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[Harry]

I'm entirely anti Bush, as many of you know, and I was honestly horrified by the results of the elections, which I still can't fully understand. I completely agree with what Faile, Mena, Panuru, RedPyramidhead said in this thread, and I feel I could add little more to what you all already said so well, warmly, and clearly.

I would just like to give my two cents about "voting and not voting" - I think that voting is always important, not only when you are in a "big factor" state, like Mena said. Yes, you can dislike both Bush (yeah, the man seems as smart as a watermelon) and Kerry (yeah, the man is as fascinating as a cold zucchini), you may hate all candidates, but they still represent something that goes well beyond their single and yes, maybe unappealing person.

To make it clear. According to statistics, the majority of Americans is against the way Bush conducted the war in Iraq; the majority of Americans don't think that Bush is smarter than Kerry. Yet, they voted again for him. To be more precise – for the first time in a long, long time, hordes of people moved their asses to go and save their President in charge from the Democratic danger. Why? Because they voted for the moral and the ideas he and his party represent – you know, they are against abortion (but they are in favor of death penalty, the latest late-term abortion), against gay marriages, they want war against war, they want and need to take revenge against someone, they believe that brute force is the best way to stop the invaders (terrorists, foreign cultures, foreign industries, crime), they portray the values of the protestant church (I bet Jesus cried in joy when G.W.Bush said that the Lord himself was with him when he decided to attack Iraq), they have their own idea of “Welfare”, they have their own idea of tax reductions and so on. Regardless of what some may say, voting for Republicans or Democrats DOES make a difference, and can get to IMMEDIATE, CONCRETE, different effects. U.S. history proved also that each president, even those who “just” followed the policy of their predecessor, was entirely different from all those who preceded him. So I can’t see how one could say that if Kerry had won the elections that would have made no difference.

Kerry represented Democrats, and Democrats had a clear program that anybody who does care about the millions of silent people that live below the conditions of middle classes should at least take into consideration. For a poor, the Democrats’ program should be the obvious choice, a no-brainer, but we also know that poorest people are often also the ones who have less class consciousness. The blue blood Kerry isn’t Clinton, but Black people (that I pray will become the hearth of the Democratic party) voted for him – because Republicans’ policy towards ethnic minorities has been disgusting, because Democrats could have created in the next four years a better welfare system to protect the interests of the poorest, but also simply because Democrats portray better their idea of Nation.

It’s true: if you are lucky enough to fall into the middle class, voting for Bush or Kerry would have made little practical difference (but I have some doubts also about it) to you or your family; but if you are a single mother (black, white, yellow, red) who lives with a work that pays $5 per hour, the fact Bush will cut even further expenses on public libraries, on education, on the welfare system will have the merry effect of forcing you to find a damn way to buy the books your boy needs to go to school (because the government will not pay for them), to pay for the medical assistance he will surely need (because you must forget completely medical assistance for yourself), and so on. Not to mention that the lack of funds to public schools leads also to those amazing, disgusting, vomit-inducing horrible things like advertising on text books, or like Coca Cola or Pepsi sponsoring the school where your son goes (I can’t believe this is actually possible), or complete lack of control on out of classroom activities. So your son will grow up believing that human body is made by 90% of Coca Cola (Diet Coke, if he’s lucky), that seeing Napoleon Bonaparte next to the new McDonalds’ Happy Meal is normal (in the hope his teacher will have the time to speak about Napoleon even if the school was closed for a month because that hydraulic system that worked so nicely in the early ‘30s exploded during the cold winter), that god (wait, what is god?) must have fucking forgotten him if he gave him a degenerate mother that is never there. And if you, this degenerate mother, are so unlucky (or degenerate) to find a new boyfriend, and you know how it happens, you are just 20 years old, you fall in love an do all those things that people who love each other do everywhere in the world, and you used all precautions, but hey, god knows how but you now have another new life, a seed growing inside your womb, and your life is so fucked up you don’t have any way to even take into consideration the possibility to sustain also this soon-to-be child, and you live in a next future where G.W.’s nominated justices have overturned the Roe vs Wade decision of the Supreme Court, well, if you find yourself in this amazing, exciting, deadly mix of unlucky coincidences that prove that, as you suspected, god doesn’t exist or is dead or is not listening, your only choice may be that back alley abortion place, where an ex stinky butcher likes to do the merciful job that your government doesn’t want to do in exchange of a few hundreds of dollars, or of something else.

