"You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service, if you deny veterans health care, or if you tell middle class families to wait for a tax cut, so that the wealthiest among us can get even more.""Nope -- what you do is vote against body armor so more working families lose a parent in a war I voted for, oops, I mean..."
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
"And what can I say about Teresa? She has the strongest moral compass of anyone I know. "
Didn't Clinton say exactly the same thing about Hillary? In both cases, it was a complete crock.
If that's true, I really do feel sorry for the guy.
Kerry reminds me of the outdoor harangue scene in the book "1984"...The Battle of the BiographiesKerry's MO is to support something (or at least not attack it) and then attack people who act on his words. He attacks Bush for trashing the Kyoto Treaty, but did not support it when it came up in the Senate; voted for Bush's education program, and then savaged it; supported the Patriot Act, and savaged John Ashcroft when he carried it out. He was for a unilateral American foreign policy when proposed by Bill Clinton, against it when suggested by either George Bush... "He was for affirmative action, just not this affirmative action. He was for a drug war, just not this drug war. He was for an Iraq war, just not this Iraq war." ...for weapons systems, but not those actually proposed; for the use of force, but under no conditions that anybody can imagine or foresee. He voted against the first Gulf War in 1991, but said he was not against using force then, and he voted for the second Gulf War in 2002, but said he never imagined that force would be used. In 2002, 2003, and 2004, he attacked George Bush the younger for not having taken the route followed by George Bush the elder, which he hadn't supported at the time. In 1991, he accused the elder George Bush of a "rush into war" (does this sound familiar?) and derided his coalition as "bizarre new bedfellows" and "shadowy battlefield allies."
11 posted on 03/05/2004 11:36:49 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Yep. The speech was littered with contradictions like this. I hope the American people catch on. I don't know about the 10% thing. There are a lot of people who are unfamiliar with the nature of war. All you have to do is show them a clip of a mother who lost a child in war and they'll be pacifists for the rest of their lives.
Still...There's a long way to go in this campaign. Maybe the people will have a sudden fit of common sense.
Nineteen Eighty-FourOn a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage ! The agents of Goldstein had been at work ! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.
by George Orwell
(from chapter 17)
The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax... Oceania was at war with Eastasia : Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete.
Two issues:
1. The military was ALREADY IN THE PROCESS of buying the new variety of body armor when the war broke out. Everyone DID have body armor...just not the new variety. As soon as the overwhelming superiority of the new was recognized, a crash program to buy the new was implemented....but...it was dependent on the speed with which the company that made it could respond. New equipment is fielded according to a fielding schedule. It is also true that it took time to field the M1 Abrahms to every armor unit when it first came out. It was a vastly superior weapons system. Many had the M60 for many years while the Abrahms was being fielded. Did that mean that the military valued them any less? No. It meant that there was a fielding schedule and budget established by Congress.
2. Kerry voted AGAINST the money to buy the new body armor.
I heard sKerry's delivery of this little speech. His blowhard pomposity is laughable. How can people not see it?
I agree. America could do a lot better than electing John Kerry.