[Mb-civic] take a look at this

[Barbara Siomos]

Wow!!!  Sierra,

Thank you for sending this.... if someone like this man feels this way,
maybe Kerry CAN win.

peace,
barbara
>From: "Sierra Pecheur"
><sierrapecheur at verizon.net> 
>To: <mb-civic at islandemail.com> 
>Date: Sun, Sep 19, 2004, 2:32pm (EDT-3)
>Subject: Take a look at this

Charlie Reese writes for the Orlando Sentinel. 
He's a Conservative Republican who is anti-abortion, anti-tax-and-spend,
loudly critical of legislation by the judiciary, doesn't think much of
multiculturalism or secularism, has suggested Clinton "turned the Oval
Office into a whorehouse," thinks Ronald Reagan is the greatest thing to
come down the pike since canned beer, and voted for Bush in the last
election. So, take a look at his article which follows.

Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
Orlando Sentinel, Charlie Reese

Americans should realize that if they vote for President
Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war -
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that
cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers. I
have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a
frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his
administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the
world of any president in my memory.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague.
Take away his cue
cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be 
embarrassed that an Arab King (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently
and articulately in English than our own President at their joint
press conference recently.

John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to
think and who knows that the
world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of
American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our
poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to
adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.

But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he
observed that people who expect to
be ignorant and free expect what never was and
and never will be.

People who think of themselves as conservatives will really
display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for
Bush. Bush is  as farfrom being a conservative as you can get. Well,
he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice.

It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly
increase the power of
government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law,
or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good
for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't
matter, and that people should not know what their government is
doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive
president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously
toward the authoritarian.

It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a
few Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you
found yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear
that either you can plea-bargain this or the President will
designate you an enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for
the duration ?

This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons,
but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster.

He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms
race. America is not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few
friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness
of the Bush administration.

Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel,
North Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.

I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get
a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the
world and us with it.
Go to Kerry's Web site (www.johnkerry.com) and read some of
the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal
more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.

Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays
hockey, snowboards, windsurfs, rides motorcycles, plays the guitar,
writes poetry and speaks French. 

And it would be good to have a man in the White House who has
killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a
man and dispels all illusions about war.