I’m sorry if this sounds confusing, but it expresses my thoughts better than a well-written and ordinate post. To sum it up – regardless of whom you vote for, voting is ALWAYS important, the vote of a single person DO always make the difference, and I’m fucking scared of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Chuck Norris, but never as scared as the aforementioned single mother – or anybody having relatives living in Pakistan or nearby countries - should be.

[Faile]

Harry, that post is just something else. It's far more concise and important than perhaps any post I have ever seen on any messageboard ever.
You hit the nail on the head there.

May our will be strong indeed.
x

[Redpyramidhead]

First of all, I am not sure the Jesus comment was called for because I do not wish to associate Jesus with a traitor to spirituality such as our re-elected president. You might have being sarcastic, though.

That aside, however, thank you for saying what you have said Harry. I agree completely with Faile. You have it down perfectly. I think it is brave of you to risk losing a lot of forum members by posting such a post. I hope that forum members who disagree do not get offended, but take it for what it is...not just an opinion, but an informed stating of very real facts.

PEACE

_RED_ stuff

[LrdAlucard]

thats really an amazing post harry. hope ppl wont get offended...what u said isnt a political opinion, its all too much real for ppl who like bush to get offended thats what i think, anyways...even if i dont live in US, thats pretty much the same around the world, dont u think?

[Harry]

Originally Posted by Redpyramidhead

First of all, I am not sure the Jesus comment was called for because I do not wish to associate Jesus with a traitor to spirituality such as our re-elected president. You might have being sarcastic, though.

What do you think?

Anyhow, Panuru said much better than me how I feel about how some forums members behaved in this thread.

[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by happy_doughnut

Let me say this, though: I did not say I disliked Kerry. There were some policies he had that I agreed with very much. For example, his policies on abortion, stem cell research, and gay marriages - these I agreed with, and because Bush is a con to these policies, I would choose Kerry. What I meant about the "not being a fan" thing was that Kerry did seem unappealing. Like Fortune said, I think it was the way he looked, as incredibly superficial as that may sound. I felt that he needed more zest and charisma to with over the full approval of the people. I liked his policies, I just simply did not like the way he presented them. Hence, that is why I wasn't his "fan" or anything. Like Gore, for example, I was his fan... 100%. I was in full agreement with most of what he said, and I loved his enthusiasm. In politics, I doubt there will ever be one I fully agree with, but if some people refrain from voting because their beliefs don't match absolutely, then they will never vote. I suppose one just has to pick the lesser of two weevils.

I see what you mean through your post now. The part I underlined though: I think Kerry has too much of that already...as I said, he does try to act very charming and very "hip" to win over a lot of the young voters (and he has). I don't know what it is about him, but he just doesn't quite look very honest...but that's just me.

Originally Posted by happy_doughnut

In Ohio, I guess you could say that, well, pretty much everything was up to the - the entire election. What the Democrats needed in order to win was to win over a state that had in the 2000 elections voted Republican. Since most states kinda just "vote the same each time," (like CA, always D. and LA. always R.) they democrats thus needed to win a state that usually voted republican in order to detract from the electoral points of the republicans. Since you said your state is democrat, then even if you would have voted republican, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. In my state, it is pretty much totally liberal, so it always goes democrat, so even if I would have voted republican, is wouldn't have matter much.

However, Ohio was pretty much up for grabs for either party. Thus, every vote in that state was signifficant, whether it be republican or democrat.

The smack thing was a joke, meryl...

What I mean by that is that even though some people in Ohio knew that their state was pretty much the one that would decided the election (and since it could have gone easily either way), they still didn't vote. That to me is just wrong.

Ah, I see now...heh, not too keen on politics (can you tell? ) Well, even though you said the smack thing was a joke, I really don't agree; I'm sure if I were in your position or someone else on here who feels very strong about this situation, I would actually use the same thing.

Originally Posted by Harry

To sum it up – regardless of whom you vote for, voting is ALWAYS important, the vote of a single person DO always make the difference,

Yes, it's true; the vote of a single person does make a difference. But, don't you think it's important and imperative that the person who votes (if you're saying that everyone should vote) know exactly what is going on instead of just some brainless idiot who got influenced into voting by MTV. As some of you may know, I'm not into politics at all. It's a hectic world and I really don't need any more of that. So, if you're saying that everyone should vote (regardless of who they vote for), what is that person makes the wrong decision voting? Sure, they made a difference...in voting for the wrong guy.

