I wasn't, which is why I would defer to you if you were. Otherwise I think you are blowing smoke. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 04 - 11:46 PM

Mary,

Have a good read of the stuff the swift-boat-vets-against-Kerry wrote. Forget WHAT they said and look at the WAY they said it. All the testimonials were written by the same person. That was the mistake they made. Same small errors in English usage, same hyphenation of commander-in-chief (three times if I remember correctly), same small errors with the use of the comma. It's very evident that it is an orchestrated smear campaign. Too bad they can't be got into court fast enough to either tell the truth or commit perjury.

Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 01:24 AM

I think they paid CNN to run stories on the new anti-Kerry swift boat ad, every half-hour with the ad running in the background; major news sources are anything but news...

great questions, LeeJ...I wish the whole country cared enough and had the wherewithall to ponder them...sorry, feeling a bit cynical tonight.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 09:59 AM

"They are speaking the truth as they saw it."

They may be. Otherwise they are lying for political reasons. On balance the evidence seems to suggest the latter explanation.

Please God this kind of political nastiness doesn't catch on elsewhere. "Only in America..."

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 03:34 PM

Oh poo. I have no doubt that political people will use, pay for, expropriate the ads and any negative information or congecture but you are beyond anyone I reason with. There is no way under heaven that you can gather 250 people with mixed political feelings, with careers and reputations to consider, and strong desires to stay out of the limelight for anything other than profound, primal personal reasons. And I repeat that I believe what Kerry and his team are saying, as I believe the others. If there are conflicts, I accept them and understand some of the dynamics. These feelings have been there, and have been festering for decades. Karl Rove and Karen whatshername might be channelling them but they are not creating them. I hope young people are reading this and grasping some of it. I have no hope for people of my age. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 04:18 PM

And the beat goes on...
We seem to be more concerned with the swiftboat controversy than we are with the depletion of the Social Security fund for payment of the national debt, or the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Has it come down to the necessary motivation for supporting a candidate becoming anger, betrayal, and retribution? It really seems that personal attacks are replacing honest disagreement in my country.

As Richard Clarke said on a recent Face the Nation in regard to Michael Moore's claim of special treatment for and collusion with the Saudi royal family, "there are enough legitimate reasons for opposing George W Bush without concocting new ones." The same should be said by intelligent conservatives about John Kerry. In addition, we should all look for a specific number of legitimate reasons for supporting a candidate, or we create a climate in which attack ads proliferate.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 04:26 PM

I agree that the real issues should be out there and strong opinions to differentiate the candidates would be a good idea.

The business of "being fit" to be president is a red herring. The only thing you have to go on is evidence. Do you think Bush is doing a good job?

There is no way to predict what Kerry will do in office just as there was no way to predict that Bush would flip flop on issues such as nation building, "compassionate conservatism" (an oxymoron and another) "military intelligence".

In the meantime, working-class people are suffering because they can't get health care, their unions have been gutted, and middle class is struggling to survive.

Many of the Cons from the so-called "red states" are shooting themselves in the foot as Thomas Frank has pointed out in his must read book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?" They will never get Creationisim to substitute for Evolution, outlaw homosexuality, overturn Roe V. Wade, have their kind of school prayer, tear down the wall of Separation of Church and State, or effectively gut the public school system, stem the tide of stem cell. In the meantime, these ardent right-wingers are being screwed by the corporations that they embrace such as the rich Republican right-wingers who control the media including the pictures made in Hollywood. The so-called "death tax" has no meaning because it only applies to the wealthy owners of agribusiness and has no bearing on the disappearing family farms.

Also, they must realize that the well-heeled in the so-called "blues states" are footing the bill for their problems by taxes as Paul Krugman has pointed out.

The very thing that would help these people get a better footing in their jobs is the thing that scares them the most, a strong union. This would help them get much needed health care, fair employment practices such as deserved overtime, a decent minimum wage and other advantages of collective bargaining.

Instead, the use the demonized tired old cliche of the "liberal" to defend their misery.

In the meantime, the Swift Boat attackers of John Kerry are lawyers and professional people who under the PR of Merrie Spaeth and the finances of Bob I Perry support the Bush agenda and many of these people appear to be sub-consciously "guilt ridden" at either not having anhilated North Vietnam or defending the futile war. They want credit for a failed policy. This is being repeated in Iraq. The real issue is not Kerry's service record or the fact that they misquoted him out of context in their ads. It's that they know that the pre-emptive approach by Bush in Iraq is also a failed policy very much like what they were subjected to in Vietnam. I don't blame them for being worried. And I understand their misdirected anger.

In the film the Fog of War, Macnamara has a meeting with the head of North Vietnam who tells him that if the Johnson administration had read their history, they would have known that Vietnam never had a good relationship with China or other neighboring countries and the film tells us that the "domino theory" was not real. The Vietcong were just defending their country. "Hanoi" Jane made a good point but she is still demonized for what she said years ago. All she really said was that Vietnam was a big mistake.

Anyone who uses credentials for being part of a failed policy is not seeing the picture realistically.

The point is that there is very little understanding of the Iraqi people and their needs today. This is why Iraq is a failed policy.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Amos
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 04:39 PM

If the dynamics of Iraq had even been half understood by those who represent us, Congress never would have voted to give Bush war powers.

There are legitimate reasons for supporting John Kerry, which sum up under the fact that he is a centrist. This nation more than anything needs radical centrism.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 05:19 PM

I suppose it depends how you define "lie". When someone says something they know to be untrue, that is obviously a lie - but when someone persuades themselves to believe something that it suits them to say, it gets a bit more of a grey area.

And when they start to believe what they say, because they said it, that's a further twist - and in a sense someone who has achieved this ability is no longer capable of the relatively honest practice of telling a deliberater and conscious lie. That's quite a common situation among politicians and their most dedicated followers.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 06:18 PM

It has to be said ...
By Michael Coren

THERE ARE things you are not supposed to say. Things that people pretend are not true. Things that get you into all sorts of trouble because we live in a dishonest world. Here goes...


Not supposed to say that the Crusades were not some vile Christian slaughter, but a response by Europe to the military expansion of Islam. Muslim armies had invaded Christian lands and would continue to do so for hundreds of years. They moved into Spain and reached the gates of Vienna.

