Just bush: Part 1

Ever since George Bush got into office I was against him. Let me correct that. Ever since I learned he was running for president I was against him. I remember being in the politics chat in Yahoo telling people George Bush's state had the 2nd highest number of state sanctioned capital punishments in the world followed by CHINA. Back then I didn't add these fancy links that back up what I say.

Back then the president was arrogant enough to say "I'm confident, that every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts." Even when gross inadequacies in the trials of those convicted were shown to the man he replied "We've adequately answered innocence or guilt". (Answers like these would foreshadow his attitude in the future when he believed he had done everything adequately before wiretapping U.S. citizens, torturing prisoners in Abu Graib and attacking a country under false assumptions.) Yes, this president deals with inadequacies in the same way an absent-minded teenager deals with a minimum wage job.

But most of America doesn't appear to care about the murders occurring in the industrial prison complex. Americans manage to shrug off the the possibility of innocence and continue supporting the death penalty. So at the time I thought I could use shock value.

George Bush has never really been an "environment man". He truly does look out for the interests of large companies (or the friends that own them). For at least a decade during Bush's reign as governor of Texas there were babies being born without brains in the Rio Grande Valley. Along the U.S. Mexican border the rate of babies born with anencephaly can be anywhere from 2 to 8 times the nation-wide rate each year and tends to be higher than rates in many third world countries. The $3-$4 million dollars spent on researching this phenomena makes you wonder how much the businesses Bush supported in Texas are getting. Just as the Bush administration argues global warming doesn't exist he argued the increase in businesses (businesses that were largely not held accountable for the toxic waste they exported) would help environmental conditions. You increase industrial activity and population and pollution decreases. Go figure.

So no one listened to that. Then I remember personally talking to someone from Florida. (I didn't know it would be the problem it turned out to be at the time. I thought it would be close at the time I was talking about it but I didn't think they'd be subtracting votes and acting like the state was theirs from the get-go) This person from Florida personally told me their vote would not count. This person was not a convicted felon, didn't err in registering and probably could have made it to the booth (all three things that disenfranchised thousands of voters). This was a democrat who just said "I'm not voting", a youth. I'm a youth too and it pains me to speak to another who doesn't care. No, I can't say it truly pains me. It angers me that I can't be empathetic with their position. If not for ethical reasons I'd bust someone upside the head when they tell me they're not voting when they are able.

So I had my dose of pre-election fire. I remember printing out "Vote Gore" several times on sheets of paper and placing those pieces of paper across the country during a road trip. Fun times. Alas, Gore did not win. My first time being more than superficially involved with the upcoming election turned out to be a bust. I actually couldn't believe it. My family had been watching the television until we saw Gore win Florida. Then we went to the voting booth (this was in California). After we came back home (which didn't take more than 15 minute) Gore had some how lost control of the state. Talk about surreal.