Francis Hwang wrote:
> I'm voting for Kerry this year, and have volunteered a little bit this 
> year to help with the Democratic get-out-the-vote operations. I'm 
> actually much further left than Kerry, but if he gets in the White House 
> I'll consider that a big sign of progress.
> 

There is no such thing as the 'left' or the 'right'.

There is only the very wealthy who intelligently and very effectively 
divide the masses into opposing groups that will remain deadlocked.

Mark my words, if the balance between the 'right' and the 'left' get too 
far from 50/50 in this country, one of the hot-button issues like 
gay-rights or abortion or religion will leave one side and join the 
other in order to maintain better equilibrium.

By keeping 99% of the population distracted, they've been able to 
continously (since the early 1900's) and massively widen the wealth gap 
between them and the rest of humanity.

An educated population is harder to control using propaganda so increase 
the costs until the percentage of college graduates decline to a 
controllable minority.

Frankly, I don't put gay-marriage, abortion-rights, gun-control, or 
prayer in schools as my top priority.  The priority is on:

a.  what can we do to make our country safer (the media *continuously* 
telling us someone is very good at it doesn't mean it is 
true--especially if the measurable results totally contradict those 
assertions).

b.  what can we do to create an environment where intelligent, 
law-abiding, ethical, and hard-working people who contribute to society 
can reap generous financial rewards.

c.  what can we do to keep both the lazy poor and the greedy 
millionaires from leeching off of the middle-class.  I discovered to my 
horror that wealthy millionaires leech more from the middle-class than 
the poor lazy bastards on welfare.

d.  what can we do to help the non-lazy poor lift themselves out of 
poverty and become self-sufficient.

e.  what can we do to help create an environement where new businesses 
have a fair chance of success, where genuine medical and scientific 
breakthrus are encouraged and justly rewarded?

f.  what can we do to improve the quality of life for the vast majority 
of citizens and their future generations?

and so on...