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eddief
08-19-04, 01:23 PM
Bush's campaign has gone off the deep end with this blatantly anti-American campaign policy. I don't see how this position can be defended. It's on the outer edge of fascism.

Only true believers need apply

Neurotic control lies at the heart of the Republican campaign

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday August 19, 2004
The Guardian

Before attending a rally to hear vice president Dick Cheney, citizens in New Mexico were required to sign a political loyalty oath approved by the Republican national committee. "I, [full name] ... do herby [sic] endorse George W Bush for reelection of the United States." The form noted: "In signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release of your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of President Bush."
Bush is campaigning at events billed as Ask President Bush. Only supporters are allowed in. Talking points are distributed to questioners. In Traverse City, Michigan, a 55-year-old social studies teacher who wore a Kerry sticker had her ticket torn up at the door. "How can anyone in the US deny someone entry?" she asked. "Isn't this a democracy?"

At every rally, Bush repeats the same speech, touting a "vibrant economy" and his leadership in a war where "you cannot show weakness". He introduces local entrepreneurs who praise his tax cuts. (More than one million jobs have been lost in his term.) Then Bush calls on questioners. More than one-fifth of them profess their evangelical faith or denounce gay marriage. In Niceville, Florida, one said: "This is the very first time that I have felt that God was in the White House." "Thank you," replied Bush. Another: "Mr President, as a child, how can I help you get votes?" In Albuquerque, he was told: "It's an honour every day when I get to pray for you as president." And this one: "Thank God we finally have a commander-in-chief." Others repeat attack lines on John Kerry's military record to which Bush responds with an oblique but encouraging "Thanks".

Bush's overriding strategy is to bolster his credentials as a decisive military figure and to impugn his opponent's manhood. In his latest TV commercial, he says: "We cannot hesitate, we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again." But, according to the Washington Post, for the last two years he has uttered the elusive Osama bin Laden's name only 10 times, and "on six of those occasions it was because he was asked a direct question ... Not once during that period has he talked about Bin Laden at any length, or said anything substantive". At Ask President Bush events, he mentions 9/11 only to raise the threat of Saddam.

Vice president Cheney sneered at Kerry for even using the word "sensitive" with respect to counter-terrorism. Not one war was "won by being sensitive", mocked Cheney. Kerry, in fact, had called for fighting "a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history". Cheney's distortion is calculated to attempt to portray Kerry as somehow effeminate.

At the same time, a Republican front group of Vietnam veterans financed by a major Bush contributor is running an ad campaign claiming Kerry's account of his military record is false. But not one of these veterans served with him on his boat.

During the Vietnam war, Bush famously used his father's connections to get a posting as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard because it was filled with the sons of privilege. After refusing to submit to a routine drug test, he was suspended and never flew again. He got himself transferred to the Alabama National Guard, but didn't turn up for his tour of duty. Since then, he has withheld his full military records. Now he encourages smears that a genuine war hero has lied about his service and is a coward. But this is more than a case of projection. The more profound issue is not who served in Vietnam and who dodged. It is whether the president is a sovereign.

Since the birth of the US party system, presidential candidates have gone directly to the sovereign people to make their case. After the Democratic convention, Kerry travelled from New England to the northwest doing just that. Not one of the hundreds of thousands who attended his open-air rallies had to pledge allegiance to him, and he encountered organised Bush hecklers as part of the price. At his rallies Bush is a pseudo-populist. But these controlled environments reflect his deeper view of the presidency as sovereign, preempting democracy.

Floundering in the polls, without a strategy for Iraq, unwilling to say the name of Bin Laden, he is secure in the knowledge that the cheering multitudes have been selected. Ask President Bush has crystallised the underlying issue, framed succinctly by the greatest American poet of democracy, Walt Whitman, who wrote: "The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him."

Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com

sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com

cknow
08-19-04, 02:54 PM
It's all good

If you had to sign at a democtatic rally.......You could change you mind the next day......"They call him FLIPPER"

Sparrowhawk
08-19-04, 04:07 PM
It's been circulating for awhile, and was first reported by a Kerry financial campaign contributer.

We do know that Kerry does this. during his rallies, except to attend you have to donate $1000 to his campaign and sign an agreement that you will only buy Heinz ketchup from there on.

hrscowboy
08-19-04, 04:25 PM
heinz ketchup from there on damn i thought his ole lady didnt give him any money.

HardJedi
08-19-04, 04:39 PM
WHEW! thank god this is just about politics. After reading the title to this thread I thought it was gonna be some religious nutballer thread!

Sparrowhawk
08-19-04, 04:59 PM
Originally posted by HardJedi
WHEW! thank god this is just about politics. After reading the title to this thread I thought it was gonna be some religious nutballer thread!

You were afraid you were gona have to repent of all your evil ways... LOL

Cook

HardJedi
08-19-04, 05:01 PM
repent hell! I REVEL in em LOL

Sgted
08-19-04, 06:43 PM
Originally posted by HardJedi
repent hell! I REVEL in em LOL

I'm applauding Hardjedi.

I was wondering why, instead of a $.50 off coupon on my last purchase of Heinz that there was a $1000.00 pledge form instead.

Just goes to show you, you never know how the catsup will crumble.

Phantom Blooper
08-19-04, 07:33 PM
HardJedi,that is because that bible thumper at your work a few months ago taught you a lesson.
repent hell! I REVEL in em LOL LOL! Semper-Fi!! Chuck Hall:banana:

HardJedi
08-19-04, 07:45 PM
GOOD GOLLY! never gonna live that thread down, am I? LOL :D

yellowwing
08-19-04, 11:12 PM
$1000 is a heck of a lot of ketchup! :eek: