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No beer with Bush

Well, maybe I've been guilty of underrating President Bush. It seems that, despite his many attacks on American values, he's still judged by white male Americans as being a strong and a pleasant fellow they'd like to have a few beers with. Maybe I've been missing something?

Never mind the tax cuts engineered by Bush and his cronies to reward his rich campaign contributors. Just because Bush is out of touch with poor and middle class Americans doesn't mean he doesn't care. It just means that his caring is directly related to the amount of money given to his campaigns.

And never mind the matter of corporate fraud. We're not talking about small change here. Trillions of dollars robbed from corporate employee pension plans and from Uncle Sam through tax fraud. I imagine that what's hit the corporate media (Enron, et al) is just the tip of the iceberg. Noteworthy are the thousands of offshore corporations and tax shelters set up expressly to rob and steal. But hey, our boy George stands foursquare behind deregulation, allowing more of the same.

Finally, there's George's heroic wartime exploits in the Texas National Guard. Seems like there aren't enough neocon flunkies to spin that one. It's ironic (or worse) to see hundreds of our young people killed and billions of our tax dollars spent on a war started by one who's never seen combat.

Do I think he's a strong and pleasant guy that I'd like to have a beer with? Not likely.

Howard Pellett

What about environment?

It's not surprising President Bush said not a word about the environment during his State of the Union speech in January. After all, he's supported widespread logging, drilling, mining... and that's just for a start. He's declared war on the environment, but it's a silent war. What was extremely disturbing was that neither National Public Radio commentators or Democratic leaders said anything about the environment either.

Senator Tom Daschle and Representative Nancy Pelosi, in the Democratic rebuttal, were far more concerned with questions of national security and economy than of the environment.

What about us? Senator Daschle asked about small-town residents who want more jobs. I would ask that same question about dozens of species facing habitat destruction and genocide. The Bush administration's refusal to allocate anywhere near enough money to environmental agencies, particularly the Fish and Wildlife Service, is crippling their ability to defend animals on the endangered species list, if those species even make it onto the list at all.

Daschle also talked about the need for every child to go to a good school. But what about the need of every child to breathe? Asthma in children is reaching epidemic proportions, thanks in no small part to the EPA's retraction of "new source review." Now, according to a study by ABT Associates, the 51 coal-fired power plants that were in process of being prosecuted under new source review--and have now been entirely let off the hook--kill 5,000 to 9,000 people and cause hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks every year.

Everyone--President Bush, the Democratic candidates and the commentators--talked about what the American people want. And of course, we do want lower taxes and better health care and education and more jobs and freedom from fear. But we also want a clean environment. It's about time we let our government know that. We need to call our leaders, or write, or email, and demand that they fight the war for the environment as well as the war on terror.

Laurel Eddy