The idea that Christians became Muslim with smiles on their faces is ludicrous. Countless people died and the very birthplace of Christianity was soaked in blood. The Crusaders did not always act morally -- though they often did -- but they were merely reacting to aggressive conquest.

Today the Roman Catholic Church condemns the Crusades as being wrong. Yet few if any Muslim leaders will condemn the rape of so many Christian countries by their own ancestors. On the contrary, some Muslims speak of these countries as being somehow Islamic by nature and sometimes refer to the re-conquest of Spain.

Muslim democracy?


Not supposed to say that the United States, Europe, Israel, Jews and Christians have little to do with the fact that there is no democracy in the Muslim world. Of course many of these countries were colonized and exploited, but then most of the world suffered such a fate.

India is composed of a billion people speaking various languages. The Hindu religion and culture of this magnificent nation has achieved the largest democracy in the world. People vote, honestly, fairly and peacefully. Violence is rare and political corruption isolated. All this in spite of poverty, partial rural illiteracy and centuries of imperial dominance.


Not supposed to say that Israel has become the new international whipping boy. Its people are broadly divided into Ashkenazi and Sephardi. Ashkenazi Jews were perhaps the most persecuted people in history. The colonization of Arab nations by the West is nothing compared to the pogroms and Holocaust.

Sephardic Jews were mostly to be found in Muslim states, where they were always at the bottom of the social ladder. Sometimes they were treated fairly well, sometimes very badly. But never were they complete equals. Even in Ethiopia, with all of its problems, a way was found to treat Jews worse than anybody else.

Yet whatever one wants to say about Israel -- and people will say everything about Israel, whether it's true or not -- the country enjoys a flourishing democracy. The million Arab citizens of Israel are not always first-class citizens. But they have the vote. More democratic rights than their Arab relatives across the border in Egypt or Jordan.


Not supposed to say that although the war in Iraq was, in my opinion, wrong and foolish, many Iraqis are acting like brutal and irrational thugs. Saddam Hussein kept his country in order by ruling as a murderous tyrant yet faced very little opposition. Where were these brave Islamic militants then?

The Americans have often acted thoughtlessly and have caused much suffering. But this can't justify blowing up churches, killing innocent Iraqi people and beheading foreign truck drivers. I'm tired of various so-called "holy" cities, holy men and holy ideas. None seem very holy or capable of giving people a life of dignity and safety.

Routine torture?


Not supposed to say that while the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was bad, it was nothing compared to the routine torture that takes place in most of the Muslim world. Yes, most. Egypt, Iran, Syria, Jordan and the rest. It was still wrong. Yet look at the reaction.

A free American press criticized its government. That government launched an inquiry. People were charged. Endless media coverage and national lamenting. As you read this another Muslim is being beaten, tortured or killed by other Muslims. No free press can write about it, no free people can protest about it.


Not supposed to say that many of the excuses and explanations offered by woolly thinkers to explain world events are invalid and fatuous. Not supposed to say that some beliefs are ethically and intellectually superior to others. Not supposed to say we should think outside of the boxes of both left and right.

Not supposed to -- but will.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 06:49 PM

"Not supposed to say that many of the excuses and explanations offered by woolly thinkers to explain world events are invalid and fatuous."

Oh, believe me, I'll say it - Previous Guest, you are definitely a woolly thinker with invalid and fatuous notions.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 07:44 PM

Great--is it not. One Guest critiquing another Guest. Why oh why will these people not give their names---could they be one and the same. We will never know.   


I agree with one---and disagree with the other. Will not respond to nameless posters---somewhat like anonymous poison pen letters.

Now, LEJ does make valid points with which I can empathize.   
And to Mary Garvey: one sentence---Kerry was there, Bush was not but did get a great rental flight suit.

So , much for honesty in campaigning.

Bill Hahn====yes---that is the name. Perhaps others might follow suit.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 08:25 PM

to mgarvey and other bush apologists, please read this eyewitness account from the other living commander of the 3 boats involved in kerry's military action. the vets on the swiftboat ads are liars...not guys with faulty memories...liars telling lies for political purposes because they hate kerry's opposition to and truthtelling about the war they fought in.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082204Y.shtml

PS this commander was mostdefinately THERE.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 08:32 PM

Kerry was there, and Bush, like many of us, stood ready to be sent there. He had his own flight suit back then. You, unless you were there, do not need to insult anyone who was in the National Guard, or was stationed elsewhere or was in the Cold rather than the hot war. I hope I never meet you. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 08:37 PM

I have strong doubts they are lying. Of course that is why they are coming forward because they specifically, more than any others, were accused of very serious things which they dispute. Their honor was challenged. I am just starting to understand this myself...I thought of it as more generic, tarring all troops, but I see how they would take this extremely personally. And I am not a Bush apologist but Iw ill defend anyone who served stateside, int eh Guard or whatever from idiotic and cruel insults from know-nothings. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 08:44 PM

Well MG---there we agree. Not meeting---I have met people like you and wish I had not.   I am. however, happy that do have a point of agreement.

NW Guest--still do not like just Guest---I checked that website. Exactly my point. We are not talking policy but, rather, talking honesty and accuracy.

I do wish we were talking policy and the future---sadly this has come to mudslinging intitiated by the Bushies and, of course, W dissavows any connection.

Now---Mary--is it not wonderful that W was "...ready to be sent there". Stange he was not. Stange he missed certain physicals. Not strange he found a source for a borrowed flight suit to appear on the Carrier and say---Mission Accomplished---Mission accomplished to a war that was not necessary---and where the casualties are mounting more than before that badly informed statement---as are so many others. Well, I guess the satirical group that said---Geo. the CIA defends you---they say you have a lack of intelligence---proves not only clever but prophetic. Or---to paraphrase---the old WWJD---WWCD---What would Cheney do? I think we know.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Peace
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 09:11 PM

Bush may have HAD a uniform, but he was not OF the uniform, and saying we should respect him for 'being ready to go' is like saying we should respect fish because they may get caught then served. Just doesn't work for me. Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Peace
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 09:13 PM

As a by the way, does anyone know the US debt before Bush took over and what that debt sits at now? Just wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,realist
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 10:08 PM

Do you realize that less than 10% of the people who will vote in the election have any idea what you are talking about???

