PAGE 4
OFFICIAL FLORIDA PRESIDENTIAL BALLOT
Follow the arrow and Punch the appropriate dot
Bush-------------------------------- -------- ► •
MIKE COLUNS
FROM
PAGE 3
JOHN PAUL BARRETT
LIAM DUNNE
(He is a songwriter and a member of the famous Beat
group, The Pagan Pancakes)
Basically I think this country always gets what it deserves
or what it needs So maybe we deserve the election we got
because we weren't paying attention and perhaps we need it to
get our attention to the flaws in our system Democracy is a work
in progress and not an end result
It seems with the Republicans in power the next four
years it will be a minonty rule. It is good at times to have a
minority in power because majority rule is not always healthy —
it leaves too many people out. Majority rule can mean everybody
gets fooled all the time A continual succession of majority rule
can turn into mob rule
Minority rule opens up fresh perspectives. A rotating
minority rule can give all points of view. We need to get right
wingers in power for awhile, also the left and moderates so that
everybody gets a chance or tension will build up among those
who will say they never got a chance and that will ultimately be
destructive to the country
URIAH HULSEY
(He is owner & chef of the world famous Columbian Cafe
and a lifetime alumnus of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War )
There wasn't a Presidential election
There was a Presidential appointment
The new Bush is like the old Bush — because he's
obligated to Big Oil and is religious nght like his dad
I think people who say there was not any difference
between Gore and Bush Jr. are now seeing a vast difference
between them.
(He is a writer and owner of Gaff Press, author of 'Sea
Stories Vol 1. Of Dolphins & Dead Sailors; Vol 2. Seagods &
Sundogs")
I was bom in Texas, grew up in Houston and left the day
I turned 17 to join the Navy.
I thought I was going to die young in October of 1962 as
a young sailor aboard a destroyer in the West Pacific headed
south toward nuclear oblivion. I had witnessed the Kali of a test
nuclear detonation at sea a few months earlier and understood
something of the gravity of the situation.
But it didn't happen That makes me a lucky bastard.
And it's much too late to die young now. or as Art 'Hurricane'
Honeyman says. "I'm too old to die."
The country's in better shape than it has been in 30
years, so hoards of citizens vote for change.
A candidate visits a middle school and decries the
deplorable state of education while standing before a bank of
state-of-the-art Apple Mac computers.
A Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority stops
a vote count that wuld have given the presidential victory to the
Democrat
We should have had a run-off election Just the tvx>
candidates
Bush is almost too easy. Problem is he has many morons
on his side. Government by morons is so easy to say... but of
course these folks aren't really "morons." I say that reluctantly,
but I must acknowledge that these people with whom I disagree
on so many things are nonetheless my neighbors, peers, fellow
citizens. Hell, they're in charge. They must be gotten along with
We are not Jews & Arabs, Protestants & Papists — at least we
aren't killing each other full scale yet.
I tell myself I need to polish my delivery, hone my logic,
debating skills, to learn to be more convincing, to change minds
— but then I think: How arrogant of me it is to think I know the
nght way. Aren't I doing the same thing as those vtfiose views
I oppose when I do assume I am right and they are wrong, so I
need to change their minds? Who am I to do this? What makes
me think I’m right and they're wrong?
Thinking deeper in these categories (to the best of my
ability) I consider individual issues and come yet again to the
reason I am right and they are wrong is that my philosophy does
not dictate what they may or may not do in their private lives—
so long as they don't bother anyone else
"Yes," said my conservative acquaintance." but with
abortion you're talking about another life "
And I still ponder just how to answer this assertion.
Almost any response is bound for failure in terms of moving
such a person from their viewpoint even the tiniest bit.
The only thing I'm able to come up with is this: "You
may not use your definitions for my life and the elements in it.
You may not demand that I adhere to the same religious or
moral standards that you do or that I believe in the same
cosmographies What constitutes a viable human life is still
a matter of opinion rather than scientific fact "
And there is where we differ: I am not trying to push my
views on anyone asking to be left alone. 'YESSS!" she hissed,
"to be left alone to kill babies."
I'm tired of pushing this rock up the mountain only to
have it roll back every time.
So just how much more angst at having a simian Presi
dent can I afford? How many more of my increasingly precious
moments shall I squander fretting?
