The loudest mantra of the 2004 Elections, so far, has been, "Anyone But Bush." This attitude is easy to understand. The current administration has been one of the worst in American history, leading "US" into a permanent war against the world, lying to us about the reasons, and letting our economy and civil rights plummet. However, the "Anyone But Bush" mentality, while understandable, may pose the largest threat to America's ability to change course. It has, in fact, not been "Bush" the man or personality that has led our country to such turmoil, but the POLICIES of the administration that have been so disastrous. So begs the question - are we really ready to get behind a Democratic candidate that doesn't have major policy differences with the incumbent? While John Kerry consistently rallies enthusiastic crowds with anti-Bush rhetoric, he has consistently refused to advocate plans that would change the country's overall direction.

Some food for thought; Kerry AGREE's with Bush on the following major positions:

1. The United States should continue the occupation of Iraq, remaining in control of Iraqi oil, reconstruction contracts, the privatization of the Iraqi economy, and control over the Iraqi political process. They reject Congressmen Kucinich's Plan to Bring the Troops Home kucinich.us/bringourtroopshome.php
Furthermore, Kerry is guilty of supporting the baseless claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that Bush was using to create a climate of fear and a pretext for war.
www.kucinich.us/pressreleases/pr_012504.php

2. The United States should remain in NAFTA and the WTO, two trade agreements that allow international corporations to move American jobs overseas to exploit cheap labor and low environmental standards. www.kucinich.us/pressreleases/pr_022604.php

3. The United States should continue to be the only major industrialized country in the world that doesn't have Universal Single-Payer Health Care for all its citizens. Kerry will continue the For-Profit Health Care System that makes its money by NOT delivering the full coverage that people need.
www.kucinich.us/issues/universalhealth.php

4. The United States should continue to spend billions and billions of additional taxpayer dollars to fight aggressive wars, occupy countries, and develop more excessive weapons technology, including
more nuclear weapons and putting weapons in space. Kerry has refused to join Kucinich in the effort to cut the bloated Pentagon budget 15% to provide child care and free public education, Kindergarten through College.
www.kucinich.us/issues/militaryspending.php

There are clear problems with a John Kerry Democratic ticket. Now that Ralph Nader is in the race, the Democrats face the same outcome
as the 2000 elections when many said Nader's third party candidacy cost them the key votes in Florida. And when people that are against the war see that Kerry voted for the it, supported WMD claims, supports sending another 40,000 troops to fuel the occupation, and has no clear exit strategy, they are going to be very disturbed that they have to choose between “this guy” and Mr.Bush. Further, they are going to learn that Kerry has endorsed a leftist policy doctrine that supports increased military interventionism just like the Neo-Conservatives that planned the war on Iraq prior to 9-11. counterpunch.org/hand02182004.html And, to make things worse, Kerry and Bush belong to the same secret society that traces both men back to their days at Yale. Both Kerry and Bush remain active members in an elite power club that neither of them are allowed to talk about.
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0122-10.htm

Americans should be alarmed by this information. Americans should be alarmed by the way that Dennis Kucinich has been laughed off in this election process as a "no chance long shot," because his ideas for this country are so "radical." How have we come to think that getting out of a war, that we started based on lies, is "radical?" How is sticking up for American jobs over corporate profits and international trade suddenly "radical?" How are plans to provide every American with quality Health Care and Education "radical?" Who is controlling the word "radical" here?

Regardless of what anyone says about electablity, polls, endorsements, money, or any other numerical computerized and media manipulated methods of determining who our next President should be, a vote for Dennis Kucinich on the 16th is a vote for hope, a vote for the possibility of a better future, a vote for truth telling and integrity, a vote for peace and sustainability, a vote for the new rising social consciousness in America,... a vote for human NEED over corporate GREED.

Please join our movement kucinich.us/VolunteerAction/

This thing is far from over. We are in it all the way to the Democratic Convention (July) where we will either win the nomination or play a major role in deciding the party's platform. We will continue to insist that America end its occupation of Iraq by bringing in UN peacekeepers and handing over control of the Iraqi economy and government. We will continue to insist that the US take a new leading role in international trade so that workers rights and the environment come before corporate profits. We will continue to insist that the Democratic Party take up the goal of Universal Single-Payer Health Care and fully funded public education for all.

Dennis is the right leader at the right time to guide our nation down a new prosperous path. The question is: "How much change are you ready for?"

