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Reflections of Ken Towery
What Do We Do Next: Some thoughts on the Bush-Kerry race. Sometime ago we wrote a column in which we worried about who to vote for in the upcoming election, and, for that moment at least, opted out. We still have the qualms we exhibited then, but many things have forced us to come down on one side or the other. It's not just the proximity of the election. We've known the election is coming, and that we would be expected to make a choice, as all good citizens are. But nagging doubts persisted, and still persist. In the comments that follow, we have reflected on some of those concerns, and, perhaps, explained why we have come down on the side we have. Regular readers of this column may recognize some of the arguments, even some of the words. Some of it may sound a little trite. We go down to vote, knowing that we are, or sometimes feeling that we are, throwing away one of the most sacred rights we have. Many, many citizens of our Republic have laid down their lives in various wars so we may, if we choose, select our own leaders Sometimes we choose unwisely. Sometimes rightly for the wrong reasons. Sometimes wrongly for all the right reasons, or what we think are the right reasons. In some ways it's a crap shoot. We vote for whom we think will do the best job of fulfilling our wishes, and perhaps our dreams, and in the end are sorely disappointed. We have never been, and we are not now, in that camp with people who hypocritically urge others to "go down and vote", even if they don't know who they are voting for or why they are voting. The vote of any citizen is too precious to waste on an uninformed vote. The "why" of our vote is easy to determine. We've recently gone through another memorial day, in which we pay tribute to those who fell in various wars so we could vote if we wanted to, and we've just gone through another July 4th Independence Day celebration, so we can be reminded of the reasons we have to make that choice. But who to vote for is another thing. Who, in other words, will fulfill the promise of the "why." Quite frankly, we have long been of mixed minds about the upcoming elections, as far as the Presidency is concerned. We have spent a lifetime trying to give folks a choice, or at least more of a choice than they had when the only choice they had was when the Democratic Party presented them with a list of candidates to vote for. And, if voters didn't vote the way they were supposed to, in some cases their votes were cast for them. South Texas during the days of LBJ testify to that. Anyone who doubts that can go read up on George Parr. We remember too well the days when trucks would come into the cotton fields of Willacy County where we were working and load up the "hands" to go into Raymondville to cast their votes as they were instructed. (In those days the election process began in the heat of Summer).Their "poll taxes" had been paid, they had been registered, and now it was time to deliver. After which, when the polls closed, they got a beer, or two, or three to help celebrate the victory that had been preordained. All those things are etched in our memory. In company with a lot of other people, we have tried, and have been modestly successful in creating an atmosphere in which a little more choice is available. Now we have more choices, but the decision is no less difficult. In fact, if anything, it is more difficult. Still, it would ill behoove us to finally opt out of an election, simply because we have problems. On the national level, our choice is not as simple as it looks. (And, we will say before we go further, that this column, like all our columns, is a matter of personal opinion. It is labeled as such, and, we hope, read as such.)
On the one hand, we now have a sitting President, George W. Bush, for whom we voted, for whom we worked, but with whom we have been exceedingly unhappy. We regard his foreign policy in the Mid-East as being a complete disaster, in thrall to the state of Israel, without any coherent aim of its own, other than the open pursuit of support among American Jewery and its allies among the followers of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. For those who voted for George W. Bush thinking they would see a wise use of American foreign power, it is bound to be a disappointment. We regard his immigration policies (we use the plural, because we can't figure out exactly what his single immigration policy is, if he has one) to be a disaster in all respects save one…politics…and even in the world of politics, we can't understand it, or them. Even the Mexican-Americans in this country…the ones who can vote, and do vote…do not approve of unlimited immigration. They have made that plain in survey after survey. In the absence of genuine political advantage on the part of the President, we must look elsewhere for his reasons for fashioning his immigration policy in the manner it has been fashioned. We see none, save perhaps the international finance community, none of whom work for a living. At bottom, we cannot escape the feeling that the sitting President, George W. Bush, was in a psychological war with his own father during his formative years, not at all unlike many others of his generation, That psychological war, which could well be called a generational war, in our opinion guides many of his actions today. On the other hand, we have a Democratic standard bearer in John Forbes Kerry, whom we regard as a complete fraud, from beginning to end. When it suits his political needs he can be either for the people in uniform, or he can be against them, calling them a bunch of sadistic murderers, men who burned Vietnamese villages just for fun. He can (and does) throw away medals supposedly awarded him for service in Vietnam, or he can (and does) wear them, ostensibly proudly, when the occasion demands. In other words, he can, and does, preach (and vote) that the earth is either flat or round, depending on the political winds of the moment. In short, John Kerry simply cannot be trusted. He is perfectly capable of bragging about throwing away whatever medals he got under whatever circumstances that either existed or were caused to exist, or bragging about those same medals when it is politically beneficial to do so. He is perfectly capable of voting to send troops into Iraq,(which he did) and voting to deny them arms and ammunition (which he did) a move that, had his side prevailed, could well have resulted in nothing but mass suicide for American troops, courtesy of John Kerry and his friends. He is perfectly capable of criticizing the President's Middle East policy, but when pinned down on the subject, says he would have done the same…"only better", whatever that means. Kerry is a Roman Catholic who brags about his Jewish ancestry. Indeed, it is difficult to say exactly what he believes, or where he stands in the way of beliefs. With an eye toward the influential Jewish vote in the United States, he sends his brother, who is Jewish, to Israel to assure them that they have nothing to fear if he should be elected President of the United States. At the same time, he sends his Roman Catholic sister to heavily Roman Catholic Mexico to urge Mexican-Americans to stay on the reservation. The list of differences and similarities goes on. In sum, we suppose it illustrates the dilemma constantly posed by our electoral process. Is it better to have a principled person in office who has the authority to commit American troops to battle, even though he, or she, sometimes makes stupid decisions, (like George W. Bush) or is it better to have in that office a slippery, untrustworthy liar (like Bill Clinton) even though he may make better decisions on certain things, and even if he can't explain what the word "is" means. It is a question each voter will have to consider and decide on. Who best fits what the voter decides will be best for the country? After much soul searching, we have made our own decision. We offer it to let our readers know how we feel about the situation, not necessarily as a guide to their own voting. We do not see any way we could ever vote for John F. Kerry, simply because we would see that as an endorsement of his stupid, baseless, charges against American servicemen in Vietnam, servicemen who were responding to directions given them by officers like John Kerry. We would see it as an endorsement of his insincere, braggadocio attitude with regards to those awards given him, under whatever circumstance, in the course of his exceedingly short, but highly productive, stay in Vietnam. So we have decided we will vote for George W. Bush, despite all the problems we have with him. For every problem we have with George W. Bush, we have similar problems with John F. Kerry, plus a few extra. It's a terrible way to make a decision on how to cast ones vote, but it's the best we can do under the circumstances. Oh, if only Laura was one of the nominees.
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