[Vision2020] A Start

Wed Nov 3 14:48:20 PST 2004

My posting was intended to smell a bit of sarcasm.  The Patriot Act that
King George wants extended and expanded may do just that.

When the local thought police confiscate your property and freedoms all in
the name of the War on Terror, you might find some solitude in remembering
what it was like when you had rights.  And when the 2,000th American soldier
is killed in Iraq as you send your son or daughter to fight and die in Iran,
perhaps then you will question King George's motives.  And when you find
yourself deciding between refilling your medical prescriptions or buying
groceries for the next week or two, maybe socialized medicine will not sound
so bad.  Maybe you will also remember when integrity was commonplace in the
White House and not merely something talked about on election day.

One thing that King George lost sight of is that tomorrow is always more
important than today.

Until then take care and keep your powder dry,

Tom Hansen

We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are
dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all
exist very nicely in the same box. 

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From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Melynda Huskey
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 2:19 PM
To: Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] A Start

Tom and Carl and Dick, and the various folks they've quoted, all suggest
that we need to find common ground, allow the President to lead us, get
ourselves together.  For some people, maybe that's possible.  For me,
looking at 11 successful anti-gay initiatives around the country supported
by a President who wants the U.S. Constitution amended to harm my family,
it's hard to imagine how that might work.  The President, and most of his
supporters, have made it painfully clear that they don't want me, and Joan,
and our kids, and the other millions of gay and lesbian citizens and their
families, in their world.  In fact, they used those anti-gay initiatives as
a way to turn out voters  Gay and lesbian families were demonized to get
white Evangelical voters to the polls.  Is it surprising that we're not too
eager to get in line behind the men who sold us down the river?

Luckily, I'm not discouraged.  We're not going anywhere.  This is my
hometown, even when it descends into a nightmarish imitation of national
hatemongering and dirty tricks--and what a pitiful spectacle, to see Barrett
Schroeder, whom I have met with pleasure at a local Republican fundraiser
after helping his dad beat back a weirdo challenger in the primary, accusing
Shirley Ringo of evil attendance policies, or Tom Trail, for whom I have had
a great deal of respect, hawking his Christianity as a qualification for
public office.  How awful to know that someone tried to discredit the MCA by
making threatening phone calls apparently on its behalf.  This *is* my
country, whether it wants me or not.  And pretty soon, when our Middle
Eastern wars claim the lives of too many U.S. men and women, when more of us
are poorer than ever before, when Social Security is gone, our national debt
is unimaginably large, and we're divided by class, by race, by religion, by
language, by sexual orientation . . . something *will* change.

I can wait.  And in the meantime, I can try to clean up Moscow a little, and
see if we can't get some hungry people fed, some poor people clothed, and
some freedom proclaimed to the captives here and abroad.

Melynda Huskey

----- Original Message -----

From: Tom Hansen

Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 12:47 PM

To: vision2020 at moscow.com

Subject: [Vision2020] A Start

You are absolutely correct, Carl.  We must look to tomorrow as a united
people.  If President Bush is true to his word, he will find a common ground
for both liberals and conservatives.  This country desperately needs someone
to provide solidarity not in spite of our differences, but because of them.
It has always been the case that our differences are what makes this country
strong.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not suggesting a national "group hug", merely an
understanding by each of us that those attributes that divide us should be
fostered into a bond that unites us.

Simply put, you cannot unite the whole by segregating its parts.  In the
interim though, keep your powder dry.

Take care,

Tom Hansen

A good friend will come and bail you out of jail.  But a true friend will be
sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"

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