Why Don't We All Just Cut the Crap - Michael Moore on Bush,Clinton (fwd)

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                 ANDRE  GUNDER  FRANK

        1601 SW  83rd Avenue, Miami, FL. 33155-1133 USA
        Tel: 1-305-266  0311      Fax:  1-305  267 9606
  E-Mail: franka@fiu.edu   Web Page: csf.colorado.edu/agfrank/
    



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 13:50:40 -0700
From: Sid Shniad <shniad@sfu.ca>
Subject: Why Don't We All Just Cut the Crap - Michael Moore on Bush,

  Clinton

May 1, 2001

Why Don't We All Just Cut the Crap Right Now

Dear friends,

Well, 101 days into the Junta and the fear mongers are having a 
heyday, aren't they? Even good liberals and Democrats have joined 
in the mantra. To listen to them, you'd think George W. Bush had 
opened the gates of hell and unleashed the legions of Satan upon 
the American people.

These good people actually believe Junior has put the arsenic back 
in the water, given the go-ahead to spew massive CO2 emissions 
into the air, torn up our national forests, and raped the Alaskan 
wilderness. With all the fury that has been whipped up, I'm sure any 
minute we'll also hear that Baby Face Bush recently held up a 7-11 
in Denver, and now plans to release bubonic plague into the 
atmosphere over Ohio.

Now, don't get me wrong. There's no doubt that this illegal squatter 
in the Oval Office is not to be trusted farther than you can throw 
Katherine Harris. But, please, let's cut the crap and tell the truth: 
George W. Bush has done little more than CONTINUE the policies 
of the last eight years of the Clinton/Gore administration. As hard 
as that is for many to swallow, that is the truth -- and the sooner 
you stop the scare campaign, the sooner we'll be able to fight Bush 
in a way that will stop him for good.

For eight long years, Clinton/Gore resisted all efforts and 
recommendations to reduce the carbon dioxide in the air and the 
arsenic in the water. Just last October, Senate Democratic leader 
Tom Daschle and sixteen other Democrats successfully led the way 
to STOP any reduction of arsenic in the water. Why? Because 
Clinton and the Democrats were beholden to the very industries 
who had financed their campaigns --- and who were responsible for 
high levels of arsenic in the water.

On top of that, Clinton/Gore became the first administration in 
twenty years NOT to demand higher fuel efficiency standards from 
Detroit. Millions of barrels of oil that did not need to be refined and 
spewed out into our air were guzzled unnecessarily. It wasn't that 
way under Reagan. His administration ordered that cars had to get 
more miles per gallon. Under Bush I, the standards were made 
even stricter. Under Clinton -- zip. Nothing. How many more people 
will die from cancer, how much faster will global warming be sped 
up thanks to Bill and Al being in cahoots with one of their chief 
patrons, the top lobbyist for the Big 3 auto companies -- Mr. Andrew 
Card, currently the chief of staff for the man occupying the federal 
land at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Am I the only one who 
remembers one of the most lavish inaugural parties thrown for 
Clinton after his election? The host: General Motors and its man-
about-town in DC, Andrew Card.

Yes, there is a difference between the Democrats and the 
Republicans. The Democrats say one thing ("Save the planet!"), 
and then do another, quietly and behind the scenes with all the 
bastards who make this world a dirtier place. The Republicans just 
come right out and give the bastards a corner office in the West 
Wing. In some ways, maybe it's better we see the evil out in the 
open rather than covered up in a liberal sheep's clothing that seems 
to fool a lot of people.

Bill Clinton waited until the final days of his presidency to suddenly 
sign a number of presidential decrees and regulations to improve 
our environment and create safer working conditions. It was the 
ultimate cynical move. Wait 'til the last 48 hours of your term to 
finally do the right thing so that your "legacy" will be improved. 
Every one of these regulations Bush has "overturned" was signed 
by Clinton in December and January. And that's ALL he did -- sign 
worthless pieces of paper.

Do you believe Clinton removed the arsenic from the water? Not 
only did he NOT do that, not only did he make us drink arsenic-
laced water for the last 8 years, this order he signed stipulated that 
the arsenic was not to be removed from the water "until 2004." 
That's right. Look it up. Clinton's big environmental do-good act in 
the last minutes of his term guaranteed that we would be drinking 
the same levels of arsenic we've been drinking since 1942 -- the 
last time a REAL Democrat had the guts to stand up to the mining 
interests and reduce the levels of this poison. The Canadians and 
Europeans did it long ago. Clinton made it official that we would all 
be drinking arsenic during the entire Bush administration. Maybe he 
was doing us a favor.