Do you realize that more than 90% of the voters will pick a candidate because "that som-a-bitch really told em din't he?" Told them what? Who knows!!!

Do you realize that platform and ideas mean absolutly nothing to more than 90% of the voters?

Do you realize how hopeless the future looks???

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 10:27 PM

If the stuff about Bush being personally linked to the lies about Kerry are true. The United States should appeal to outside countries to come in and manage their election for them. Another false count and more wierdness might make America, and the rest of the world, question the validity of its democracy.

Maybe we could get international aid to help with a fair election.


India seems to be doing well under very adverse circumstances. Maybe they could come show us how its done.


S.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 10:43 PM

Why is the future hopeless? It can go all sorts of ways, but here are some good newses..

1. Birth control. We have it and some of the major religious influences that led to overpopulation have declined in authority.
2. Desalinization. Up and running.
3. Solar energy. Up and running.
4. Wind energy. Up and running.
5. Gramin (sp?) banks and miniloans. He has calculated how poverty can be eliminated through microloans.
6. Health care -- screening cloths for guinea worms; window screens already invented against mosquitoes. We now know more about diabetes and can prevent or reverse it in many people --- and it is hte hidden culprit behind much heart disease etc.
7. Drugs -- many natural methods will be rediscovered or used. See above. Many drugs are for heart and cholesterol etc. and misused and unnecessary once underlying problem is fixed through diet and exercise for many people.
8. internet. Every single person on the face of the earth could fairly soon have their story told or communicate with every other person on the face of the earth.
9. Voluntary simplicity..what more do people in moderate climates need than shelter out of rocks and a bit of wood and glass (rocks and sand for glass found in poor countries..or indigenous..either way is good). A few goats and sheep and chickens and some biointensive gardening (google under Vietnam and VAT I think)and your needs are about met. And a fish pond.
10. We already invented Scotch tape and polyester and superglue. WHat is left to invent?
We've already invented levitating trains haven't we? Just run them at least on flat lands and avoid a lot of air travel.....never could understand why planes had to fly so high.

We have already invented sails. Just put them to use again. Likewise windmills.
I suspect we will go back to more local economies at least for food growing. That is good. With smaller populations we don't need to keep escalating everything...
They know how to make earth houses and fire them to make a supercheap and stury dwelling for many people. Housing problems solved.
Still problems with insects...but good construction and sanitation, screens etc. w ill help a lot.

Typhoons..I ahven't figured that one out. Reversing population trends will help. Some sort of high shelters...send water to desert countries...

Seriously..should be a way to channel that water. Could you have some big bladder to fill with typhoon water and tow to Santa Barbara? They tow iceburgs all the time. and it is hard to lassoo an iceberg I presume.

Redistribution of world's resources: can be done. For one thing we have many things that others could use that our choking us..extra clothes, metal from appliances and old cars, old tires that could be cut into sandles. We are not good about sending stuff on like the old missionary barrels. Need aid agencies that collect and ship stuff (Deseret does I think).

Education: going to be easier with Internet etc. Also with fewer children, better nutrition etc. Education has to be based on occupational needs...train your nurses, engineers, electricians, plumbers, teachers first.

Well, that is enough optimism for one evening. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 10:58 PM

Well, one thing is fir sure, every day that this military service thing continues is another day that Karl Rove has a big smile on his face. Another 60 days with this crap in the headlines and its four more years...

BTW, mary, while I respect your half full look at what's going on around us but there are as many of us, if not more, that do not share your optimism, at least not under the current culture within the Bush administration...

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot more faith in the dem...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 11:10 PM

let's just focus on the typhoon problem. One thing at a time. Probably I should start a new thread. Feel free to move this. What if everyone had an inner tube and an poncho and something against the sun..and a life preserver..put the life rpeserver in the inner tube, put a few together and you have a bed off the floor from the insects. Could come in handy in several feet of water. Add a rope and a knife and some water purifying pills...might work in some cases.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: artbrooks
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 12:44 AM

Much as I hate to agree with Bobert, he is entirely correct that the whole focus on Kerry's military record is a smoke screen, especially since Kerry has as much as said that he will not return the disfavor.

As long as the controversy swings on the veracity of the Swiftboat veterans and whether or not Kerry earned his medals, Bush's failures as president will not be properly addressed. As long as the focus is on events of 40 years ago, it will be off of those of the last four.

And, since mg seems to think that one must have earned the right to discuss either candidate's military service, let me add: 3/16 Artillery, Americal Division, Da Nang and points west, 1971.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 02:13 AM

mgarvey, not to pull you away from your mosquito netting and scotch tape, but i offered a news link that pertained to the story this thread is about and offered testimony from a person who was on the scene of kerry's swiftboat activities that shows the guys on the commercial are LIARS. did you have a look at that story?
by the way, i have also served in the military and i don't think it confers any superpower that proves you can never again tell a lie.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: van lingle
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 07:58 AM

Taking the low road is about all that's left for Bush and the fact that he's gone after Kerry's military record is an indication of just how desperate they've become when you considere his own history as a slacker.
While I recognize that the difference between the individuals that have any realistic opportunity of becoming president is narrowing all the time there are at least two excellent reasons to choose Kerry over Bush,IMO.

1. Kerry would slow the concentration of wealth in this country to the extremely wealthy by rolling back Bush's unecessary tax cut for the upper 1 or 2 percent.

2. More importantly, I'd better trust him to make more reasonable appointments to the Supreme court should they arise in the next 4 years. When you consider the conservative ideologues Bush has appointed to lesser federal benches any appointments he'd make to the high court would seriously throw out of balance an already conservative court.vl

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 08:59 AM

Yo, Van-L: I doubt seriously that Kerry could pull off the slowing of "Big Rip Off" by the ruling class. Lets be realistic here. If he has any chance of succeedin' in doing anything at all he's gonna have a tougher battle that Clinton had in getting an entrenced Congressional culture to do anything other than what *they* want to do. Remember when Clinton was asked why he didn't send a stronger assault weapon bill to Congress? He said "Why? They won't pass it."

