My friend wrote an amazing letter to her Bush-supporting grandfather, who resides and votes in the Midwest, in a swing state. She outlines the reasons why she thinks he shouldn't vote for Bush and how why George Bush is not on his side.
I just wanted to share this with everyone; I think it's a great model for how to communicate with our own older family members whose political views may differ from ours.
Please check it out:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/saintpeg/2004/08/20/I will also post it here:
Dear Grandpa (and Grandma, even though you’re Canadian and can’t vote):
Okay, this letter may come across as a little strange and perhaps unwarranted, but ever since I got back to New York from Michigan a couple weeks ago I’ve been bothered by something. I think about it every day, and every day it makes my head hurt a little. It’s the Bush bumper sticker on your car.
Ha ha! Yes, I realize this shouldn’t be a big deal and that everyone is entitled to one’s own opinion etc, but I fear that in rural Michigan there’s an acute lack of awareness of certain issues regarding the upcoming election, and this results in opinions being formed rather pre-emptively. So I thought I would feel better if I wrote a letter and got out all of my feelings regarding why I think our current president is a very, very dangerous man and should not be elected in 2004. Please understand that (at the risk of sounding patronizing), I mostly want to write this letter because I love you and feel that neither your personality nor personal history are in line with Republican ideology. (These two things may not seem obviously connected, but I take politics extremely personally, because it has a major, direct impact on my daily life.)
To put it simply, George Bush is not on our side. He’s not on the side of working people, of veterans, of students, of the underprivileged, or of the “common man”. People seem to like him because he’s a personable “everyman”. But he’s not—he’s a Texas oil man, who always makes policy with profit in mind. He is on the side of big business and big corporations, which becomes more and more evident the more you read about his administration.
The man lies. In a 2001 speech to the VFW Convention in Milwaukee, he said, “In the budget I submitted to Congress, I requested an increase of $1 billion, additional money for veterans services. Secretary Principi recently announced new health care facilities for veterans.” The truth is he doesn’t care about veterans benefits. The Washington Post recently uncovered a secret memo that outlines his 2006 budget, which plans to cut vet health care by 1.9 BILLION dollars over the next two years. (Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 6-1-04.)
I realize that you don’t like Michael Moore because he’s a slob, and I can’t disagree with you there. But I REALLY wish you would check out the Fahrenheit 9-11 DVD. While Moore is often criticized for being biased, I can promise you that he’s no more biased toward the left than Fox News is toward the right. Moreover, he’s not interested in exaggerating the truth, he’s interested in revealing it. (And come on, he’s a Tigers fan! He can’t be all bad…) It’s so important to get these other perspectives on the issues, particularly since the Bush camp keeps feeding the public with misinformation in his anti-Kerry ads. They literally are making things up—like all these income tax hikes and gas hikes that Kerry plans to make. They are simply not true. Kerry specifically stated that the only taxes he will raise will not be on the middle class. They will be on those who make over $200,000 a year, and can afford to pay more taxes for people like me, who need money for scholarships and loans, and like you and the rest of our family, who need health care.
Kerry is a Catholic (one of us!). He is smart enough to practice faith privately without it overtly affecting his public policy decisions. Bush is a born-again Christian fundamentalist who is funded by many very hateful right-wing groups, and does not separate his ideas about God from his role as President, despite the fact that our nation is founded on the idea of separation of church and state.
I was speaking recently to my friend Christina, who just finished her Master’s degree in education at Harvard. She was born and raised in Texas, and has therefore been under the effect of GW Bush policies for much longer than the rest of our nation, since he was governor there for many years. She went into great detail about the detrimental effects that his leadership has had on the educational system in Texas. His infamous “No Child Left Behind” plan punishes teachers by not allowing them pay raises if their students do not pass certain standardized tests. The main problem is that the schools are being tested without their funding being evened out, and poor schools are expected to perform as well as the wealthy ones! As a result of the pressure to pass, instead of being given well-rounded educations, kids are taught only to pass these standardized tests, and are becoming increasingly unable to think and analyze critically. If it spreads, this system is going to put us years behind the progress of other countries. And Bush has already begun to extend those policies throughout the nation—he even hired his education man from Texas, Rod Paige, as the US Secretary of Education, so that the No Child Left Behind disaster spreads to all the states. Even if Kerry is elected in November, so much damage has been done to education at this point that it may take years to reverse.