To clarify (hopefully -_-;;; )

Let's just say, for example, that I didn't know anything about what's going on in the political world and elections are coming up. I watch my MTV (because, I'm just a stupid teen) and they're all saying "Vote Bush! Vote Bush! Your vote can make a difference!" So, I go out and vote for Bush just because I was influenced into voting. But, I voted for the wrong person because I don't know what the hell is going on.

All I'm saying is, you say that everyone should vote, but I don't think that everyone should vote if they don't know what is going on. Because they can make a difference, but it could be a very wrong one if they voted for the wrong guy because they had no idea what's going on.

Oh man, I hope I made some sense here.

As for your entire post Harry, I was really blown away by what you said because it was very well-written...but I still won't step down from my decision of not voting.

[Harry]

I'm not saying that people should go and vote without knowing what they are doing, I jumped directly to a step forward, because from your previous post it seemed to me you said you know something about both candidates and decided accordingly; of course, the first duty is to know what is going on in our country and get informed before going to vote (as I mentioned in the pre-elections thread), especially when everybody knows that so many things are going horribly wrong in the world and in your country. So, persons with the RIGHT to vote have the DUTY to know the situation of their country, with no need of becoming experts of politics or economy.

I would also like to make my ideas even clearer. A person, after considering all aspects of voting and not voting, after considering the situation of his country, and so on, can also decide to NOT VOTE, but this is a political choice exactly like voting for candidate A or candidate B. For example, in this case, this would mean that a person has no interest in the way war will be handled in the next future, in the kind of medical assistance offered to lower classes in the next future, in the way immigrates will be treated in your country, and so on.

Of course, in real world, millions vote without knowing what they are doing, and upper classes like to feed ignorance to change the world in the way they consider the best one. But my previous post was referring to a step forward, which follows the probably more important #1 step: get informed, study, create your own ideas, and then use them to choose which party better represents you. I also don’t like politics, but we must accept that those people up there have the power to shape our destiny.

Voting is a RIGHT, knowing what is happening in your country is a DUTY.

[Redpyramidhead]

I hope I have not offended anybody in this thread. In the heat of things I may have wanted to, but it is my true intention and even my mission statement in life is to share knowledge. Knowledge one has learned through experience and serious thought on matters and new ways to look at the politics or other situations involving politics (whether we hate politics or not) that are shaping our world so that we can view them in a new light giving way to new and improved possible approches. To me Kerry was and still is about ideas that needed to be put into practice that the bush administration has proved time and again unwilling to do, in order to keep the violence to a minimum. Honestly, I've heard some pretty good arguments for Bush's approach to the wat on terrorism and I would be inclined to even agree if it weren't for the fact there are many more factors than one man should have the audacity to say they can make the final "right" decision about for the "best interest" of any people. To me it seemed Kerry could mold his ideas based on these facts out of the peripheral of the mainstreams view.. the ones that go unnoticed when everybody's emotions are flaring when they are in the GROUND ZERO OF ANY COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN THIS WORLD. Iraq is now the middle east's ground zero. Fallujah is their still blazing epicenter where they are digging up the body parts of their loved ones. We are doing it to with our troops. Too many people are dying for an unnexessary and extremely unforgivable war. CHILDREN ARE DYING. BROTHERS AND SISTERS. HUSBADS AND WIVES. COUSINS. GRANDPARENTS WHO HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR GENERATIONS WITH KNOWLEDGE OF A BEAUTIFUL CULTURE. PEOPLE ARE DYING ON BOTH SIDES> IT IS ALL GOING UP IN FLAMES. HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT A PRESIDENT WHO SUPPORTS THIS? DONT YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING?

THINK ABOUT IT. WE ARE ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS WITH BEAUTIFUL CULTURES. IT IS OUR DUTY TO PRESERVE EACHOTHER"S CONTRIBUTION TO THE ENRICHMENT OF HUMANITY! NOT TO DESTROY IT!!!!

PEACE everyone... whoever you voted for... please just shed a tear for the lives that needn't be lost. That includes 9/11 victims. it includes everybody. Just think about it. Don't forget.