And Kerry doesn't seem like the kinda guy who has the stamina to stand up in the bully pulpit on a daily asis and lecture the country on what he percieves as the correct course of action. Plus, he has his little corporate ties also and understands the political equation: money=power=access to government! I mean, take a look at the Iraq War. Kerry has been all over the map on this one. A gu like Dennis Kucinich you wouldn't have to wonder about. Or Howard Dean. Or Ralph Nadar... See what I mean? If he can't take a clear stand on the war then how's he gonnsa bully anyone into doing one danged thing?

The time is not right for Kerry to be president. Unfortunately, the time has never been right for the current guy to be anything much more than the guy who organizes the next keg party at the frat house...

Vote Nadar (if you can)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 11:24 AM

I think some of the comments of Micheal Coren need to be disputed.

" The million Arab citizens of Israel are not always first-class citizens. But they have the vote. More democratic rights than their Arab relatives across the border in Egypt or Jordan."

If this were actually true, there would be no Hamas or Palestinian Intifadas.

" many Iraqis are acting like brutal and irrational thugs."

As equally many Israelis who demolish homes and take innocent lives.


"Saddam Hussein kept his country in order by ruling as a murderous tyrant yet faced very little opposition. Where were these brave Islamic militants then? "

They were being suppressed with the help of those in the US who were focussed at that time on Iran.

" But this can't justify blowing up churches, killing innocent Iraqi people and beheading foreign truck drivers. I'm tired of various so-called "holy" cities, holy men and holy ideas. None seem very holy or capable of giving people a life of dignity and safety."

Theocracy has a tendency toward unholy acts whether in the USA, Israel or Palestine.


"Not supposed to say that while the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was bad, it was nothing compared to the routine torture that takes place in most of the Muslim world. Yes, most. Egypt, Iran, Syria, Jordan and the rest. It was still wrong. Yet look at the reaction. "

Israel is culpable as well. Atrocities occur on both sides. This is true with
Vietnam and Iraq as well.

"As you read this another Muslim is being beaten, tortured or killed by other Muslims. No free press can write about it, no free people can protest about it. "

This also applies to the press that is embedded with American troops in Iraq.
No oppposition view of American foreign policy by any Iraqi will find it's way into the American press today. For this we rely on smaller publications and the internet.

The problem is that ideology of one country with a propensity for Theocratic thinking feels justified in the inflicting injustice on another. This is the crux of not only the Israel/Palestine problem but the failed US foreign war policy.

That said, there is a difference of viewpoints in both the Muslim and Israeli communities that are not in lockstep with their governments.

Bobert, Nader is taking Republican money so that the Republican investors
can put him on the ballots to take Democratic votes away. Hence, a vote for Nader is now really a vote for Bush. Nader has not repudiated taking this money which if he were sincere, he would have.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 01:37 PM

I wanted to respond to this thread. John Kerry is articulate, not especially a product of the rich elite, as George Bush is. Kerry is a well-educated man and the fact that he speaks French is offensive to only the most ignorant. He can speak well and not in short snide little phrases. He has been victimized by a lying and deceitful group who call themselves the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The reason they are discredited as being dishonest is because none of them actually served with Kerry including John O Neill, the Texas ringleader who has had a grudge match with Kerry for years.

Do we want someone to represent our presidency who is inarticulate, a man who places the corporate values above human values, a man who is so ardently pious that he places his limited knowledge of religion above those who have had an enlightened education? Only during this Administration has it become fashionable to denegrate education and to entrust it to corporate privitization to furthur destroy it as evidenced by the inability of charter schools to compete with the better public schools. Do we want a president who cares nothing for the working class of America and is not concerned with the struggle of the middle class to survive? Do we want someone who puts
power before civil liberties and incarcerates innocent people with impugnity?

Last, do we want someone who plays politics to the detriment of statesmanship and representing America as a great nation to the rest of the world?

Do we need to turn back the clock on all of the progressive reforms we've had since Roosevelt such as a decent minimum wage, religious tolerance, civil rights, parity for women in the workplace, the hard-fought creation of social security which is in danger now, environmental protection and public health care benefits?

In the past, both Democrats and Republicans alike were responsible for these beneficial policies. Under Bush, they are all in danger of being gutted in favor of corporate interests and a rabid minority who have been brain-washed into thinking that
Science and Education are somehow evil and that their religous convictions are all that matter even if they are based on narrow scriptural views. There is no comparison between Kerry and Bush. (Ralph Nader is wrong about that.) Kerry thinks, acts, speaks like a statesman and there was a time when speaking well, thinking logically, and possessing a good education was a virtue. Now, because of Bush, ignorance is lauded and many people take pride in it.

It's a reverse snobbery. Those that adhere to a dogmatic theological narrow-minded scriptural approach actually think they are better than others and they will somehow be saved.
Others champion the sword and gun over rational thinking and believe that somehow they are superior to the rest of us.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Peace
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 02:02 PM

The USA presently has a national debt of seven trillion dollars.

$7,000,000,000,000--give or take a few billion.

That is seven million stacks of a million dollars.

That is 7 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 dollars.

Just thought I'd mention.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 02:40 PM

And now for a commercial break.

Join me and Don Firth here to discuss a different aspect of the presidential election this year.

I think the examination of Kerry's military record is legitimate for the Republicans, because Kerry relied so heavily upon that record in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention.

Is this below the belt campaign, clearly being orchestrated by Karl Rove and the Bush/Cheney campaign committee, the proper way of examining that record?

No.

Mary Garvey, you may not realize that the Miami Herald has reported in the last few hours that:

"GAINESVILLE, Fla. - A member of a group that has run ads attacking John Kerry's Vietnam War record pulled out of an anti-Kerry rally over the weekend after learning that it was promoted at the local headquarters for President Bush's campaign."

And the Washington Post today reports that:

"CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 21 -- The Bush campaign said late Saturday that it dismissed an adviser on veterans issues after learning that he is part of an independent group that has been running anti-Kerry ads.

The Bush campaign said Kenneth Cordier, who appears in a new advertisement to be aired by the anti-Kerry group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, will no longer serve in his voluntary position on Bush's veterans steering committee. A Bush spokesman said Cordier had not previously informed the campaign that he had been involved with the group, but the Kerry campaign said the matter provides evidence supporting its complaint to the Federal Election Commission alleging illegal cooperation between the campaign and the independent group."