Bush’s funders have spent a lot of energy attacking Kerry’s military record, arguing that he somehow managed to “exaggerate” his injuries and is exploiting his service for political purposes. This is a major insult to anyone who respects veterans, as I do (given that my dad and both my grandpas are veterans), and as I know you do. How can these people be criticizing Kerry, who was decorated with multiple medals, saved a life, and went on to promote peace, when George W. didn’t even serve in the war? In fact, it has yet to be proven that he even showed up for service when he was supposed to! I quote:
"According to the Boston Globe, which researched the available facts extensively, there's no evidence Bush reported for duty during the summer and fall of 1972, a time when he was supposed to be serving in the National Guard. But despite a promise on "Meet the Press" to open up his "entire record," Bush has yet to offer any documents that show he was there.<1> In fact, the Associated Press has been forced to go to court to force the release of clearly germane documents that Bush wishes to keep secret.<2>"
1. Meet the Press Transcript for Feb. 8th, 2/8/04
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4179618/2. AP Sues for Access to Bush Guard Records, 6/22/04
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/8985661.htmI won’t even get started on Bush’s response to 9-11 and the resulting Iraq War, in which he deceived the American people into thinking that Iraq was in part responsible for 9-11 and on the verge of attacking us at any moment, just so he could finish his daddy’s business and sink his claws into middle eastern resources (pardon my melodramatics). Again, PLEASE see Fahrenheit 9-11 because it has loads of evidence to prove that this is the case. And he managed to do it all against the will (and the doctrines which we’re supposed to follow) of the United Nations, and consistently denying the rights assured prisoners of war by the Geneva Convention. (There’s a reason why our prison camp is in Guantanamo Bay, outside the bounds of our nation’s laws.)
A writer named Hal Crowther, who has written for Time and Newsweek effectively put the war in Iraq in perspective in a recent article I read. He writes:
"If, say, the Chinese came in to 'rescue' us--Operation American Freedom--how long would any of us, left-wing or right, put up with an occupying army teaching us Chinese-style democracy? A guerrilla who opposes an invading army on his own soil is not a terrorist, he's a resistance fighter. In Iraq we're not fighting enemies but making enemies. As Richard Clarke and others have observed, every dollar, bullet and American life that we spend in Iraq is one that's not being spent in the war on terrorism. Every Iraqi, every Muslim we kill or torture or humiliate is a precious shot of adrenaline for Osama and al Qaeda... If the Pentagon ever thought Saddam had 'weapons of mass destruction,' it was only because the Pentagon gave them to him. As Kevin Phillips recounts in American Dynasty, officials of the Reagan and first Bush administrations eagerly supplied Saddam with arms while he was using chemical weapons on the Kurds. They twice sent Donald Rumsfeld to court Saddam, in 1983 and 1984, when the dictator was in the glorious prime of his monsterhood."
I get particularly upset when I remember what I consider the most offensive thing that Bush has ever said to us. More offensive than “We must stop these terrorist killers—now watch this
drive.” More offensive than “I’m a war president.” More offensive than his general inability to speak proper English. To me his worst moment was when he “informed” the American people as to why we are so hated in the world that certain people from certain nations want to see us suffer and die. He said (and this was just a week or so after 9-11), “They hate us for our freedoms.” This is the most ridiculous, non-sensical, incorrect, over-simplifying piece of propaganda I have EVER heard spoken in this country, and it is a perfect example of why I consider Bush (for all his lack of intelligence) a dangerous man. He plays upon the fear and the pride of Americans to get what he wants. They hate us for our freedoms? That doesn’t make any sense!! Does he really expect us to believe that muslims are opposed to freedom? On the contrary, they want to live their lives and rule their countries free of American influence, just as we want to be free of theirs.
Okay, I hope after all this that you don’t think I’m completely crazy. I’m just mad, and perhaps overly informed, and living in New York, it’s impossible not to think about the effect Bush has on this country every day of my life. If he is elected in 2004 I will fear for my safety more than ever before. I will fear the human rights that we’ve lost and will continue to lose via the Patriot Act. I will fear the increasing gap between rich and poor in our nation. I will fear America’s dwindling reputation in the world. I will fear the fact that the longer he is in office, the more we will be hated. Bush told us that “they hate us for our freedoms” because he didn’t want us to think about how American foreign policy decisions, including those of his father and Reagan, are the true reason why we’re hated in the world (see Bowling for Columbine for multiple examples). As they say, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. I have no sympathy for the terrorists who killed thousands of my neighbors. But I refuse to fall into the trap of looking at the situation in Bush’s simplistic good/evil paradigm.
Whew. I do feel a little better. I hope you made it this far. Please feel free to call me or write me back if you want to yell at me or make some counter arguments. I love you!
Your frustrated but optimistic granddaughter,
S
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
