[Newspoetry] I shouldn't do this or should I shit I don't know

[Sam Markewich 2]

I'm with Mike on this.  Even as the fireworks ring in another new year
behind me as I write, I have little positive to remeber that Gore or
Clinton has done on the eve of their leaving office.  Not a week ago I
heard on Pacifica Radio of an entire indigenous people who were about to
commit mass suicide because an oil company that Gore has his hands all
over was steeling their homeland.  The company and Gore's family have
very close ties, and Gore accomplished the greatest environmentalist act
I've heard of: he gave the oil company the largest plot of U.S.
government wildlife preserve ever given away by the feds.  So, he's
giving away huge amounts of preserved land and aiding an oil company in
steeling land from and killing off an entire people.  Yet, many leftists
believe him when he says he's an environmentalist.  Clinton and Gore and
many, many other democrats not only joined with the Republicans but led
the republicans in pushing through so-called welfare reform, which has
pushed hundreds of thousands of people of color (and, yes, I know not
all poor folks are of-color) into a combination of part-time low-wage
jobs and homelessness accross the nation.  Yet, many leftists (and
unfortunately many people of color) believe Gore when he says he's got a
good record on civil rights.  Clinton and Gore spent more on the
military relative to the GNP than Regan-Bush, and they continued bombing
and killing off Iraqis for the entirety of their stay in office, as well
as bombing the living hell out of Yugoslavia in a great act of
irrational military might.  In addition, Clinton-Gore brought on three
strikes and you go to prison, and much of the prison boom, joining hands
with their republican partners in the prison industry.  Yet, many
leftists fear W. Bush more than Gore when they think about brutality. 
As Mike points out, Clinton and Gore have done an incredible amount of
avaricious and doublespeaking harm to labor, here and abroad, through
GATT and NAFTA.  Yet, many leftists (though, not as many union members)
believe Gore to be better than W. Bush when it comes to labor.  Finally,
was it not Clinton-Gore who came out with a very public and specific
message against homosexuality several years back when Clinton spelled
out that he would only consider marriage to be something between a man
and a woman?  Yet, many leftists believe Gore is like MTV when it comes
to gay/bi/lesbian rights.  Finally, Gore voted for Justice Scalia way
back when he was approved for the supreme court.  Yet, many leftists
decided that this never happened when they told us this election that if
W. Bush were elected we'd get more Justice Scalias and if Gore were
elected we wouldn't.  It's probably true that we would get pro-choice
justices under Gore.  Yet, if that's the only difference between him and
W. -- and, yes, I do consider that to be an important difference -- it
was not a conscionable option for me to vote for Gore over Nader.  It's
sad to me how much of the left shrunk from a position of second order
change to one of first order change this election when such a real
chance for the former was at hand.  Too bad that well may have made Gore
a spoiler for Nader.
Plus, I found the tone of your email to be rather pouty and juvenile,
and thus rhetorically wholey inefective if you wanted us to think about
politics rather than having the focus be on you. 

- Sam