Both of those two instances are likely a violation of US election laws, and the reason why Kerry has filed suit.

Reuters News Service (where most news outlets get their news from) has reported in the past hour that:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A veteran who has disputed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam war record has admitted he does not have "a single document" to prove Kerry fabricated reports of enemy fire that won him two medals.

Van Odell, a member of the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that has spearheaded a campaign against Kerry's service record, said his was one of seven eye witness accounts and he was not being directed by the campaign of President George W. Bush.

Odell said he had met with Republican strategist Merrie Spaeth, a public relations consultant to his group, and once bought a home from Bob Perry, a large Republican donor from Texas and close associate of Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser."

Or that a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, who WAS present on the days in question in Vietnam with John Kerry, as the commander of the second swift boat, broke his 35 year silence about this yesterday, and came out in defense of the description of events that exist in the official military records the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth keep ignoring. You can read about his statement at the Voice of America website, but here is what they said a few hours ago:

"VOA News
22 Aug 2004, 13:59 UTC

A U.S. newspaper editor who served with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in Vietnam has defended the candidate's war record.
William Rood of The Chicago Tribune said in an interview published Sunday that he was "breaking 35 years of silence" because recent portrayals of Senator Kerry's actions were, in his view, wrong and smeared the reputations of the senator's platoon."

Additionally, the following Republican and Democratic senators have said this about the vicious attack on Kerry's character (from the Reuters article):

Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan added his voice to that of Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a Vietnam veteran who has also unsuccessfully urged Bush to denounce the ads.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said that while the group had "every right" to express their opinion, "we ought to get out of the character assassination business."

From today's CBS News story on the Chicago Tribune editor (the Trib is Chicago's most respected conservative newspaper, BTW):

"William Rood, 61, said he decided to break his silence Saturday about the Feb. 28, 1969 mission because recent reports of Kerry's actions in that battle are incorrect and darken the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune's Sunday editions.

Before the 1969 mission, Kerry told Rood and another officer to attack ambushers if U.S. crews came under attack. The swift boats following the new tactic had great success, said Rood, an editor on the Tribune's metropolitan desk.

Rood said allegations that Kerry's accomplishments were overblown are untrue and that Kerry developed an attack strategy that was praised by their superiors.

"The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood said in a first-person account published in the newspaper.

____________________________________________________

So despite the overwhelming evidence that now disputes the veracity of the "truth" the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are claiming to tell, and the fact that the Bush/Cheney campaign is now doing all it can to distance themselves from it's members who are working for the campaign by firing them from their campaign jobs, and the denunciation of this whole sorry debacle by Republicans and Democrats alike, you STILL BLINDLY CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH????????

That just shows your bigoted Republican partisanship has hijacked your rational thought processes, Mary. That makes you a true believer, and true believers are largely ignored by most reasonable minded people. So I wouldn't brag too loudly about the fact that despite being presented with facts, you prefer to believe the erroneous propaganda instead. People like you are generally shunned by reasonable people for being a little too looney.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: pdq
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 03:56 PM

The claim by "GUEST,realist" that only 10% of U.S. voters understand the issues is impossible to substantiate.

Here are some recent pole numbers.

Republicans who support the war to oust Saddam from power in Iraq:

            a) 85% support

            b) 15% oppose

Democrats who support the war to oust Saddam from power In Iraq:

            a) 30% support

            b) 70% oppose (!!!)

And what does Democrat Kerry say about Iraq? He supports the war and says he will send 30-40,000 more U.S. troops in as soon as he is elected.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 03:58 PM

only one little problem..I've never voted for a Republican in my life. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Peace
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 04:01 PM

Mary,

Neither did I.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 04:07 PM

Mary, the point isn't who do you vote for, the point is, who do you believe?

I'm doing a Mudcat no-no here, and doing a cut and paste. But I feel it is a legitimate one to this thread, and crucial to our understanding of what is going on. Because providing a link to the other swift boat commander's statement in today's Chicago Tribune requires registration to read the article (and knowing that most Mudcatters won't register to read it), I am doing a cut and paste of the entire article here. So my next post will be the actual article.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 04:16 PM

This is the text of the entire article published by the Chicago Tribune today. The author is the third swift boat commander present on the day in question regarding Kerry's actions and his subsequent decorations for those actions. The article's author has remained silent about this day for 35 years, and has come forward with his account, partly at the behest of John Kerry himself, but, according to the author, mostly out of anger at the lies being told by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, that he feels dishonors ALL the American soldiers involved on all three swift boats that day.

Here is the article:
FEB. 28, 1969: ON THE DONG CUNG RIVER
'This is what I saw that day'

By William B. Rood
Chicago Tribune
Published August 22, 2004

There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago--three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969.

One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other.

For years, no one asked about those events. But now they are the focus of skirmishing in a presidential election with a group of swift boat veterans and others contending that Kerry didn't deserve the Silver Star for what he did on that day, or the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for other actions.

Many of us wanted to put it all behind us--the rivers, the ambushes, the killing. Ever since that time, I have refused all requests for interviews about Kerry's service--even those from reporters at the Chicago Tribune, where I work.

But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown. The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there.

Even though Kerry's own crew members have backed him, the attacks have continued, and in recent days Kerry has called me and others who were with him in those days, asking that we go public with our accounts.

I can't pretend those calls had no effect on me, but that is not why I am writing this. What matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did. My intent is to tell the story here and to never again talk publicly about it.

I was part of the operation that led to Kerry's Silver Star. I have no firsthand knowledge of the events that resulted in his winning the Purple Hearts or the Bronze Star.

But on Feb. 28, 1969, I was officer in charge of PCF-23, one of three swift boats--including Kerry's PCF-94 and Lt. j.g. Donald Droz's PCF-43--that carried Vietnamese regional and Popular Force troops and a Navy demolition team up the Dong Cung, a narrow tributary of the Bay Hap River, to conduct a sweep in the area.

The approach of the noisy 50-foot aluminum boats, each driven by two huge 12-cylinder diesels and loaded down with six crew members, troops and gear, was no secret.

Ambushes were a virtual certainty, and that day was no exception.

Instructions from Kerry

The difference was that Kerry, who had tactical command of that particular operation, had talked to Droz and me beforehand about not responding the way the boats usually did to an ambush.

