PAGE 2
GET OFF
THE BUSI’
INTERVIEWS BY
michael M c C usker
The dilemma of the legitimacy of the current
Presidency continues. So do the questions.They are
the same asked of everyone interviewed for these
pages and previous editions:
Do you think the extraordinary election of
2000 was legitimate and fair?
What do think might be the consequences
of the election?
Another frame on the issue might be the
question not asked: If the Presidency of George
Bush Jr. violates Constitutional law because of
an illegally conducted campaign, would taking the
Presidential oath automatically make him eligible
for impeachment?
DAVID LEVINE
TIM BISH
MICHAEL METZNER (aka 'SHEKI)
(He works construction, drives truck, lays pipe "and
everything else," he says. He "pulls for the underdog; the
weak, meek, disheartened and anyone struggling to reach
the top, because I'm one of them")
I think the 2000 election was such an intense thing
— it was so important, sought after and fought over when it
happened. Since then the controversy has died and nobody
talks about it.
Next time this snafu comes back — and it will come
back — people will use it as an excuse not to vote. I talk to
people in my age group ('I'm in my early 40s), and they use
what happened as a reason to stop voting
The largest percentage of eligible voters fall into
those who are young and middleaged — if we all voted we
would take everything Yet of those who do vote, we are
the smallest percentage Older people vote every election
because so many issues are important to them. But young
people don't vote, and that’s what concerns me.
If you don't like the system, get involved, change it:
Don't walk away.
(He is a musician; piano, guitar, accordion, drums,
etc. He is a member of 'Los Comatosis' and has played with
the Bond St Blues Band and was drummer for 'Shanghaied
in Astoria.)
I was in England during the 2000 election. I was a bit
miffed about people who voted for Ralph Nader: the election
wasn't just about the environment. And you have to be a
statesman if you want to be President. Nader's not a states
man.. Nader never had a chance. If he had got into office he
would probably have been assassinated by an oil man.
We vote for the less wrse. Gore or Bush.
I voted before I left for England. I expected to watch
the election on television in a Dublin pub but the plane was
routed to Manchester, England.
I was waiting at a friend's house in England for the
election returns. First it was Gore, then it was Bush, then
Gore again. It gave fuel to the 'Ugly American’ thing People
couldn't believe we would be so stupid to elect Bush.
A Nottingham newspaper had a headline. "PLEASE
DON’T UNLEASH 'W ON US!"
I love this country and I’m proud of being an
American, but it's very hard to defend this country when
we elect an idiot like Bush.
The first thing Bush signed was to relax standards on
toxic wastes. He's an oil man and would like to see an oil well
in every yard. He wants to drill in Alaska. He wouldn't sign the
Kyoto Treaty. People don't know how close to a serious war
with China we were over that spy plane they shot down.
We will be lucky to get out of this Presidency without
some terrible disaster, a war or an environmental disaster.
Bush is a horrible President. He's an embarrassment,
and it's embarrassing trying to explain to Europeans how he
got to be President.
FLORENCE SAGE
(She is a teacher and poet, and hosts the weekly
"Monday Mike" recitations of poems and stories by local
writers at Astoria's River Theater.)
The 2000 Presidential election was an ethical mess.
Neither candidate acted like a statesman for democracy,
seeking the greatest good for the greatest number or respect
ing our much admired system of government.
Did they care about voters in a democracy?
Did they care about how the world would view us all?
Did it cross their minds that uncertainty was causing
the retirement funds of working Americans to plummet? Did it
cross their hearts? Did compassion play any part?
No, it was all about ambition — for Bush, for Gore,
for Kathryn Harris (Florida Secretary of State) — for the
majority of the Supreme Court Do the right thing? Nah. I'm
ambitious. I owe people
We have to accept imperfection -we're not equipped
to unfailingly sustain our ideals Bad ballots, bad lists, fuzzy
wording, undertrained volunteers.. We try. We get so much
right. Fix mistakes when we can Forgive.
