Know anyone unsure about Kerry over Bush? Show them this!

Global Warming Has Arrived: Arctic Study

Edited to add report link: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1101-03.htm



"Bush has opposed the treaty on the grounds that it will reduce economic growth, an assertion challenged by many economists and scientists who say it will make U.S. industry more globally competitive, particular as the rest of the world develops new technologies to reduce emissions."

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Would Jesus love a liberal? You bet!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/

Written by an American who resides in the Netherlands.




View From Abroad

The Endarkenment
By Linda Deak

Online Journal Contributing Editor


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October 27, 2004ÐIt is a shock to the people of Europe that this election is even a contest. How can people in these times, in the Information Age, have their collective heads in the sand and believe the nonsense that Bush spews on the campaign trail? The truth is out there and has to be eschewed by people supporting Bush. Caesar said, "Fere libenter hominess id quod volunt credunt," or in our parlance, "Men readily believe what they want to believe."

Among other things the Enlightenment, which spawned the ideas on which our democracy was based, pursues the truth, and holds a belief in rational science and in open honesty. It is about freeing people of ignorance. Our country has seemingly lost its way somewhere. Maybe it is the lack of intellectual stimulation in the American culture, maybe it is a hopeless naiveté that is woven through the American character, a quality that may be attractive in someone very young but is not attractive at all in a grown-up. I have to put a fair share of the blame on the media. This infotainment that has taken it upon itself to shore up the un-elected incompetent president of the United States makes no pretense of holding any journalistic integrity. It sees its job as a mission of indoctrinating rather than informing.

Over here across the Atlantic where most of our ancestors were raised, the Enlightenment is in more certain influence in the daily affairs of the citizenry. The television stations are showing documentary after documentary putting light on the darkness that has befallen America. The Dutch had a show this week on Fox News and gave remarkable figures on the percentage of Fox News viewers who actually still believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The BBC seems to take great joy in directing its camera onto the faces of crowds of ignorant American people. It is almost as though ignorance and darkness have been celebrated in America. Tom Fina, the Executive Director Emeritus of Democrats Abroad says it this way: "Bush benefits from the confidence of countless voters who can easily embrace his passionate generalizations and allusions to Divine guidance and who distrust the rational language of intellectuals like Kerry and Edwards."

The German station showed a documentary recently on the Bush family and it was not at all a flattering piece. My German friends tell me that the phenomenon of Bush has done wonders for their cultural healing after bearing the shame of the Holocaust. The children and grandchildren of that dreadful blight on history have never really had the opportunity to put their forebears on trial and the guilt and horror has come down in their genes the same way eye color does. Watching the capitulation of the American mind to the Bush propaganda, the advance of corporatism, nonsensical warmongering and the insistence on patriotism has helped the German people of today reconcile with their past. "It can even happen in America." I must add here, though, the fact that the percentage of the population as a whole who have capitulated is much lower than Nazi Germany experienced in 1933, when 96 percent of their democracy voted for Hitler, demonstrated for all to see that the true nature of democracy has no value of its own; it is only as good or bad as the people who operate it. Now my beloved country has done that as well. "At least, " I remind everyone, "we did not elect Bush." He did not even get a majority in our form of democracy.

As I tap this column out we have less than a week to go before the election. I believe the polls are wrong and that Kerry enjoys a very healthy lead. For one thing the one million votes that we churned up from overseas Americans have not been polled. Neither have the college students been included in the polls of "likely voters." The Democrats are not going to roll over and allow Bush to be appointed for a second term.

If Bush were to go in for a second term, the repercussions from the more enlightened outside world will be very dire indeed. The state of the economy, the very real fear right now of the dollar going into freefall, the billions being taken out of our stock market by foreign investors have more to do with Bush than the business analysts are inclined to let its public know.

The state of the American economy and the state of the war in Iraq are not points of history that a rational man would want to be hooked with as he takes office. I am grateful that Kerry is not so rational to bow out now and let the Republicans implode in their own mess. There will be an amazing and huge exhalation of breath from the outside world when Kerry is elected. The relief will be palpable and felt by all. We are all going to have to help America come out of this Endarkenment. We are going to have to start with media reform, election reform, business reform, tax reform, healthcare reform, education reform and restoration of relationships with our allies from around the world. Then we can work from there.

Linda Deak is an American currently residing in The Netherlands

I am a German and agree with Linda Deak in what she writes about German feelings and problems with their past and the implications for the way they're looking across the Atlantic Ocean. Really good analysis.

Just this here is wrong: Hitler was not voted by 96 percent of the Germans in 1933 (forget all elections thereafter). His party had not even 50%, it was just a tiny majority together with a couple of smaller right-wing parties which he eliminated soon together with the other parties.

But he was lucky with the economy. That's why he was increasingly accepted and admired by the Germans. A big motor of the flowering economy was the production of tanks and weapons that he needed for his war.

It appears you Americans are more clever than the Germans in 1933.

That's all that is important to him and his cronies. It saddens me that the environment is pretty much a non-issue in this campaign, especially given how important it is to a large majority of the American public.

It just looks like the antarctic to me and it's blue. :shrug:
Can you post a link to the report?