We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial volley and had a clear fix on the location of the ambush, we would turn directly into it, focusing the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on the attackers and beaching the boats. We told our crews about the plan.

The Viet Cong in the area had come to expect that the heavily loaded boats would lumber on past an ambush, firing at the entrenched attackers, beaching upstream and putting troops ashore to sweep back down on the ambush site. Often, they were long gone by the time the troops got there.

The first time we took fire--the usual rockets and automatic weapons--Kerry ordered a "turn 90" and the three boats roared in on the ambush. It worked. We routed the ambush, killing three of the attackers. The troops, led by an Army adviser, jumped off the boats and began a sweep, which killed another half dozen VC, wounded or captured others and found weapons, blast masks and other supplies used to stage ambushes.

Meanwhile, Kerry ordered our boat to head upstream with his, leaving Droz's boat at the first site.

It happened again, another ambush. And again, Kerry ordered the turn maneuver, and again it worked. As we headed for the riverbank, I remember seeing a loaded B-40 launcher pointed at the boats. It wasn't fired as two men jumped up from their spider holes.

We called Droz's boat up to assist us, and Kerry, followed by one member of his crew, jumped ashore and chased a VC behind a hooch--a thatched hut--maybe 15 yards inland from the ambush site. Some who were there that day recall the man being wounded as he ran. Neither I nor Jerry Leeds, our boat's leading petty officer with whom I've checked my recollection of all these events, recalls that, which is no surprise. Recollections of those who go through experiences like that frequently differ.

With our troops involved in the sweep of the first ambush site, Richard Lamberson, a member of my crew, and I also went ashore to search the area. I was checking out the inside of the hooch when I heard gunfire nearby.

Not long after that, Kerry returned, reporting that he had killed the man he chased behind the hooch. He also had picked up a loaded B-40 rocket launcher, which we took back to our base in An Thoi after the operation.

John O'Neill, author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam service, describes the man Kerry chased as a "teenager" in a "loincloth." I have no idea how old the gunner Kerry chased that day was, but both Leeds and I recall that he was a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore.

The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that site, as O'Neill suggests. There were others who fled. There was also firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one point, from the opposite riverbank as well. It was not the work of just one attacker.

Our initial reports of the day's action caused an immediate response from our task force headquarters in Cam Ranh Bay.

Congratulatory message

Known over radio circuits by the call sign "Latch," then-Capt. and now retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the task force commander, fired off a message congratulating the three swift boats, saying at one point that the tactic of charging the ambushes was a "shining example of completely overwhelming the enemy" and that it "may be the most efficacious method of dealing with small numbers of ambushers."

Hoffmann has become a leading critic of Kerry's and now says that what the boats did on that day demonstrated Kerry's inclination to be impulsive to a fault.

Our decision to use that tactic under the right circumstances was not impulsive but was the result of discussions well beforehand and a mutual agreement of all three boat officers.

It was also well within the aggressive tradition that was embraced by the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam. Months before that day in February, a fellow boat officer, Michael Bernique, was summoned to Saigon to explain to top Navy commanders why he had made an unauthorized run up the Giang Thanh River, which runs along the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Bernique, who speaks French fluently, had been told by a source in Ha Tien at the mouth of the river that a VC tax collector was operating upstream.

Ignoring the prohibition against it, Bernique and his crew went upstream and routed the VC, pursuing and killing several.

Instead of facing disciplinary action as he had expected, Bernique was given the Silver Star, and Zumwalt ordered other swifts, which had largely patrolled coastal waters, into the rivers.

The decision sent a clear message, underscored repeatedly by Hoffmann's congratulatory messages, that aggressive patrolling was expected and that well-timed, if unconventional, tactics like Bernique's were encouraged.

What we did on Feb. 28, 1969, was well in line with the tone set by our top commanders.

Zumwalt made that clear when he flew down to our base at An Thoi off the southern tip of Vietnam to pin the Silver Star on Kerry and assorted Bronze Stars and commendation medals on the rest of us.

Error in citation

My Bronze Star citation, signed by Zumwalt, praised the charge tactic we used that day, saying the VC were "caught completely off guard."

There's at least one mistake in that citation. It incorrectly identifies the river where the main action occurred, a reminder that such documents were often done in haste and sometimes authored for their signers by staffers. It's a cautionary note for those trying to piece it all together. There's no final authority on something that happened so long ago--not the documents and not even the strained recollections of those of us who were there.

But I know that what some people are saying now is wrong. While they mean to hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns others who are not in the public eye.

Men like Larry Lee, who was on our bow with an M-60 machine gun as we charged the riverbank, Kenneth Martin, who was in the .50-caliber gun tub atop our boat, and Benjamin Cueva, our engineman, who was at our aft gun mount suppressing the fire from the opposite bank.

Wayne Langhoffer and the other crewmen on Droz's boat went through even worse on April 12, 1969, when they saw Droz killed in a brutal ambush that left PCF-43 an abandoned pile of wreckage on the banks of the Duong Keo River. That was just a few months after the birth of his only child, Tracy.

The survivors of all these events are scattered across the country now.

Jerry Leeds lives in a tiny Kansas town where he built and sold a successful printing business. He owns a beautiful home with a lawn that sweeps to the edge of a small lake, which he also owns. Every year, flights of purple martins return to the stately birdhouses on the tall poles in his back yard.

Cueva, recently retired, has raised three daughters and is beloved by his neighbors for all the years he spent keeping their cars running. Lee is a senior computer programmer in Kentucky, and Lamberson finished a second military career in the Army.

With the debate over that long-ago day in February, they're all living that war another time.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 04:25 PM

I believe them. I believe all of them. I realize that a lot of you can for some reason sort it out a lot better than I can but I am not going to try to sort it out at all. Got it? mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: pdq
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 04:27 PM

Endless articles about Viet Nam, swift boats and medals are a waste of bandwidth here at Mudcat. The U.S. voters are going to vote issues, despite claims to the contrary.

Republicans who oppose the war and Democrats who support it will determine the election on Nov 2.

