The lights went out in California?
Serious stuff, sure enough, but the headline should have read
- The Lights Went Out On Democracy!

They were turned off on December 12, 2000, when the US Supreme Court, by
the narrowest of ideological margins, flicked the switch. While most of
the world looked on with bewilderment, the Hive of Five reversed fifty
years of State right's precedents, and decided Mr. Bush's equal
protection rights were more important than Mr. Gores.

Imagine how this played with the rest of the world. The highest court in
the country, that claims the highest ground in the world when it comes
to democracy, decided that it was in the best interest of her citizens,
to stop counting votes in a presidential election.

And if this wasn't disconcerting enough, consider the out and out
intellectual dishonesty of the beneficiary of this suspect ruling when
he claimed that to count these votes, would amount to nothing more than
another recount. The man who claims he is bringing honor and dignity to
the White House, wants you to believe that undervotes and overvotes,
votes that have never been counted once due to machine error, are
recounted votes. Citizens, this is a dog that won't hunt in world opinion.

In spite of all the right-wing propaganda we've been subjected to, Bill Clinton
is still the most respected and admired politician on the planet. His tireless
efforts to pursue peace and prosperity from Africa to Northern Ireland,
from the middle east to the Balkans, only left the world feeling cheated that
he was limited to eight years in office. He is admired because you could
instinctively tell he wanted nothing more than to make the entire world a
better place to live in, a rare attribute for many politicians.
Does anyone honestly believe he was in it for the money?
For the sex?

The evil hard right wing faction of the Republican party would have us
think otherwise. Fortunately they will never have access to the world stage,
and will always be viewed for what they are; lying, power-at-any-cost hypocrites.
They are perceived as the tabloid wing of politicians, with no other contribution
than the propagation of factless, petty scandals.

Mr. Bush ( I refuse to say President Bush), has just spent his dishonestly-achieved
first sixty days in office appeasing these fringe lunatics and his campaign contributors
as if he were riding a landslide victory. One can only wonder at the velocity with which
he is attempting to implement such transparent right-wing policy. He certainly has no
mandate, under any criteria, yet the only bad press he's getting is outside the
continental U.S. Perhaps he thinks a voter backlash from the election will turn the
House and Senate over to Democrats in 2002, so he's trying to get his policies
passed now, and then play defense with his veto until 2004.

Who knows, because we're playing in the dark. And the only way we're
going to get the lights turned back on is with our votes in '02 and '04.
 

Coach