But to be an administrator of government, a Justice
of the Supreme Court, a man who claims to be fit and ready
to help the country become what the majority wants it to be,
and to leave out ethics, to not do "the right thing” for the
country — I don't forgive that, and there are lots of people
still shaking their heads
LUCY'S
BOOKS
(She is a special education teacher and longtime
Clatsop County resident)
I am horrified by our President.
Having been in Europe recently I was somewhat
embarrassed by our country's stand on the Kyoto Treaty —
even though we are the biggest polluters in the world we are
unable to join other countries in cutting industrial emissions
WHOSE HOUSE
IN ALDERBROOK
BURNED DOWN
SUNDAY AUGUST 12
6 TO MIDNIGHT
WETDOG CAFE
FEATURING
503-325-4210
www.lucysbooks.com
34812th Street
PO Box 854
Astoria OR 97103
Lauta Snyder, Proprietor
THINK
GLOBALLY.
SHOP
LOCALLY.
RON BALDWIN
(He is a singer — 'Bond St. Blues Band, etc., coffee
stand partner — 'Lido Cafe", and operates a sound events
company — 'Red Raven Audio'.)
The 2000 election was an unnatural disaster. I think
it has been a step backward for all kinds of different things,
PEGGY NIKKILA
A MUSICAL
BENEFIT
FOR JIM FINK
HEATHER CHRISTI
because we might lose jobs and our electricity bills might go
up. The newspapers in Europe were filled with the impact of
global warming on daily lives; the health issues, how water
is covering island lands. It made us look like money hungry
polluters.
When Bush, who wants to put up Star Wars, said the
"IRA should get rid of their guns," newspapers in England and
Ireland had his quote in photographs with missiles blasting off
in the background.
& BREW PUB, CANNON BEACH
TURN ON TO POLITICS
When people tell me that I'm wrecking the Democratic
Party, I ask them what's left to wreck? The Democratic Party
isn't going to heal itself. If it went and stood in a cold shower for
the next four years, maybe it would think of something to do and
say that isn't already being said and done by the Republican
Party. The Democratic Party has shifted its thinking and policies
so far to the right that the only difference between Bush and
Gore is the relative velocity with which their knees hit the floor
when the big corporations knock on the door
Other critics tell me that I ought to v®rk 'within the
system', but people 'within the system' don't welcome new
ideas They like to talk about social change, but when it comes
to actually doing something, they remember social change is
outrageous, un-American, and wrong Look at the history of the
country. I don't care whether you're talking about the Revolution
of 1776, or abolitionists forcing the issue of slavery in the 1850s,
about women's suffrage, the late 19th century populist revolt
against the eastern banks and railroads, the trade-union move
ment, Social Security, meat inspection, civil rights. The change
invariably begins with people whom the defenders of the status
quo denounce as agitators, communists, hippies, weirdos And
then, 10 or 20 years later, after the changes have taken place,
the chamber of commerce discovers that everybody's profits
have improved. The captains of industry never seem to realize
that a free democracy is the precondition of a free market; try to
turn the equation the other way around, and you end up with an
economy like the one in Indonesia
One of the ways to define freedom is as taking part,
even a small part, in the dispositions of political power The
oligarchy never wants anyone to know what, or how much,
ordinary citizens can accomplish if they leam to use the power
of their own laws Apathy is good for business-as-usual; so is
cynicism The lie that all the worthy causes are dead is like the
lie that art is dead Both lies serve the interests of entrenched
mediocrity Convince the kids that all the wars are over, that
history is at an end, that nothing important remains to be
discovered, done or said, and maybe they won't ask why a
corporate CEO receives a salary 400 times greater than that of
the lowest paid worker in his own company I hear young people
saying that they're not turned on to politics, and I tell them that if
you do not turn on to politics, politics wll turn on you
-RALPH NADER