Lonesome EJ - thanks for the effort, but your issues-based discussion lasted only about 7 posts, then Mudcat reverted to business as usual.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 05:18 PM

"I realize that a lot of you can for some reason sort it out a lot better than I can but I am not going to try to sort it out at all. Got it? mg"

Well, that pretty much explains how the crooks and liars keep hold of the government, doesn't it? With citizens like Mary Garvey we don't need terrorists, now do we? Rather than do the hard work of fulfilling their citizenship duties of participating in the democratic institutions of our nation and society by informing themselves of the facts before casting an informed vote, the Mary Garveys of this world would rather "believe them all" (presumably this means all the military characters in the Bush/Cheney Republican Right passion play. Any Mudcatters who have been around for long knows how much Mary worships the military, rather than informing herself of what the hell is actually going on in the world.

No wonder our country is the mess it is today. It is the Mary Garveys who are messing it up by worshipping the military instead of doing what the constitution requires they do as citizens of the US.

Well Mary, your willful, stubborn decision to refuse to accept the facts, says it all. You aren't going to participate in this democracy you claim to love, because you are "too confused" by the facts.

Pardon my French, but what a load of it. You are conveniently too confused in order to continue believing the liars.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 06:23 PM

"I believe all of them." Do you mean you believe what they say? Which would mean that when some former soldier says Kerry is a liar, you believe him? And that a bthe same time, if Kerry says that's a lie, you believe him too?

Or do you mean that, regardless of what they say, you believe that they believe they are telling the truth?

Or is it that it's no business of anybody to question the truth of anything someone who has been in uniform says? But when they start accusing each other of lying? In paid advertisements?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 06:35 PM

She means that, like the True Believers leader George W. Bush, she operates on faith and belief, usually to the exclusion of the facts. They aren't the least bit curious about the facts, and the Republican True Believers, beginning with Bush, knows what they believe, and that is the end of the subject. Case closed, as Mary Garvey so succinctly said herself in her last post.

These are not people who engage in critical thinking of any sort, nor do they welcome rigorous examinations of the Bush doctrine, the Bush record, the Bush policy decisions, etc. These are people who believe, as do the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, that they can only pledge their loyalty to Commander in Chief Bush. At the heart of the attack against Kerry, is the insinuation that if Kerry were to be elected, loyal Americans should NOT view him as the ultimate legitimate executive of the nation and it's commander in chief.

Which is to say, they are so lost and deluded, they truly believe that a mutiny against a democratically elected Democratic president, would be better than accepting the will of the electorate.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 09:15 PM

That's not really fair GUEST-whoever-you-are - Mary specifically said that the people she believed in this context include John Kerry, which a true-believing Bushworshipper wouldn't do. And it seems clear enough from her other posts that she doesn't fall into that category.

And why is it that just because somebody says something they disagree with, or that seems self-contradictory, this is a reason to start throwing around insults? Why copy the kind of political garbage throwing contest that degrades public life?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 10:33 PM

McGrath, it seems to me that in her last post, Mary studiously avoided naming who she actually believes. When she comes out and says she now believes Kerry and the veterans supporting him, then I'll believe it.

And I don't buy that it is unfair to call attention to her tactics. Why wouldn't we call Mudcat posters engaging in the same pathetic tactics as the Bush surrogates on the Republican right, when the Mudcat poster is engaging in the very same tactics here?

That's a double standard I'm not going to comply with, just for the sake of being polite, thank you very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 11:27 PM

I believe Kerry and the veterans supporting him. I support him. I also believe the others. Comprende? mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 11:32 PM

No, because claiming to believe everyone when it is clear that someone is lying, is a weasely cop out, and a willful refusal to address the issue.

You also aren't saying what has caused you to change your mind in the last 24 hours, from believing what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were saying, to believing what Kerry and his supporters were saying.

What changed Mary?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Peace
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 12:26 AM

Nothing changed Mary. Still the same gal she always was. Now, if you mean, "What changed, Mary," that's different.

However, I have a question for you, GUEST.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: mg
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 12:44 AM

Nothing changed on my end. That is what I always said. My mind pretty much doesn't change. But thanks for trying abusive guest. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 09:11 AM

Mary pretty clearly said earlier that she believed all of them, and it was clear she included Kerry in that.

I take it that means that she thinks they all believe what they say, and that she is not making any judgements at all about the actual facts of what happened out there.

That seems to me a fair enough position to take generally about these kinds of things. Memory is pretty unreliable in stressful conditions.

But a politically motivated advertising campaign accusing Kerry of lying maybe changes things a bit - it's not as if he'd been going around picking out former comrades and accusing them of lying in this way.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: van lingle
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 10:10 AM

Hey Bobert, Responding to your post of 8/22 @ 8:59 a.m. I've got to say that I'd rather see a more progressive canidate than Kerry out there like Kucinich or Nader but Kerry is what we got and the prospect of another 4 years of Bush/Cheney is, well, as Kerry points out "America Can do Better". Kerry has trumpeted his proposed rollback of the tax cuts for the top bracket to pay for social programs so strongly that it's become the centerpiece of his campaign and if he's elected he'll have what amounts to a mandate in that area. Hence, he shouldn't have any problem readjusting tax rates, IMO (of course, wether or not he gets the kind of social spending he wants is another matter).

GUEST Frank, Re your post of 8/22 @1:39 p.m. Very well said.
vl

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 12:04 PM

brucie asked
"does anyone know the US debt before Bush took over and what that debt sits at now? Just wondering."

Someone else posted that it stands at 7 trillion dollars. I am not certain if that is true, but I do know that, at the end of Clinton's term, there was a budget surplus. Maybe someone else knows the exact figure of the surplus.

Cheney has been quoted as saying "budget deficits don't matter", and I believe that this philosophy is at the heart of what is currently happening. It is certainly not government's purpose to "make a profit", and the Clinton Surplus might be looked upon in that way... a profit to Big Government based on excessive tax rates. I happen to believe that a government and a business are basically the same. Both maintain a level of independence in proportion to their debt load. A business which is profitable can carry a debt load and still pursue its objectives independent of interference from its creditors. A business running a deficit (more cash going out than coming in) and who also carries a huge debt load, is going to fall more and more under the influence of those who are financing it. A strong company with a small debt load can afford perks and benefits for its people like health insurance, profit sharing etc. A deficit company cuts these benefits.

