From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V6 #242 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Thursday, November 4 2004 Volume 06 : Number 242 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] New Verse? ["Donald Frick" ] [RS] Re: America [Elizabeth ] Re: [RS] politics [Vanessa Wills ] Re: [RS] (Two) New Verses [Chris Foxwell ] Re: [RS] America [adam plunkett ] [RS] I'll throw my 2 cents in..... [Ron Alderfer ] Re: [RS] I'll throw my 2 cents in..... [Chris Foxwell Subject: [RS] New Verse? "The change could happen any day, So said the Senator." I think that about does it for my creative juices. Anyone else? - -Don ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:46:57 -0800 (PST) From: Elizabeth Subject: [RS] Re: America Norman wrote: > My candidates for President have lost more than > they have won. In fact, the first time I voted, > my candidate lost 49 states. As far as real voting goes (not the pretend in school kind), this election makes me 2 for two--twice voting for Clinton and twice voting against Bush. The next time had better get me back on the plus side! > This time, I am scared.... very scared. Yeah, me too. Although I have to admit that I was feeling much more depressed about the whole thing until I came home from work last night and listed to Air America online. The encouragement to feel angry instead of sad was a good wake-up call, and I'm trying to stick with that. Elizabeth ===== ~~~ "Every election feels like the perfect crime Like you can fool all the people all the time They say the water isn't rising but their shoes are soaking wet They like to drive you crazy but you ain't crazy yet You just don't get it." Peter Mulvey ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:56:34 -0500 From: Vanessa Wills Subject: Re: [RS] politics I didn't know being married to Teresa Heinz-Kerry was a platform. And here I was worried that some voters weren't focusing on the issues. - --Vanessa On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:48:55 EST, patience9@aol.com wrote: > You feel that way because you supported Kerry, Who is a divorced Roman > Catholic. So even his church doesn't want him...lol I dont' think abortion > rights is a popular platform either. Let alone that crazy woman he is married to. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 19:58:15 -0500 (EST) From: Chris Foxwell Subject: Re: [RS] (Two) New Verses On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, Donald Frick wrote: > "The change could happen any day, > So said the Senator." > > I think that about does it for my creative juices. Anyone else? This kind of just poured out of me. The change will happen any day, so said my stalwart friend. This brutal reign of crooks and goons must now come to an end But he did not know, he did not know the strength of fear and doubt, when wielded by those thugs who would bring freedom's flood to a drought. Still the change could happen any day, so maintains my steely heart. The shroud of night persists for now but someday the dawn must start Though steep and hard the path will be that climbs from this ravine, prevail we will, prevail we must, or abandon all our dreams. - --Chris ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 17:08:50 -0800 (PST) From: adam plunkett Subject: Re: [RS] America I voted for Kerry and, of course, was upset when he did not win though I was not as shell shocked as many. I am not sure if this will help at all but if you look deeply into Kerry's answer, say, to terrorism.....he would have been better but not where we should be. He still wanted to kill, and said he would still vote for the war. He would have been amazingly better - and safer - but I believe the Democrat party is catering to a centrist vote that leaves people who generally go to see Richard Shindell in the dark. It is a dark peroid indeed but don't get too down....the people still have the voice and unfortanately they wanted W. But stay on your senators and representatives on issues you care about...I know you may think it wont do anything, but it will. I used to work there....when people demand things they act out of fear of losing their next election. Vanessa Wills wrote: Absolutely. I and the people I know have been at the point of tears since the moment Kerry conceded that election. This morning one of my friends and I embraced one another and held each other tightly, attempting to console one another at least some small amount. I honestly feel that the dark night is falling. The good thing is that I've been talking to people, and there are many who want to get active and try to drive back that night. - --Vanessa On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 17:46:31 -0500, Norman Johnson wrote: > My candidates for President have lost more than they have won. In fact, the first time I voted, my candidate lost 49 states. > > But when Ronald Reagan won, when George Bush the elder won, when George W Bush won in 2000, I did not feel that the country was completely falling apart. > > This time, I am scared.... very scared. > > Norman Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com/a ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 20:37:13 -0500 From: Ron Alderfer Subject: [RS] I'll throw my 2 cents in..... As someone else wrote here, I don't think the situation is quite as dire as some of these emails suggest. (And yes, I voted for Sen. Kerry.) Go back into your history books, and study the political climate before, during, and after Mr. Lincoln was President. This stuff is nothing new. What really bothers me is that NO ONE from ANY group in ANY country seems to be willing to talk anymore. The word compromise doesn't seem to exist. Every group / faction insists that they are absolutely right, the other side is absolutely wrong, and there is no middle ground; so everyone be damned. Sorry people, but things are rarely that black and white. Some of you are scared of George Bush. I am scared of human nature. Ron A ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:16:34 -0500 (EST) From: Chris Foxwell Subject: Re: [RS] I'll throw my 2 cents in..... On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, Ron Alderfer wrote: > Every group / faction insists that they are absolutely right, the > other side is absolutely wrong, and there is no middle ground; so everyone > be damned. Sorry people, but things are rarely that black and white. > Some of you are scared of George Bush. I am scared of human nature. > Ron A That's a very good point, Ron. Well said. Both Kerry and Bush speak about unifying the country after this bitter polarization, and healing wounds and all that rhetoric; let's hope they actually mean it, because compromise has got to be the name of the game now. I'm worried, though; Cheney spoke of the American people delivering a "mandate" to Bush, and that is getting off on completely the wrong foot. A 51% majority is nothing close to a mandate, and describing it as such makes it sounds like we've wholeheartedly approved his Republican agenda. However, your comment about needing to find a middle comment and staying away from blacks-and-whites is ironic in a way, and definitely notable: Bush's single greatest flaw, in my opinion, and my single greatest fear of his presidency, is that he sees the world in EXACTLY this way: shades of deepest black and purest white. That is frightening. His whole Axis of Evil presentation, while already criticized to death, is a perfect example. I am so so terrified that our president, the leader of the "free" world, actually believes in Good and Evil *in the political landscape*. He sees no shades of grey, there is no compromise for him; he sees the world in such simple tones, black and white, this and that, all stark simplicity and no complexity, and the world is coming to hate him--and us--for it. As you said, Ron, we definitely need middle ground, and that is why I eventually came to support Kerry not only because he wasn't Bush but because he sees, and acts, on political realities and complexities. Kerry sees shades of grey. He isn't afraid to change his mind and his determination in response to shifting political and global winds. He fought in Vietnam, then came to criticize it. He voted for the war resolution when it was presented in a sensible light, then voted against it when it became clear that we were being horrible misled. Bush's greatest coup in this election is his success in convincing a majority of Americans this great strength of Kerry's is actually a weakness. !! He convinced Americans that Kerry's political maturity and ability to negotiate the realities of our global culture is actually weak "flip-flopping". It's quite amazing, really, that Bush succeeded in perpetrating such a blatant corruption, and sustaining it for so long: first he convinced everyone that "simple and bullish and arrogant" is good, and then he convinced everyone that anything other than this is bad. Amazing. Bush would make for a fascinating study of political charisma. Sigh. I apologize, to everyone. I don't want to get into a series of frustrated political discussions/arguments. I think it's inevitable, though, here and in every listserv everywhere, for the time being, at least. To those who are weary or disgusted or angered by this political hijacking of the listserver, I am sorry, and please bear with us. It's all we can do to voice our frustration. At least I managed to put some of it into a Shindell song a little earlier. :) - --Chris ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V6 #242 ***********************************