And how about those COO emission regulations that Bush II 
overturned? Did I say "overturn?" Overturn what? All Bush did was 
maintain the Clinton status quo. He said, in essence, that "I'm going 
to pollute the air at the very same levels Clinton did during his 
entire eight years, just as you are going to drink the same arsenic in 
the water under my watch as you did under Clinton's."

And, like the built-in three-year delay in his arsenic reductions, 
Clinton's orders on the toxic emissions in his last days specified 
that they were not to be totally reduced '"until 2008, per the Kyoto 
agreement." So, after violating the Kyoto accords he had signed by 
doing NOTHING about CO2 in the past few years, he then tries to 
look good by doing NOTHING about CO2 for another seven years! 
So the air that was dirty is still dirty and will remain dirty, just as 
Clinton had ordered.

The list goes on and on. For eight years Clinton did NOTHING 
about carpal tunnel syndrome as it relates to OSHA regulations. 
Then, in the middle of pardoning some rich guys during his all-night 
kegger on January 19, he decides to finally do some good for all 
those women who sit at keyboards all day and who, with their 
crippled hands, went to the polls TWICE to make him their 
President.

Friends, you are being misled and hoodwinked by a bunch of 
professional "liberals" who did NOTHING themselves for eight 
years to clean up these messes -- and now all they can do is attack 
people like Ralph Nader who has devoted his ENTIRE life to every 
single one of these issues. What unmitigated gall! They blame 
Nader for giving us Bush? I blame THEM for being Bush! They 
suck off the same corporate teat and they support stuff like NAFTA 
which, according to the Sierra Club, has DOUBLED the pollution 
along the Mexican border where the American factories have 
moved. And then they wring their hands over Bush and his 
"reversals!" Where is Orwell when we need him? How much slicker 
can the doublespeak get?

Had Clinton done the job those of us who voted for him in 1992 
expected him to do, we wouldn't be in the pickle we're in. Imagine if 
on his first day in office over eight years ago Clinton had ordered a 
reduction of the arsenic in the drinking water -- and all of America 
had been drinking cleaner, safer water for the last eight years. Do 
you think there is any way in hell this Junior Bush would have been 
able to say, "OK, America, you've been drinking water without 
poison in it long enough. Time to go back to the good old days of 
sucking down that ol' arsenic!"? Hell no! The public -- no one -- 
would have stood for it. And he'd know that. He wouldn't even have 
tried it. But because Clinton waited to the last minute and never 
removed any of this crud from the water or the air, there was no 
political or popular support base for the decision. So it was easy for 
Bush to do what he did. He figured, you're not going to miss what 
you never had removed in the first place.

Finally, a word about that order Bush issued to ban money for 
abortions overseas. Wrong again. Pro-choice Clinton, like the three 
presidents before him, had already signed an order banning any 
American funds to pay for abortions in foreign countries. What Bush 
did was to expand the order to include cutting off any monies to 
foreign birth control groups that offer abortion as an alternative. 
Worse, yes -- but he only got away with it because our Democratic 
president had laid the groundwork in continuing the abortion-funds 
cut-off, placing his "liberal" approval on a piece of the right-wing 
agenda. If you give the devil a bone, he doesn't just go away -- he 
wants the whole damn leg.

So spare me all the hand wringing and indignant moralizing. Those 
who want to turn Bush into some sort of cartoon monster have an 
agenda -- to keep most of us from seeing the beast that they 
themselves have become. Of course they hate Ralph Nader. He's 
an ugly reminder that they sold out a long time ago -- and he didn't. 
Blame Nader, blame Bush, it's all part of the same distraction, to 
keep you from focusing on this one, very important fact: Republican 
arsenic or Democratic arsenic, it really is the same damn crap 
being forced down your throat.

I am committed to changing that, either within or without the 
Democratic Party.

Please feel free to pass this letter on to anyone you know who 
believes that Bush "overturned" what Clinton did. Thanks.

Yours,

Michael Moore mmflint@aol.com

P.S. Well, a miracle of sorts happened in Texas a few weeks back. 
Michael Moore, the inmate on death row, got a last-minute reprieve! 
This never happens in that kill-happy state. Thanks to all of you 
who wrote a letter to the Texan officials. His fate is now up in the 
air.

A bill is also pending in the Texas legislature calling for a 
moratorium on executions -- and, surprisingly, it is receiving a lot of 
support. I'll keep you informed of its progress, and in the meantime, 
please write to the Texas House and Senate and demand its 
passage.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma will execute a woman later today who was 
convicted, in part, on the testimony of a police forensic expert who 
has just been found to have falsely supplied evidence in at least a 
half-dozen death row cases -- including this woman's. Some of 
those who were the victims of this forensic "expert" have already 
been put to death. It now appears they may have been innocent. 
Timothy McVeigh murdered 168 Oklahomans. Today, the people of 
Oklahoma and its governor will murder one more.