Why I'm voting for Kerry.
Oct. 30th, 2004 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkSince this is primarily a fandom journal, open to all, I've tended not to post very much about the election, except in what I hope is a reasonably non-partisan tone. But, well, yet another political post on your flist won't kill ya.
This one's about why I'm voting FOR Kerry, not just against Bush.
By way of background, I'm registered as an independent, and I vote based on issues and respect for the candidate, not on party affiliation. I see myself as pretty moderate, but I'm strongly anti-war, so Bush already lost any chance of my supporting him quite a few moves back.
When it became evident that John Kerry was going to be the Democratic nominee, I wasn't too thrilled about it. I thought Dean would have made a better candidate, more galvanizing to the needed liberal base. I didn't know much about Kerry, except that he seemed less angry, less smooth, less exciting. It was in this somewhat morose state that I was sitting and flipping channels, and came across an episode of the Dick Cavett show from June 1971, airing on C-SPAN. [ETA: I do realize that transcript is provided by an anti-Kerry site, but it is accurate, and I couldn't find another. Everyone just seems to link right back to that one, even the pro-Kerry sites. Go figure.]
Here was a very young John Kerry (of Vietnam Veterans Against The War) debating a very young John O'Neill (of Vietnam Veterans For A Just Peace). I'm very young myself, so this was far before my time, and I was... captivated. It's one thing to read of concepts like vietnamization in a textbook, quite another to see them passionately debated. In Kerry I saw a person who was sincere, articulate, morally anti-war, and yes, passionate.
"[W]e are killing more Americans needlessly. If in fact we have stated that we do have a date certain, even if it hasn't been put out in front of the people, then some American is going to be killed and is going to be the last guy to die for an admitted mistake. Now, I don't think that's right.
[...]
[The Pentagon Papers] are a terribly, terribly important aspect of what has happened because they do show -- well, they show a great many things and they are partially incomplete, but they certainly show the duplicity and the deceit which has been involved in building up this war because clearly there was a peace candidate who ran in 1964 who was not a peace candidate, and clearly we had -- we were committing aggressive acts against -- covert warfare against Laos and against North Vietnam prior -- without telling the American people. We've been bombing Laos now for seven years, and only this year the American people were told, and I think that this typifies a great deal of the most recent approach of the American government to the people, that they've shown a kind of disdain for the ability of the American people to determine for themselves the difference between right and wrong, and I think clearly that when it comes to a question of sending men off to fight and to die, the people of this country have the ability to make that decision for themselves."
I really hope some of you will go look at the streaming video or at least read the transcript. As I watched this, I realized that if Kerry is still the same man he was 33 years ago, then he's a man who knows the cost of war, and a man who shares my core values.
A campaign season later, I just don't get how people can be unable to choose between the candidates (though actually, the undecideds are currently only what, 3%?). These guys are fundamentally different people. This is from the second debate:
FOWLER: President Bush, 45 days after 9/11, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which takes away checks on law enforcement and weakens American citizens' rights and freedoms, especially Fourth Amendment rights.
With expansions to the Patriot Act and Patriot Act II, my question to you is, why are my rights being watered down and my citizens' around me? And what are the specific justifications for these reforms?
BUSH: I appreciate that.
I really don't think your rights are being watered down. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't support it if I thought that.
Every action being taken against terrorists requires court order, requires scrutiny.
As a matter of fact, the tools now given to the terrorist fighters are the same tools that we've been using against drug dealers and white-collar criminals.
So I really don't think so. I hope you don't think that. [He was smiling here.] I mean, I -- because I think whoever is the president must guard your liberties, must not erode your rights in America.
To me, this is the most disturbing thing Bush has ever said, the one that keeps coming back to my mind. Maybe it doesn't quite come across in the text, but... he answered as though he just didn't accept the premise of the question. I hope you don't think that. Far from addressing the man's concerns, from where I was sitting he practically laughed them off.
DEGENHART: Senator Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?
KERRY: I would say to that person exactly what I will say to you right now.
First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.
But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that.
But I can counsel people. I can talk reasonably about life and about responsibility. I can talk to people, as my wife Teresa does, about making other choices, and about abstinence, and about all these other things that we ought to do as a responsible society.
But as a president, I have to represent all the people in the nation.
Don't jump down my throat, guys, but I'm pro-life. Yet, I still respected this answer because it addressed the concern, showed thought and consideration and seriousness, willingness to listen.
This is the fundamental difference, for me. Bush thinks that in refusing to acknowledge the possibility of error or dissent, he's showing strength. To me, that isn't strength, but dangerous rigidity. Some people see Kerry as a weak equivocator, but I see him as a person who knows that things aren't simple, and that it isn't weakness to change your mind when there's new information or to speak to the concerns of people who disagree with you. He's someone I'd vote for even if the opponent were not George Bush.
Okay, one more. This is from Kerry's Rolling Stone interview. Perhaps not the paragon of serious news, but it struck me.
What do you think of the color-coded terror alerts the Department of Homeland Security issues?
I think Americans, sadly, laugh at it.
[...]
Bush says, "They hate our freedoms and resent our democracy." Do you think their motives are so simple?
I think it's more complicated than that. There is a lot about us they don't like, but they believe that these moderate regimes in the Middle East have sold out. They are attacking the Saudi royal family, as they are attacking Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan, because those leaders deal with the West and have a sense of engagement in the world.
There is also power involved. They're preaching a very different kind of power -- through the madrasas and otherwise -- to populations that are impoverished and uneducated, and disenfranchised in their countries. And they're offering them someone to hate.
Guys: He gets it. He gets the way we feel about the chain-yanking security alerts, he gets that world issues aren't simple enough to be summed up in a sound bite.
Boy, I really tried not to make this sound like political rhetoric, but it's damned hard!