_RED_ stuff

[Dr_lovexxx]

You wanna know what i think about our new president......i think that america is so blind to what is right in front of there faces that cant see whats about to happen to our economy..... i feel that if things continue to go as planned with our beloved president im sure that with in a few years that we will be in a deppression all over again...im proud to say that im from New York because our state had there heads on right majority votes for this state were for kerry.

[goodman]

Ummm, who is your new president, out of curiosity? You live in NYC and have a new president? Who is that? Same one from what ive seen for the past 4 and next 4.......

[Redpyramidhead]

INteresting how those who voted for bush are having a dandy old time claiming their win was a mandate? It's the closest re-election in something like 80 years. Don't pretend us who have been and still are pissed off at the actions of the administration will go away. We are all RIGHT here and I believe we have made it clear it is our country, as well.

_RED_ stuff

[kamari-ice]

I am mature now, but when it comes to this subject, I just have to let it all out. Harry, Faile, and the rest that are anti-bush, thank you very much. As some know, I am from Louisiana, what you all do not know, is that I am anti-bush as well. I maybe 15 years old, but I know more than most people do in the United States. My point of view starts off like this, please do not ridicule me if my information was already stated by someone else before me, sorry if it is. First off, Bush wrongfully won the first election, and he wrongfully won the last election. Many people complained about former President Bill Clinton being, in simple words a male pimp, but that does not even live up to how many lives that are being taken day by day with President Bush in office. Over here in the states, if you do not like Bush, people start giving you the evil look and start being very mean. I truly think that I was meant to be born in another country, cause this country is going down hill. We are spending millions to billions of dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other soon to be countries rather than putting books in the classrooms, or even using that money for our roads (our roads are terrible.) Many people say that Kerry flip flopped, well at least he flip flops rather than Bush who stays on the same subject no matter what. I.E. Weapons of Mass Destruction, and many other things. At least Kerry would have said that once, or not even once, and went on to another subject. President Bush complains about the United States getting medicine from Canada, an excuse is "we cannot trust foreign medicine," while Vioxx and other medicines that are made in the United States, are killing people and harming others.

The Dixie Chicks were always my favorite country artists ever since their debut album, and I started to like them more when I heard that they said that, "Bush is an idiot, and we are ashamed that he is from our homestate of Texas." After that incident, radio stations were being rude and refused to play their songs, America the land of the free and freedom of speech no longer counts anymore. No matter what Bush does, harms us or puts us in harms way, people still follow him. Not me of course. I noticed ever since Bush got elected, he has been making us enemies with other countries, especially France, and I am angry because I have some French in me. He is very buddy buddy with that man from England, please forgive me I forgot his name, but he is like the president over there in England. While this is so, I have seen, on the internet the only way to real and factual information, that Europeans despise Bush, and I totally agree with them. Bush looks weird at people when they protest, like people are not allowed to protest, yeah right Bush!! Only few people know this, but many people in New York before the RNC protested against Bush in the streets of New York. I was rooting for those people as I was watching C-Span, the only channel that does not make it look like everyone is for Bush.

Well the main thing is that I wanted people to know that are in other countries, that we are all not for Bush. Many people dispise him, including me. There is no comparison between Bush and Kerry, Bush is way more harmful than Kerry will ever be. Everytime I look at the President on t.v. I get sad, because there are many soldiers, Americans and Europeans and other good people, that are dieing now for no apparent reason, and nobody can use WMD's anymore. But it is funny that after that people found out that he lied about WMD's, people say the war is to protect us. Protect us from what, Saddam gave us no harm, his regiem was crumbling beneath his feet before we got into this war. I remember when 911 happened, he just continued to read/listen to a teacher reading a book instead of getting on t.v. and comforting Americans, which he did very poorly with that grimace behind his fake tears. Bush's other reason is 911 for war, which we still do not really know who caused it, no matter what others say, how can one or two men on a plane with a boxcutter obviously harm people, people would get away or fight back, not let them harm them with a tiny box knife. Our government is very corrupt, and you can tell by the look in the President's eyes, yes he is worser than Hitler, he mineswell be since he does not care about all Americans, only the rich which I am not. Social Security might be going down hill, and we are in a major national debt that we did not have before Bush got into office. There are many Republicans in the U.S. and they do not care for anybody but themselves, and being greedy. But many celebrities and actors dislike Bush, and I will say once again, the U.S. is not just full of Republicans, there are kind-hearted people like me and better than me in the U.S. That is all I have to say, if I offended you, I am gratefully sorry, I am just trying to get my point and opinion across.