Here's a good column by Stanley Crouch of the Daily News: -- ACTIVATE

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 14:19:02 03/16/01 Fri
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject:

Here's a good column by Stanley Crouch of the Daily News:

Thursday, March 15, 2001 NY DAILY NEWS

Bush Should Buck Image
Of Bowing to Rich

The anger that still attends the subject of the election of President Bush is a very stubborn passion. It is not going silently into the night of history. People are still howling and stomping mad.

But we got a better deal than Bush himself may get before this year is out. We learned � without a doubt � that the individual vote surely does count. All manner of voting reform legislation is going on, some of it to the left of Lenin, perhaps some to the right of the Ku Klux Klan, all of it the kind of reaction to a major historical moment that we should have.

There should be voting reform. By the time we have finished redressing the problems brought to light by the Florida controversy, we will be fairly sure that the kinds of troubles that occasioned so many debates and created so much bad blood will not come around again.

At this moment, however, Bush still has to create an image of himself that will do real battle with the predictions that he'll be a paper President upon which wealthy figures in the shadows will write their wishes, expecting them to be made into policy.

His faith-based initiative will gain ground and support as long as those given grants have inarguable track records. If some think that only Christian organizations should get federal money, such people should be put in rooms with walls made of mirrors and left alone. If what they do works and does not have some kind of wacky bigotry attached, like the Nation of Islam, then full speed ahead. Judge them on their record. No more, no less.

Bush's tax cut plan will prove less of a problem than his recent reversal of a campaign promise to slow global warming. That gives the impression that, on some issues, he might well be a paper President. But, as we know, men of power can turn around more than once. There are too many political dangers connected to environmental issues, even when some of the loudest defenders of the environment are nearly nuts and have no ability to accept the hard fact of life on this Earth, which is that something has to go for something else to continue to exist.

Eventually, even Republicans are going to have to step up to the worst facts about the environment. They, too, will have to accept the truth that profit cannot be such an idol of worship that it prevails over other concerns.

The need to reduce earnings in the interest of society is a demanding truth that we as Americans find ourselves perpetually returning to as we adapt our policies to bring the profit motive in line with morality and ethics.

With the economy bobbing and weaving and the Russians preparing to walk Iran into its own nuclear moment, Bush is going to need all the public confidence he can get. So he has to make sure that those who believe they can write their will on his image merely because they are wealthy might as well be trying to write on the wind.

It's even more important that he prove that to this nation, which could give him and his party much more appeal.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Follow the money -- fringer, 04:38:29 03/17/01 Sat

Bush Should Buck Image Of Bowing to Rich

Bush Should Buck Image
Of Bowing to Rich