For any stragglers, here is a picture of John Kerry hugging a teddy bear.
Now back to your regularly scheduled fandoming.
This one's about why I'm voting FOR Kerry, not just against Bush.
By way of background, I'm registered as an independent, and I vote based on issues and respect for the candidate, not on party affiliation. I see myself as pretty moderate, but I'm strongly anti-war, so Bush already lost any chance of my supporting him quite a few moves back.
When it became evident that John Kerry was going to be the Democratic nominee, I wasn't too thrilled about it. I thought Dean would have made a better candidate, more galvanizing to the needed liberal base. I didn't know much about Kerry, except that he seemed less angry, less smooth, less exciting. It was in this somewhat morose state that I was sitting and flipping channels, and came across an episode of the Dick Cavett show from June 1971, airing on C-SPAN. [ETA: I do realize that transcript is provided by an anti-Kerry site, but it is accurate, and I couldn't find another. Everyone just seems to link right back to that one, even the pro-Kerry sites. Go figure.]
Here was a very young John Kerry (of Vietnam Veterans Against The War) debating a very young John O'Neill (of Vietnam Veterans For A Just Peace). I'm very young myself, so this was far before my time, and I was... captivated. It's one thing to read of concepts like vietnamization in a textbook, quite another to see them passionately debated. In Kerry I saw a person who was sincere, articulate, morally anti-war, and yes, passionate.
"[W]e are killing more Americans needlessly. If in fact we have stated that we do have a date certain, even if it hasn't been put out in front of the people, then some American is going to be killed and is going to be the last guy to die for an admitted mistake. Now, I don't think that's right.
[...]
[The Pentagon Papers] are a terribly, terribly important aspect of what has happened because they do show -- well, they show a great many things and they are partially incomplete, but they certainly show the duplicity and the deceit which has been involved in building up this war because clearly there was a peace candidate who ran in 1964 who was not a peace candidate, and clearly we had -- we were committing aggressive acts against -- covert warfare against Laos and against North Vietnam prior -- without telling the American people. We've been bombing Laos now for seven years, and only this year the American people were told, and I think that this typifies a great deal of the most recent approach of the American government to the people, that they've shown a kind of disdain for the ability of the American people to determine for themselves the difference between right and wrong, and I think clearly that when it comes to a question of sending men off to fight and to die, the people of this country have the ability to make that decision for themselves."
I really hope some of you will go look at the streaming video or at least read the transcript. As I watched this, I realized that if Kerry is still the same man he was 33 years ago, then he's a man who knows the cost of war, and a man who shares my core values.
A campaign season later, I just don't get how people can be unable to choose between the candidates (though actually, the undecideds are currently only what, 3%?). These guys are fundamentally different people. This is from the second debate:
FOWLER: President Bush, 45 days after 9/11, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which takes away checks on law enforcement and weakens American citizens' rights and freedoms, especially Fourth Amendment rights.
With expansions to the Patriot Act and Patriot Act II, my question to you is, why are my rights being watered down and my citizens' around me? And what are the specific justifications for these reforms?
BUSH: I appreciate that.
I really don't think your rights are being watered down. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't support it if I thought that.
Every action being taken against terrorists requires court order, requires scrutiny.
As a matter of fact, the tools now given to the terrorist fighters are the same tools that we've been using against drug dealers and white-collar criminals.
So I really don't think so. I hope you don't think that. [He was smiling here.] I mean, I -- because I think whoever is the president must guard your liberties, must not erode your rights in America.
To me, this is the most disturbing thing Bush has ever said, the one that keeps coming back to my mind. Maybe it doesn't quite come across in the text, but... he answered as though he just didn't accept the premise of the question. I hope you don't think that. Far from addressing the man's concerns, from where I was sitting he practically laughed them off.
DEGENHART: Senator Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?
KERRY: I would say to that person exactly what I will say to you right now.
First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.
But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that.
But I can counsel people. I can talk reasonably about life and about responsibility. I can talk to people, as my wife Teresa does, about making other choices, and about abstinence, and about all these other things that we ought to do as a responsible society.
But as a president, I have to represent all the people in the nation.
Don't jump down my throat, guys, but I'm pro-life. Yet, I still respected this answer because it addressed the concern, showed thought and consideration and seriousness, willingness to listen.
This is the fundamental difference, for me. Bush thinks that in refusing to acknowledge the possibility of error or dissent, he's showing strength. To me, that isn't strength, but dangerous rigidity. Some people see Kerry as a weak equivocator, but I see him as a person who knows that things aren't simple, and that it isn't weakness to change your mind when there's new information or to speak to the concerns of people who disagree with you. He's someone I'd vote for even if the opponent were not George Bush.
Okay, one more. This is from Kerry's Rolling Stone interview. Perhaps not the paragon of serious news, but it struck me.
What do you think of the color-coded terror alerts the Department of Homeland Security issues?
I think Americans, sadly, laugh at it.
[...]
Bush says, "They hate our freedoms and resent our democracy." Do you think their motives are so simple?
I think it's more complicated than that. There is a lot about us they don't like, but they believe that these moderate regimes in the Middle East have sold out. They are attacking the Saudi royal family, as they are attacking Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan, because those leaders deal with the West and have a sense of engagement in the world.
There is also power involved. They're preaching a very different kind of power -- through the madrasas and otherwise -- to populations that are impoverished and uneducated, and disenfranchised in their countries. And they're offering them someone to hate.
Guys: He gets it. He gets the way we feel about the chain-yanking security alerts, he gets that world issues aren't simple enough to be summed up in a sound bite.
Boy, I really tried not to make this sound like political rhetoric, but it's damned hard!
For any stragglers, here is a picture of John Kerry hugging a teddy bear.
Now back to your regularly scheduled fandoming.
