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- G e n d e r G a p p e r s T M
HERE COME THE JUDGES!
| It takes 60 Senators to bring each Bush proposal to the floor. Now
is the time for us to demand that our Democratic Senators stiffen up their
spines. They've played the cooperation game with the Bushies and got
sucker punched. We must never give up and we must not let them. The Earth
is in balance.
Sure, "there is trouble in Capital City." Look for at least a couple of the Supremes to quit so the rest of the Bush government can appoint, advise and consent anti-women's choice Supreme Court judges. Ditto for other judicial appointments that will have a lasting impact on our human rights. And here come the assaults on the environment of the whole world. Alaska will sprout oil wells instead of stately pines. Factories will toss away the anti-polluting restrictions and vie with each other to produce the blackest smoke as the Clean Air Act goes down the tubes. Here in Vermont, more maple trees will die and more frogs will mutate as the prevailing West to East winds blows the black pall over us and much of Canada. Forget any cooperation on environmental concerns with the rest of the world. Now the boy emperor has his mandate for war and the oil well fires will pollute the earth and air in Europe. Just take a look at Texas to see our future because it was there that Bush began giving corporations the right to pollute and it continues to show the scars. Abroad, third-world women can expect no "Christian" charity through the United Nations from this regime as it has already demonstrated. The Bushies have been successful at what they intended from the beginning -- they marginalized women by continually beating the war drums because they recognized we were the only constituency that could beat them.
We can expect that several congressional investigations will go nowhere. The administration's responsibility for 9/11 will be buried in the same plush and shinny coffin as corporate crimes, both crowned with the "lazy-E" symbol of Enron. Are we discouraged? Not a bit. There were many of us all over the Internet who spoke out to women and warned them of what could happen. Many of these women paid little attention. They couldn't be bothered to take their attention away from themselves long enough to vote. These women bought the lie repeated over and over by the media, that women's issues were nothing but "special interests" and their fears marched in time with the beating war drums. The Gender Gap widened as these very war drums attracted male voters, who mostly voted Republican, while fewer women voted Democratic. Did the elections give the Bushies a mandate as the Republicans claim? Absolutely not as the voting was very nearly 20:20! About 20% of the ballots cast went for the Republicans and slightly less to Democrats. A whopping majority of nearly 60% didn't give a damn and stayed home -- many of these were women who could have made all the difference. But now they face the consequences along with all of us. We will have much to learn and much to bear but there have been those in history who have borne up against far greater horrors.
The ramifications of this election's result may very well be our own Dunkirk. 2002-047
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We
can expect little help for the oppressed in our society. Programs to
help single mothers and battered women will go the way of the Dodo bird.
Only wealthy seniors will benefit from any selective Republican Medicare
bills passed. Poor seniors will be expected to turn their faces to the
wall and die quietly.
