On November 7th Americans saw an election that had more excitement and suspense than any movie or book and showed us how important that each person's vote and view are.
Last Sunday I went to mass at Nativity church. The priest told us that we were to obey the teaching of the church and its leaders and to vote for the pro-life candidate. I went to another church a few weeks before and that priest told us that pro life was many issues which included the death penalty.
The priest at Nativity just said we were to vote for the "pro-life" candidate. I think how we vote should not be influenced from the pulpit. There is separation between church and state for a reason.
Before the election many letters to the editor told us we should be ashamed of ourselves for supporting Democrats. I wrote the following letter but didn't send it in. Now I think my views need to be expressed. Al Gore has a responsibility to challenge the votes in Florida in the name of all who did vote!
Pro-life is more than the issue of abortion. It's about respecting another person's opinion. Telling others that they should be ashamed of themselves if they don't believe the same as them is contrary to the teachings of the New Testament. The Bible tells us that we should not judge others lest you be judged. Jesus said love thy neighbor. The methods of the anti-abortion activist are in many ways not Christian. I don't need a sermon on being a Christian. My vote is for Al Gore who is just as good a man as the people think George W. Bush is.
Ann Richards was the governor of Texas before Bush and she said she was beaten by him because he was for the death penalty and she was not. How many people were executed while Bush has been governor? Karla Fay Tucker, a born-again Christian, was executed while Bush has been governor even after Pat Robertson told him the case should be looked at more closely. The Pope says that the death penalty is a "pro-life" issue.
The NRA wants us to vote for Bush so we will have no control who has the guns. How many innocent people are killed every year with guns? There are many pro-life issues; care for children, the handicapped, the poor, the elderly, the environment, and education.
I don't believe in killing babies but I'm not judging a woman's right to choose. I'm old enough to remember the terrible things that happened to women before abortion was legalized.
Barbara Bush and probably Laura Bush are for a woman's right to choose.
HELEN McCLAIN
Dubuque, Iowa
In response to Roger Hickey's recent article, "A Progressive's Argument Against Voting for Nader," [11/15/00 PP], my voting record goes back long before Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968 and I disagree with [Hickey's] analysis of Democratic failures entirely. In 1968, Humphrey and the Democrats defeated themselves without much, if any, help from Gene McCarthy and his cohorts. Humphrey, like Al Gore, proved to have been a rotten campaigner, not repudiating the failed Vietnam policies of the Johnson administration until very late in his campaign. And in despair, I voted for Humphrey anyway.
In 1972, I was a McGovernite and came, as near as I ever did to being a party activist. I worked for McGovern and supported him to the tune of nearly $1,000. But, as near as I could tell, the Labor Unions sat out this election and helped to re-elect Richard Nixon. From 1972-1992, I continued making campaign contributions to Democrats nationwide, including a Mr. Doggett from Texas. I guess you could say that I suffered delusions of grandeur since I hoped that my small contributions would help push the Democrat Party off dead center and toward the progressive side of the ledger.
I was an early and faithful supporter of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and small good it did either of us. William Jefferson Clinton, in part, was elected in 1992 by race baiting Jesse Jackson in Philadelphia and dissing Sister Soljah. Did Clinton chose the most vibrant Democrat in 1992 for his Vice Presidential nominee, Jesse Jackson? He did not, choosing the lackluster Albert Gore, against whom I had already voted. But still I held my nose, and voted for William Jefferson Clinton, may God forgive me!
I have watched the "progressivism" slowly ooze out of the Democrat party since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and I say that there is no place in the present-day Democrat Party, as remodeled by the [Democratic Leadership Council] and its various protégés i.e. Clinton, Gore and Lieberman. (Clinton when he is at home is, at best, a moderate Republican and Lieberman is as someone has said, "A rightwinger in Jewish drag.") So yes, I voted for Ralph Nader and I sincerely hope he did help to defeat Al Gore. For if I hadn't voted for Nader, I would have voted for George Bush, preferring a tax break for the rich that just might trickle down to us not so rich, to the phony concern of this gang's heartless liberalism.
My hopes may yet be frustrated since those litigious White House lawyers are apparently now trying to steal the election from George W. Bush, the semiamiable conservative. It's déjà vu all over again. Or it all depends on what "is" is, right, Mr. Double Speak Clinton?
Sincerely,
MARJORIE S. NEWELL, Ph.D.
State College, Pa.
What is the future, in light of the presidential election, of Progressives in our country? In the past the complaint has centered on the lack of alternatives to our two-party system. But not this time.
We had the White Knight whose incorruptibility, intelligence and eloquence far outshone the two principal clods during the campaign. To maintain that media coverage was sparse does not truly account for Nader's miserably poor showing. So what does account for it? Simply, the fact that the vast majority of Americans are in a stupor. People vote for a candidate for the most trivial reasons. Not even Jesus Christ Himself could have secured more votes.
Until the end of World War II the Progressive movement was vigorous. The Cold War put an end to all that. And so the people are preoccupied with beer, sex, viewing (not playing) sports and the Bible. The best part of our people, the youth, are trained for specific vocations. They are therefore not well educated, generally speaking, and know little of the antecedents of our culture. They know little of the history of their own country much less that of ancient Greece or Rome. May we be surprised then that Americans are so easily swayed by crass propaganda?
