[Peace-discuss] Another View: By JOHN EISENHOWER

[Lisa Chason]

send this to Republicans you know.
 
Another View: 
 
Why I will vote for John Kerry for President ~ By JOHN EISENHOWER 
 
THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 
2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation.
The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the
same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or whether it will
return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have
been at the heart of what has made this country great. 
 
Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments,
unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote
as our parents did or as we "always have." We remained loyal to party
labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are
times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of
them. 
 
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is
automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years,
through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration's
decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter
registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen
development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate,
Sen. John Kerry. 
 
The fact is that today's "Republican" Party is one with which I am
totally unfamiliar. To me, the word "Republican" has always been
synonymous with the word "responsibility," which has meant limiting our
governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial
terms. Today's whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not
meet that criterion. 
 
Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant
respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the
community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a
maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it.
Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not
viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent
developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has
confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance. 
 
In the Middle East crisis of 1991, President George H.W. Bush marshaled
world opinion through the United Nations before employing military force
to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Through negotiation he arranged for
the action to be financed by all the industrialized nations, not just
the United States. When Kuwait had been freed, President George H. W.
Bush stayed within the United Nations mandate, aware of the dangers of
occupying an entire nation. 
 
Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual
freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must
fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? I
wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention,
"If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above
principle, we shall lose both." I would appreciate hearing such warnings
from the Republican Party of today. 
 
The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal
responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state
of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration
accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in
office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes
for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party
accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation's financial
structure sound. 
 
The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and
small business. Today's Republican leadership, while not solely
accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax
code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very
poor. 
 
Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated
that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the
dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country.
I will vote for him enthusiastically. 
 
I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in
this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone,
Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely
because it carries the label of the party of one's parents or of our own
ingrained habits. 
 
********************************* 
 
~ John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, served on the
White House staff between October 1958 and the end of the Eisenhower
administration. From 1961 to 1964 he assisted his father in writing "The
White House Years," his Presidential memoirs. He served as American
ambassador to Belgium between 1969 and 1971. He is the author of nine
books, largely on military subjects.
 
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