> 
> 
>     I Need a President - Again 
>     By John Cory 
>     t r u t h o u t | Perspective     Tuesday 26 October 2004     I first 
> wrote "I Need a President" during the disastrous end of the 2000 Election. I 
> ended my piece with these words: "Yes, I need a president. But I must wait for 
> now."     The time of waiting is over.     I need a President who does not 
> believe in suppressing votes as he clings to a warped sense of his own 
> entitlement to power. I need a President who does not fear the voice of the people. 
> Not the President of a sanitized America-by-invitation-only, but a President 
> of the people, by the people, and for the people.     I need a President who 
> recognizes that America is a member of the world community and not its master. 
> I need a President who faces the world with a welcoming hand, not a closed 
> fist. A man who embraces questions, and not the coercive rule of unchallenged 
> reign.     I need a President who believes science is a tool for healing and 
> not just a profitable device for the creation of Smart Bombs and Weapons of 
> Mass Destruction. I need a President who sees that stem cell research benefits 
> not only the diseased but also the soldiers with spinal cord wounds and 
> brain trauma inflicted in their service to America.     I need a President for 
> whom "liberal education" is not a partisan pejorative but rather the 
> old-fashioned definition of a balanced and well-rounded education, an education not of 
> political bent, but of the beauty and diversity of life's great treasures. I 
> need a President who sees education as a right, and not a privilege only for 
> those who can afford to buy knowledge.     I need a President whose 
> environmental policy is not only for the wilderness, but also applies to the 
> workplace.     I need a President who understands that family health should never be 
> dependent on family wealth.     I need a President who knows well that secrecy 
> is a cancer on democracy. I want a President who has overcome the fear of 
> battle, not by sending others into combat, but by standing face-to-face against 
> the ravages of war and bringing honor home to the fight for peace and open 
> government.     I need a President who understands that if money is 
> free-speech, the middle class and poor will never have a voice in today's corporate 
> politics; that the dreams of Main Street America will be smothered by the greed 
> of K Street lobbyists and their financial owners.     I need a President who 
> recognizes that corporate crime should not be a reward system for crooked 
> CEOs, while punishing workers with financial ruin. I need a President for whom 
> accountability is not a bookkeeping technique that ensures increased stock 
> value at the cost of American jobs.     I need a President who knows that God is 
> not spelled G-O-P.     I need a President who recognizes the requirement for 
> checks and balances on government, not checkpoints on citizens.     I need a 
> President for whom liberty is not a license to plunder budget surpluses for 
> the benefit of wealthy campaign donors. I need a President, not a corporate 
> puppet, or a panderer to the bigotry of puritanical zealots and self-righteous 
> hypocrites.     America needs a President to whom freedom is not a focus 
> group slogan, tested as justification for the lethal lies of a manufactured war. 
> Not a President who finds humor in the deaths of soldiers in order to get a 
> laugh from the dining room divas of corporate Media.     America needs a 
> President, not a saint without human error. America needs a President who 
> recognizes his own fallibility and rises to the need for change.     America needs a 
> President whose compassion is without label or restriction, who lifts the 
> poor and ignored without making himself tall by standing on the dead and 
> downtrodden. A President who does not limit the colors of America to red, white and 
> blue, but includes each and every variation that weaves the whole fabric of 
> this richly textured nation.     America deserves a President, not an owner. 
>     I deserve a President, not George Bush. 
>     John Cory is a Vietnam veteran. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze 
> Star with V device, 1969 - 1970.   -------
>   Jump to TO Features for Tuesday October 26, 2004     
> <A HREF="http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_102604A.shtml">  Print This Story</A><A HREF="http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102604A.shtml#"></A>  E-mail This Story 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn