[Peace-discuss] Re:reply to Kerry fundraising letter

[Chuck Minne]

What a fabulous, fabulous letter! Can you send it to various papers and get it run as an opinion piece?

Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> wrote:[I recently received an appeal for funds from John
Kerry For President Inc., as I suppose did many of
you. At Sunday's meeting we discussed communicating
our positions to the Kerry campaign, so I thought I'd
share my response, below. I'd be interested in any
thoughts anyone has. - Ricky]

Dear John Kerry:

I received your fundraising letter the other day,
saying you’d “fight for every vote,” and asking for
money. So I’m writing to let you know what it would
take for you to win my money and my vote.

Your letter is pretty vague about why I should vote
for you -- as is your campaign. It’s mostly about
voting against George W. Bush, and maybe you think
that’s enough. But some of us expect better. I for
one want to vote against what Bush represents -- not
just against the man -- and I’m not sure that you’re
giving me that chance.

First, your letter cites Bush’s “inept, reckless
foreign policy.” But you’ve agreed with him on every
major policy decision along the way. You voted for
the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. You said, “I
believe we must always have a preemptive right” to
first strike, which is illegal under the UN Charter. 
You have agreed with the vicious and illegal Israeli
policies toward occupied Palestinian lands, blaming
the Palestinians for Israel‘s refusal to abide by UN
Resolutions calling for Israeli withdrawal. You were
right behind Bush in condemning the US abuse of Iraqi
POWs -- and rightly so -- but you also joined Bush in
declaring the problem to be of limited scope, limited
to a few “bad apples”, and not the pattern of abuse
stretching back to Vietnam that the evidence shows
(and you once seemed to know). I'd like to see a
reversal of these positions.

You also voted for the “USA PATRIOT Act”, the “Visa
Entry Reform Act” and other draconian legislation,
much of which was on the Republican wish list for
years. You seem to agree with the President that the
only way to protect our lives is to trash the
Constitution, the same document you would have to
swear to defend if you’re elected, just the opposite of
what I look for in a candidate.

True, as you say, millions live in fear of losing
jobs, healthcare, pensions, etc. But so far you
haven’t shown that you would fix any of that. These
are not academic issues to many of us who have not had
the benefit of your personal wealth. My family has
experienced unemployment, loss of healthcare and other
benefits, underfunded education, children raised in
poverty and abortions out of desperation. My mother,
who recently suffered a major heart attack as well as
gall bladder surgery, may be about to lose her
healthcare. These are issues I personally, along with
millions of other Americans, need to see addressed in
reality not just rhetoric. You say you want to
replace “doubt with hope,” “fear with security,” and
“broken promises with a real plan.” But mostly what I
see coming out of your campaign so far are doubt, fear
and not much of a plan.

On jobs, you called the idea of pulling out of NAFTA
and the WTO “disastrous,” even though these kind of
so-called “free trade” agreements are in fact draining
off US jobs at a “disastrous” rate, not to mention the
devastating effect on neighboring economies. You
haven’t promised to stand behind unions when their
employers lock them out or permanently replace
strikers, to my knowledge. You haven’t come out in
favor of penalties or other consequences for
corporations that “cut and run” from communities that
have subsidized them for years, leaving unemployment,
poverty and despair in their wake. (They could pay
the money back, for example.)

On healthcare, you haven’t spoken in favor of a
single-payer plan, of the kind that eliminated the
problem of the uninsured in Canada, or national health
as they have in England. My wife is from England,
and, sure, they complain about the national health,
but when they learn how America’s system works (or
doesn’t work) they can’t believe their ears. To them,
no civilized country would tolerate the US healthcare
system. In Canada, too, their healthcare system is
the single favorite government program of all time,
and it works. That’s why so many Americans now are
crossing in Canada to buy their drugs. As far as I
know you haven’t spoken out in favor of “free trade“
in pharmaceuticals, however.

And I’m not clear at all on what you plan to do to
save pensions, or Social Security, from the common
theft of bosses and government budget policies. I
know you voted against the Republican “lockbox” bill,
but I haven’t seen your “real plan” to protect either
of these.

I’m very glad that you oppose school vouchers and
support abortion rights, which does distinguish you
from the President. But you seem vague on these
points, too, at least to me. The basic problem with
education funding now is that most public schools are
funded by property taxes, so the poorest kids get the
poorest education. The current problems with abortion
rights, too, are mostly economic. Federal funds pay
for many medical procedures, but not abortion or
proper reproductive counseling. On the other hand,
many women feel driven to have abortions because of
the prohibitive costs of day care, or because they are
forced to work by Clinton-era welfare cuts. I haven’t
heard you offer to help with these problems.

Your letter asks for my help in waging “a campaign in
which we stand up for what we believe in” -- but what
do you stand for? You mention “our cause,” but you
don’t seem to have one -- except getting elected. If
I’m wrong, I apologize, but your campaign seemed to
start off center-right, and since you had sewed up the
nomination you have jogged further right. We don’t
need another Republican in the White House, Mr. Kerry;
that’s supposedly why we have the Democrats. You need
to offer us a genuine alternative if you want to
inspire us to turn out and vote for you, much less
work on your campaign or give you money.

Maybe you will win despite the problems I point out,
and nobody would be happier than I would be to see
George W. Bush’s policies repudiated. I’m just not
clear that voting for you, or sending you money,
represents that kind of repudiation.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your
reply.

Sincerely,
Ricky Baldwin





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