Every Voice, Every Vote

[freetobegay]

The 2004 U.S. presidential election is just days away and unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past four years, it is obvious that our country is in trouble. While we can't blame our current president for EVERYTHING that has gone wrong, we certainly can hold him accountable for how little has been fixed since he took office.



Sure, Bill Clinton had issues. He took far too many liberties with the public's good will, and FAR too many liberties with a certain White House intern. However, I find it sad that so little notice is taken of the good things he did in office. He did wonders with the country's budget, tried his best to support human rights, and even managed to hold the war-mongering to a minimum - which is hard in a country that seems nine-tenths ruled by military (and corporate) interests.



Nearly four years later, Bush years, our country is a disaster area. Jobs are few and far between - and even a couple of college degrees aren't likely to do you all that much good. Why? Because it is cheaper for corporations, and more profitable for Republican-based special interest groups, to send our jobs overseas. One of the greatest crimes in this isn't even the lack of jobs in this country, it is what our 'American' corporations are doing to those cheaper workers overseas. These corporations, and our government, are doing nothing less than enacting economic terrorism on third world countries. American companies can pay workers less, pollute the environment more, and corrupt the governments endlessly in other countries - desecrating land and people in ways we would never allow in our own borders.



Here at home, the special interest groups, and the glutted corporations, are raping our own people - and the government supports them in doing so. Millions of Americans (including myself) are without real health care of any kind. We aren't just talking about the homeless, or the terribly poor. The self-employed, the under-employed, the part-timers and the stay-at-home moms & dads are all in the same boat. This lack of even basic healthcare is especially hard on gay families, when domestic partnership benefits are rare, and even companies who would like to provide them have to pay extra taxes (or make their workers pay them) to include gay families.

http://www.365gay.com/people/turner/102004Turner.htm