History tells us that people shall continue to vegetate intellectually until their lives break down and sheer desperation forces them to confront reality. This is what happened during the Great Depression. Only when a person's very livelihood is endangered will he cast the fables and cobwebs from his mind. Necessity compels it.
This election proves that the American people are not fit to govern themselves.
WALTER TEGNAZIAN
Rockledge, Fla.
As of this writing, (November 8) no one knows how the Florida recount is going to turn out. But we do know that Vice President Al Gore has a popular vote lead of some 200,000 votes over Governor George W. Bush.
Assuming that the latter trend continues and Governor Bush carries Florida with a razor-thin majority and thereby a majority in the Electoral College, Governor Bush should bow to the wishes of the American people at large and allow Vice President Gore to assume the presidency as he is obviously their choice.
Governor Bush could do this by allowing some of his electors to cast a sufficient number of votes for Vice President Gore. This would truly be a beau geste, a noble gesture. Is the governor of Texas up to it?
To prevent this situation from occurring again, we should either abolish the Electoral College or drastically reform it. One reform would be to allow only two electoral votes from each state to be in a winner-take-all status with the other electoral votes being decided on a congressional district by congressional district basis.
In any event, a plurality of the American people expressed their preference for Vice President Gore. It is up to Governor Bush to make THE beau geste, a noble gesture that would put him on a very high moral plateau for his run for the presidency in 2004.
ROBERT E. NORDLANDER
Menasha, Wis.
Email nord@famvid.com
The decision of Governor George W. Bush and his supporters to get a federal injunction to prevent a number of Florida counties from counting the previously machine-counted ballots by hand speaks volumes respecting the contempt the present leadership of the Republican Party has for democracy in general and the democratic political process in particular.
Anthony Lewis made a sage observation in a column in the November 11 edition of the New York Times which expressed the following political truth:
"If the conflict is resolved ... in a way that fairly reflects what the voters intended, Mr. Gore will carry Florida and be president."
It should be obvious to fair-minded observers that the Republicans DO NOT want to resolve the conflict in a way that "fairly reflects what the voters intended." They hope to rig the Florida results to favor Governor Bush and thereby frustrate the national will of the American people who have expressed through the results of the popular vote that Vice President Al Gore is their choice for President of the United States of America.
Surely, it is time for Governor Bush and his fellow Republicans to respect the will of the American people as expressed in the popular vote. Their efforts to frustrate democracy in Florida and in the country at large have all the earmarks of a "Putsch" or "coup d' état."
WILLIAM HERZIGER
Neenah, Wis.
Email billherziger100@hotmail.com
Your readers may appreciate more background on the folic acid story, which did not begin 10 years ago, as Ms. [Joan] Retsinas says ["Folic Acid: A Liberal's Holiday Story," 12/1/00 PP], but back in the '50s. Adelle Davis' book, Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit, for instance, was published in 1954.
In this and later books Davis described how folic acid is essential to all cell reproduction. This was documented in reputable journals, but the US government refused to permit more then 0.1 milligram tablets to be sold without prescription. Physicians actually tried to fight cancer using folic-acid antagonists, despite evidence that the treatment was counterproductive.
Meanwhile Davis' work was jeered at by the medical establishment. To this day "well educated" people smile and treat supplement users like the lunatic fringe. Is there a medical reason for this? Consider that the profit margins on drugs are much larger than the profit margins on natural substances.
David said plainly, "The young of animals lacking folic acid are grossly abnormal". Forty years later we rejoice that the penny finally dropped. This applies to other substances as well. A Harvard study verified the benefit of Vitamin E to heart patients. Yet when a family member was recently treated for heart attack at a Harvard teaching hospital, not a word was said to her about Vitamin E.
On the other hand, perhaps we should give thanks that in 40 more years, medical science may have caught up with what is known today.
NANCY RADER
Acton, Mass.
Shocked at your biased "Letters" column. You urge readers to write in their views, then you print such long, long letters there is no room for others. I write you to inquire just why Green Party candidates run in districts already represented by liberals such as in Colorado, New York and Texas. Not printed.
I think Ted Rall's recent column for Ralph Nader is most stupid I have ever read in my life. He gives every reason for voting for Al Gore instead of Ted's hero Nader. Ralph is just a spoiler. Jesus Christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver.
Nader will sell out the USA for 5% of campaign funds. STINKS. I have lost my respect for Nader.
Truly,
RAYMOND MOSTEK
Lambard, Ill.
Editor's Note: A letter by Mostek was printed in the 1/1-15/00 PP. To our knowledge we have not received other letters from him. We try to print as many letters as we can.
I'm afraid that the GW we are about to get is a lot more than any sane voter ever imagined. I'm not just talking about the last George W. to be President. I am talking about the last Great War, the last Godly War. The proclaimed rhetoric is there, garbled but there. Rebuild our military power, Star Wars, Cold War advisors, Divine calling. But I fear there are darker motives, avenge Daddy for Desert Storm and himself for Viet Nam. If GW believes that the people, military, Congress and God are behind him, what's to stop him? Who's to stop him? Mommy, Wifey, Daddy? Not on someone else's life!
CHRIS LANE GRAY
Monticello, Ark.
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