ATTN JMS: Sweeping it under the carpet...the movement to ingore

[B5JMS Poster]

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From: Bill Daras <bill_daras at cyberzone.net>
Date: 10 Nov 2000 22:10:48 -0700
Lines: 83

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(First of all, I should point out that I dislike Al Gore and did not vote
for him this year.)

Everyone likes a good drama, and that is exactly what we have been dealing
with over the past few days.

People also like to have their lives go on a predictable and uncomplicated
manner.

It has become obvious that there are some serious voting irregularities in
Florida. There is a growing movement to investigate and correct the
mistakes, however there are also a lot of people who want to simply pretend
nothing has happened and ignore any problems with the election.

Personally, I find this attitude disheartening. For years, people have felt
left out by the electoral process and to forget about the problems with the
2000 election and simply charge on would seriously undermine the faith of
the public.

People have pointed out that there have been similar irregularities in the
past that went unchallenged, and use them as examples of why we should sweep
this matter under the carpet. Of course, this argument is without any logic,
if someone else does something wrong and nobody bothers to investigate it,
it doesn¹t make what they did right, or justify not investigating  future
incidents.

Bush supporters are trying to make the Democrats, especially Al Gore feel
guilty about their efforts to investigate and address the errors in
Tuesday¹s vote. Honestly, they have enough to feel guilty about already
(abandoning their core supporters, etc), this is a matter of following the
law and acting like it¹s no big deal not only undermines the faith of the
people in the electoral process, but in the man who is trying to squelch any
investigation into the questionable results and practices in Florida.  In
addition, they are basically saying it is more important to follow the rule
of law when the President is serviced by an intern and lies about it, then
when an entire election is at stake.

I know it¹s tough for some people to be distracted from the normal flow of
things and have to comprehend difficult concepts like the Electoral College
vs Popular Vote, and they would much rather get back to worrying about their
gas prices, the weather and if ³Who Want¹s To Be A Millionaire² is going to
be on TV that night.

I believe however, that ignoring the problems in Florida will only result in
more and more people feeling as if they do not matter on Election Day, and
with good reason. If nobody cares what they said, why should they bother to
speak up in the future?

Right now we can either ³Go along to get along², and have the instant
gratification, don¹t-bother-me-with-the-details, nice, quiet ending to this
crisis, where everything is neatly packaged, as long as nobody looks too
closely, or face the issue head on, find out what went wrong and address the
problems.

It seems the Republicans would rather ignore all the problems and have a
president with an air of illegitimacy surrounding him for the next four
years "For the sake of the country"

Whatever happened to their gung-ho "We want the truth no matter what!"
attitude that was so prevelent when it became clear Bubba got serviced by
one of his interns and then lied about it? I am not here to defend Bill
Clinton, but I do find it very interesting that while the Lewinsky scandal
was handled with urgency and importance of high treason, the election
provokes a "Whatever" response from Republicans.

Is this *really* less important?

Where were the concerns about "What's best for the country" back when the
impeachment trial was ramping up and dividing the nation? Is oral sex more
important that the fate of the election? Surely many of the same arguments
for impeaching Clinton over a comparatively trivial matter would apply here.
Credibility of the office, trust in the president, etc, etc, etc.

Do Republicans apply the law strictly when only when they have nothing at
stake?


-Bill Daras


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 11 Nov 2000 09:47:10 -0700
Lines: 13

I couldn't have said it better.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)




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