Consider the US under Bush : Definitely fits the model of a massive company with a huge debt and negative cash flow. What international creditors are we now beholden to? Are tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and corporations logical when we are fighting a war that costs billions daily? And does it make sense to use dollars, paid by the nation's workers every day in the form of Social Security withholding, to keep the government operating?

And if Social Security is bled dry and allowed to collapse, how does that differ from a tax directed at the people in this country who can least afford to pay it... the people who are depending on Social Security to allow them to at least feed and house themselves in their old age?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 08:19 PM

Look---Issues are the thing.

This entire business of Swift Boats is past history and merely something to obfuscate the issues.   The man was there, the man got a medal, the man disagreed (later) with the war, and proved his worth which GWB did not. He merelyproved influence works. He being GWB---and I do not mean Geo Wahington Bridge.   The man referred to above is, of course, Kerry and not the flight suit renter.   

The point is to focus on issues and not tragic past history that was at least covered in an honest way by Kerry.

The American public votes---thankfully that is still so. Let us keep it that way. Kerry may not be the most dynamic of candidates---things have changed over the years. He is, however, a viable alternative to one who has brought us into chaos with the cry of patriotism. One who never did get the popular vote and (see today's NY Times) had his dear brother help out in the shenanigans---which continue to this day---eliminating Black voters by scare tactics by the State Police.   


Sure--we live in an age of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee politics, (except for France)where Adolf rears his ugly moustached head.   Though I do say that Chirac is trying to nip this in the bud. Do you think that Ashcroft will grow that little bristle---I doubt it---Goebells never did. Just Adolf.


Bill Hahn

Subject: US Gross National Debt as an Issue
From: Amos
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 09:23 PM

The Gross National Debt was around a quarter of a billion dollars in 1940 and has grown constantlyu ever since. This is not the same as the annual deficity/surplus which is a one year quick snapshot only.

Here are the figures for the Gross National Debt from the Dept of the US Treasury:

  2005  (Estimate)          $6,118,364  million
  
  2004  (Estimate)          $6,033,583  million
  
  2003  (Estimate)          $5,946,792  million
  
  2002  (Estimate)          $5,854,990  million
  
  2001  (Estimate)          $5,768,957  million
  
  2000  (Estimate)          $5,686,338  million
  
  1999          $5,606,087  million
  
  1998          $5,478,711  million
  
  1997          $5,369,694  million
  
  1996          $5,181,921  million
  
  1995          $4,921,005  million
  
  1994          $4,643,691  million
  
  1993          $4,351,403  million
  
  1992          $4,002,123  million
  
  1991          $3,598,485  million
  
  1990          $3,206,564  million
  
  1989          $2,868,039  million
  
  1988          $2,601,307  million
  
  1987          $2,346,125  million
  
  1986          $2,120,629  million
  
  1985          $1,817,521  million
  
  1984          $1,564,657  million
  
  1983          $1,371,710  million
  
  1982          $1,137,345  million
  
  1981          $ 994,845  million
  
  1980          $ 909,050  million
  
  1979          $ 829,470  million
  
  1978          $ 776,602  million
  
  1977          $ 706,398  million
  
  Transition  Quarter
  $ 643,561  million
  
  1976          $ 628,970  million
  
  1975          $ 541,925  million
  
  1974          $ 483,893  million
  
  1973          $ 466,291  million
  
  1972          $ 435,936  million
  
  1971          $ 408,176  million
  
  1970          $ 380,921  million
  
  1969          $ 365,769  million
  
  1968          $ 368,685  million
  
  1967          $ 340,445  million
  
  1966          $ 328,498  million
  
  1965          $ 322,318  million
  
  1964          $ 316,059  million
  
  1963          $ 310,324  million
  
  1962          $ 302,928  million
  
  1961          $ 292,648  million
  
  1960          $ 290,525  million
  
  ...
  
  1952          $ 259,097  million
  
  1951          $ 255,288  million
  
  1950          $ 256,853  million
  
  1949          $ 252,610  million
  
  1948          $ 252,031  million
  
  1947          $ 257,149  million
  
  1946          $ 270,991  million
  
  1945          $ 260,123  million

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Amos
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 09:34 PM

"Washington - This year's federal deficit will soar to a record $445 billion, the White House projected Friday in a report provoking immediate election-season tussling over how well President Bush has handled the economy.

    The administration's annual summertime budget update forecast shortfalls falling to $331 billion next year, then fading to $229 billion by 2009. For each year, the red ink was smaller than the White House envisioned six months ago.

    The analysis was released the same day the Commerce Department said economic growth slowed this spring to an annual rate of 3 percent, well below the 3.8 percent spurt that many economists expected. The slowdown was caused by a spending cutback by consumers in the face of high gasoline costs, the department said.

    Administration officials hailed the budget figures as a solid improvement over the deficits analysts forecast early this year, and said they were on their way to their goal of halving this year's shortfall in five years. The White House estimated a $521 billion budget gap for 2004 in February, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted a $477 billion deficit."

From Truthout.org

---

Budget deficit

A Budget deficit occurs when an entity, usually a government spends more money than it takes in. The opposite is a budget surplus. Budget deficits are important political issues. From 1970 to 1997, the United States Government ran significant deficits. By 1998, budget surpluses became common, lasting through 2001. An issue about counting so-called "off-budget" items such as Social Security, which are presently running a large surplus, complicates discussion of budget deficits.

Starve-the-beast strategies usually lead to high budget deficits.

from The Budget Deficit Encyclopedia

Subject: RE: BS: Bush-Kerry: Beyond the Personal Attacks
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 10:09 PM

Van Lingle,

I mean no disrespect but has it ever crossed your mind that it's not time for John Kerry to be president?

Think about it. A Republican controlled Congress. a lot of problems that are so buggered up that they cannot be fixed easily. An electorate that doesn't have a clue but sho nuff wants to vote for a "winner". Failed policies everywhere you look...

Maybe what America needs is another 4 years of Bush. Seems like the Democratic Party sho nuff does. Even after Howard Dean, it still doesn't get it!

Hey, this don't mean I like Bush the weisel, and sure he can do a lot more damage with another 4 years but, hey, maybe another four years will break the "Southern Stategy" (which now includes the midwest) forever.

So, if ya' can, vote for something!

Nadar in '04.

Maybe a Dem in '08...

Bobert