by Becky Burgwin
(The 2004 elections will be the ultimate showdown if Dean gets the
nomination. Will our beautiful democracy survive?)
Dick Morris recently told Bill O'Reilly (I was just switching channels,
honest) that Howard Dean will not win the general election for 4 reasons.
1. His anti-war stance. 2. His statement, "We should deal with the
Israelis and the Palestinians evenhandedly." 3. His sanction of gay
civil unions, and 4. He's too far to the left. It was right there and then
that I realized that this election is going to be the ultimate contest. If
Howard Dean gets the nomination then the so-called liberals and the
religious right/neocons will finally have their showdown at the OK
Corral"chads at sunrise"ten paces"may the best man win. This is why
we need Howard Dean to be the candidate, so we don't get someone who's
afraid to really stand up for the tough issues that Dick Morris so
eloquently elaborated for us.
It's time to have a candidate who's not afraid to keep telling the
American people that this president lied over and over again about his
reasons for going into Iraq. Hopefully, by then, everyone will have seen
the movie, "Uncovered, The Truth About the Iraq War," wherein at
least ten people with pedigree intelligence credentials inform us of such
facts as anthrax only has a shelf life of 2 months"or"even if Iraq had
purchased uranium, they wouldn't have had any way to get it here"or"
that the trucks on those satellite photos were fire trucks not armored
vehicles for moving caustic materials. A candidate who will ask who forged
that document from Niger"who outed Valerie Plame" why are we ignoring
Afghanistan and the folks who really were responsible for 9/11"and why
are they telling us Saddam was responsible for 9/11 when he wasn't? You
know, facts we'd like to have before our government unilaterally invades a
country, killing tens of thousands of people.
It's time for the candidate who is running for president to say that we
need to make the Palestinians AND the Israelis sit down and agree on the
terms of a peace accord. Yes"again! And we all know that the Israelis
have made some offers that have been turned down, but it's time for them
to make them again. And Israel needs to stop what it's doing and the
Palestinians need to stop what they're doing. Howard Dean used the dreaded
word "evenhandedly" and got absurdly labeled anti-Israel, while
Jimmy Carter who has spent years trying to deal with this extremely
critical problem, uses the words "equal and balanced" and no one
stands in line to lynch him. Of course, it would just be better if people
like Dick Morris and Joe Lieberman didn't use petty excuses like this to
label someone, who's wife is Jewish and has raised his children in the
Jewish faith, anti-Semitic, but let's not get carried away.
It's time to have someone running for President of the Unites States who
stands up for basic human rights for all people regardless of race, creed,
sex, physical abilities or sexual orientation so that we'll know whether
the majority of Americans believe in equal rights for all people, as
stated in the Declaration of Independence. My God, this country was
founded by incredibly brave and desperate people who were trying to escape
all kinds of persecution."We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness." Or whether we should change it to read,
"only straight, stupid, rich, white men, who claim to be doing God's
work while denigrating homosexuals who, now brace yourselves, have been
here since the DAWN OF TIME, should be created equal." It's time to
put that to the test. Howard Dean has said and I quote, "We have a
duty to make sure that every single American is equal under the law."
It's way past time to find out whether we are or are not a nation of
bigots who believe that only white, male, Christian heterosexuals should
be free.
It's time to find out whether the majority of Americans are full of hatred that has been drilled into them by drug addicted hypocrites like Rush Limbaugh, hopeless gamblers like William Bennett, and segregationists like Strom Thurmond, who really did father an African American child out of wedlock. Interestingly enough, in 2000, Karl Rove put a question to the voters in one of his now famous push polls. For those who don't know, a push poll goes like this. One of Karl Rove's little mitnazins calls you on the phone, in this case this was only done in southern states, and asks if you would be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an African American child out of wedlock. Now, mind you, they get away with this because they never actually say that John McCain fathered an African American child out of wedlock"that was famous anti-civil rights activist Strom Thurmond.
It's time to find out how many of our people would like to know exactly what happened in the months leading up to 9/11 and why the best defense system in the history of the world failed us so miserably on that horrific morning. Was the Bush administration warned over and over from the day he took the oath of office (kind of an oxymoron in this case) that terrorists were planning to hijack planes and slam them into buildings as has been documented numerous times? If not, why did John Ashcroft suddenly stop flying on commercial airlines?
It's time to find out whether we can elect someone who promises to
bring the corporate greed-mongers to justice for walking away with
millions while their employees are left with nothing; no job, no pension,
no healthcare, no nest egg, and someone who promises to hold our president
accountable for saying, "Ken who?" when questioned about the
Enron debacle. And above all, someone who's not afraid to pose the all
important question, "Are these guys lying every time they move their
lips, or is it just most of the time?"
Yes. The time is absolutely ripe for this nation to have the big showdown.
The right wing, Bible thumping neo-cons vs. the bleeding-heart liberals.
It's the American Revolution all over again but it's being fought on the
airwaves, in cyberspace and in the voting booth. Our Founding Fathers
would be so proud so see that their ideals are still alive and well and
that we are settling our differences in the democratic way that they
envisioned.
I've gotta tell you, though, my money's on the liberals because I think
that most Americans are good, caring, hard working people who want jobs
and good educations for their kids, who are willing to give a leg up to
those less fortunate and believe, as Dr. Dean does, that ALL men and women
should be "equal under the law."
It's time to do it, to go for broke, and if, in a fair and legal election,
(and we need to spend serious money and time making sure it IS a fair and
legal election), the narrow-minded, exclusionary, ideologues, who are
currently running our government, do get elected, then we liberals will
all go down in flames, and if they don't get elected, then they will, but
at least we'll know for sure whether this beautiful country, that has
existed for over 2 centuries, lives or dies.
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Ms. Burgwin's
writing has appeared in Newsweek, Time, New York Magazine, the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette and the Tribune Review as well as several online Op Ed sites.
She is also involved in gay rights, women's issues and the environment.
She lives in Pittsburgh with her family. rburgwin@aol.com