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WHY KERRY ISN'T THE MAN TO BEAT BUSH
www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=14027057_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-WHY-KERRY-ISN-T-THE-MAN-TO-BEAT-BUSH-name_page.html

2004: Choose Your Favorite Pro-War Candidate
by John Pilger
www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php

If Kerry's the Answer, What's the Question?
counterpunch.org/blum03022004.html

"Progressives Should Vote Kucinich"
www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml

Corvus World Videos - Kucinich Archive
www.corvusworld.com/kdsl.htm

"Odd Man In
Dennis Kucinich is nobody's fool."
www.nypress.com/17/8/news&columns/cage.cfm

Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa?
counterpunch.org/lewis03062004.html

Top Ten Responses To -- "I Love Kucinich But He Can't Win"
www.commondreams.org/views04/0126-06.htm

Music Video for "We're Not Locked In"
resources.kucinich.us/video/video/new_video/We%
27re_not_locked_in.rmvb

Inside John Kerry's Closet
www.counterpunch.org/donnelly02092004.html

Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry
www.usvetdsp.com/jf_kerry.htm

THE SKULL AND BONES
OF GEORGE BUSH AND JOHN KERRY
www.etherzone.com/2004/moor020604.shtml

John Kerry admits to Skull and Bones Membership on 'Meet The Press'
www.prisonplanet.com/010104kerryadmits.html

Kerried Away
The myth and math of Kerry's electability
slate.msn.com/id/2095311/
*************************************************

Kerry, Too, Needs to Clean the Air
By Scott Ritter (Former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq)
Newsday

On April 23, 1971, a 27-year-old Navy veteran named John Kerry sat before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and chided members on their leadership failures regarding the war in Vietnam.

"Where is the leadership?" Kerry, a decorated hero who had proved his courage under fire, demanded of the senators. "Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned?" Kerry lambasted those who had pushed so strongly for war in Vietnam. "These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude."

Today, on the issue of the war in Iraq, it is John Kerry who is all pious rectitude.

"I think the administration owes the entire country a full explanation on this war—not just their exaggerations but on the failure of American intelligence," Kerry said following the stunning announcement by David Kay, the Bush administration's former lead investigator in Iraq, that "we were all wrong" about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in that country. The problem for Sen. Kerry, of course, is that he, too, is culpable in the massive breach of public trust that has come to light regarding Iraq, WMD and the rush to war.

Almost 30 years after his appearance before the Senate, Sen. Kerry was given the opportunity to make good on his promises that he had learned the lessons of Vietnam. During a visit to Washington in April 2000, when I lobbied senators and representatives for a full review of American policy regarding Iraq, I spoke with John Kerry about what I held to be the hyped-up intelligence regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD. "Put it in writing," Kerry told me, "and send it to me so I can review what you're saying in detail."

I did just that, penning a comprehensive article for Arms Control Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association, on the "Case for the Qualitative Disarmament of Iraq." This article, published in June 2000, provided a detailed breakdown of Iraq's WMD capability and made a comprehensive case that Iraq did not pose an imminent threat. I asked the Arms Control Association to send several copies to Sen.
Kerry's office but, just to make sure, I sent him one myself. I never heard back from the senator.

Two years later, in the buildup toward war that took place in the summer of 2002, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Kerry sits, convened a hearing on Iraq. At that hearing a parade of witnesses appeared, testifying to the existence of WMD in Iraq. Featured prominently was Khidir Hamza, the self-proclaimed "bombmaker to Saddam," who gave stirring first-hand testimony to the existence
of not only nuclear weapons capability, but also chemical and biological weapons as well. Every word of Hamza's testimony has since been proved false. Despite receiving thousands of phone calls, letters and e-mails demanding that dissenting expert opinion, including my own, be aired at the hearing, Sen. Kerry apparently did nothing, allowing a sham hearing to conclude with the finding that there was "no doubt" Saddam Hussein had WMD.

Sen. Kerry followed up this performance in October 2002 by voting for the war in Iraq. Today he justifies that vote by noting that he only approved the "threat of war," and that the blame for Iraq rests with President George W. Bush, who failed to assemble adequate international support for the war. But this explanation rings hollow in the face of David Kay's findings that there are no WMD in Iraq. With the stated casus belli shown to be false, John Kerry needs to better explain his role not only in propelling our nation into a war that is rapidly devolving into a quagmire, but more importantly, his perpetuation of the falsehoods that got us there to begin with.

President Bush should rightly be held accountable for what increasingly appears to be deliberately misleading statements made by him and members of his administration regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD. If such deception took place, then Bush no longer deserves the trust and confidence of the American people.

But John Kerry seems to share in this culpability, and if he wants to be the next president of the United States, he must first convince the American people that his actions somehow differ from those of the man he seeks to replace.

"Where is the leadership?" John Kerry asked more than 30 years ago, questioning a war that consumed life, money and national honor. Today this question still hangs in the air, haunting a former Navy combat veteran who needs to convince a skeptical nation that he not only has a plan to get America out of Iraq, but also possesses the leadership skills needed to avoid future ill-advised adventures.

- Scott Ritter, former UN chief inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998, is the author of Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America. This article was previously published in Newsday.


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