Reply #10: What counts? [View All]

[punpirate]

What really counts?

Talk? Or the vote?

It's as simple as that. I don't give Kerry points for doing the wrong thing and then having misgivings later, when he had the opportunity to avoid the more catastrophic course. Everyone who voted for the IWR had the opportunity to avoid the more catastrophic course of action and did not. If you will remember, there were international inspectors in the country who were saying that the Bushies were wrong.

There was good evidence before and after that vote to suggest it was a put-up job by the Bushies.

Here's what I conceive of as the bottom line--too many representatives were afraid to vote against Bush for fear of their political careers, despite the evidence. That is a function of the militarism which has infected this country. Many of us here knew that the Bush program to promote the war was propaganda, and that the bases for their propaganda were suspect on the evidence.

When war is promoted by an administration, healthy skepticism, not fear of an electorate whipped up by the propaganda of that administration, should be the guiding principle. In this case, it was not.

But, ultimately, votes count. Period. Words are mutable and interpretable. Votes are not. They are absolute. There are people in this Congress who believe they can undo their unwise actions with words. They cannot. There are many people who have died because of their unwise actions--their votes.

Cheers.