<HTML><BODY STYLE="font:10pt verdana; border:none;"><DIV>Dan writes:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"Look at it another way, Carl. I don't remember what the score was at<BR>the last superbowl, But I know the Patriots won. Nor do I remember the<BR>scores of any of the games of the world series, but I do know the Red<BR>Sox won . . . A win is a win."</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><BR>Here's the problem with your analogy Dan: when the Patriots win, Green Bay fans like myself are not obliged to take off our cheese hats and step in line behind a "Patriot Mandate." Sports wins and political wins are not the same thing. I can live with the Patriots as Superbowl champs; it has no effect on my daily life. I cannot live with Mr. Bush's plans to privatize part of Social Security; I can't live with his poor planning and execution of the war in Iraq; I can't live with his erosion of the wall between church and state, his tax cuts for the wealthy, his abstinence-only sex education, his radical judicial nominees, his gay-bashing, Jerry Falwell-pleasing social policies, or with the massive federal budget deficit that my children's children will be struggling to pay off in twenty and thirty and forty years time.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A win is a win in football or baseball, but winning in politics by .8% means that you need to compromise with the 56 million who think your agenda is basically a load of codswollop. If I don't want to look at the stinkin' Patriots, I can switch off my TV set and pretend I'm eating cheddar with the good guys in Wisconsin. If I don't like what Mr. Bush has planned for my country and my future, then I have to fight him as best I can by joining forces with that half of the country who did <STRONG><U>not</U></STRONG> vote for him. I have to remind him every minute of every day what Woody Guthrie sang not so long ago:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This land is my land,</DIV> <DIV>This land is your land,</DIV> <DIV>From California to the New York Island.</DIV> <DIV>From the Redwood forests</DIV> <DIV>To the Gulf Stream waters</DIV> <DIV>This land was made for you <U><STRONG>and</STRONG></U> me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Come on, Dan -- sing it with me! </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Of course, when I was a kid on the school bus, we used to sing: "This land is my land, it is not your land. I've got a shotgun, and you ain't got one. If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off. This land was made for me not you." Say, do you think George W. and I rode the same bus??</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment <BR><BR><BR><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML><br clear=all><hr>Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : <a href='http://explorer.msn.com'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>