I've come to believe that vtfioever it was who said that
people get the governments they deserve was right Hell, I knew
GREENS & OTHER LEPERS
325-9722* 1052 COMMERCIAL* ASTORIA 97103
TONY S TAVERN
1313 MARINE DR., ASTORIA
(503) 325-5069
LUCYS
BOOKS
ft
503-325-4210
www.lucysbooks.com
34812th Street
PO Box 854
Astoria OR 97103
Lauta Snyder, Proprietor
THINK
GLOBALLY.
SHOP
LOCALLY.
of
or OKE&otf
$ 3^ L W t F
V
Think globally, act locally.
-Rene Dubos
Many friends told me months before the Presidential
election of 2000 that if I were to vote for Ralph Nader and
Winona LaDuke on the Green Party ticket, they wsuld hold
me personally responsible if Republican George W. Bush Jr
was elected instead of Democrat and Clinton heir Albert Gore
I argued that the two party system does not represent
the incredible variety and tenor of American politics and that
especially in recent years, as population and cultural diversity
have multiplied immensely, the two parties seem to be merging
into a single megaparty dominated by a country club apartheid
of wealth, property and multinational corporations. A new party
is necessary to represent the unrepresented majority that does
not possess equivalent wealth, property or power; and also to
reflect gender and racial equity — several new parties! My choice
of the Green Party is that it is an international party, active in 80
countries, and its origins and organization are grassroots.
We must have an international party if we are to have a
global economy dominated by amalgamated megacorporations
which are fundamentally interlocking commercial empires that
command vast wealth, capacity and political influence. Parochial
politics are inadequate to the global power structures that are
forming beyond the shores of the USA yet are dominated by
its economic and military power In a world community political
parties as well as labor unions, medical/health and environmental
organizations must think and act globally, and the Green Party
offers the best opportunity for the globalization of political power,
in particular for the representation of the immense and rapidly
expanding global underclass
The paradox is that the USA simultaneously acts wsrtd-
wide as the New Rome, intruding incessantly into global political
and economic affairs wtiile rejecting global influence in its own
internal affairs One opinion originating in Europe but perhaps
held all over the world is that American Presidential elections in
particular should be a worldwide suffrage
As Election Day 2000 neared and the Presidential race
rapidly narrowed, the Green Party became a focus of both major
party campaigns, the Republicans encouraging votes for Ralph
Nader in hopes of taking away votes from Al Gore and the
Democrats insisting that every vote for Nader was a vote for
George Bush
Now is not the time for a 3rd party, my liberal/leftist
friends insisted — the specter of a Bush victory too threatening
to contemplate: all the hard-vwn victories of racial and gender
equity, abortion rights, environmental protection (paltry as they
are)undone
The closer Election Day 2000 and the possibility of
an extremely narrow margin between Bush and Gore, the more
frantic and abusive my liberal-minded friends became about my
intention to vote the Green ticket. I was maligned as an
"imbecile" and a "swine" (in so many words), and more than
one person avowed to sever our friendship.
Virtually everyone I know who intended to vote Green,
wsmen and men. suffered similar intimidation and intolerance for
exercising political independence and personal choice. Among
Greens themselves the close election created a rift between older
voters who were appalled by a Bush Presidency and decided to
vote their fears rather than their hearts, and young Greens who
kept the faith.
I think of the John Anderson syndrome of 1980 — At
least half of the people who claimed to prefer Anderson over the
two party candidates (Reagan and Carter) but did not vote for
him because they said he didn't have a chance of winning, could
probably have elected him by a huge majority if they hadn't
choked on their pragmatism
I wonder how our friends will treat us Greens for keeping
faith now that Bush has squeaked into the Presidency (perhaps
the USA's truly first nonelected President, except for Gerald Ford
appointed to pardon Nixon, both also Republicans) They were
right that most Nader votes siphoned votes from Gore and other
Democrats, although many Greens voted only because of the 3rd
party option
Are Greens going to be isolated as lepers (historically)
or furiously purged like medieval Jews held responsible for the
Plagues rather than rats (and fleas)?
And how will we leftist/liberals react to the Bush Presi
dency? Are we going to shirk back out of political involvement,
hide and not be noticed? Kiss the jackboots — go along to get
along?
Or will we show true political and personal mettle and
act aggressively with collective and individual strength and
resoluteness against the 'Iron Heel Age' we alarmedly expect
ahead for the nation and world?
- michael M c C usker