[VioletlightHeron]

Not with Bush and Cheney being in bed with all kinds of major corporations. You claim you don't want government control, but behind the scenes, Bush's people and the corporate heads are controlling America's entire destiny. That doesn't scare you more than a little socialism which eschews corporate rule?

By the way, have you NOTHING to say about Afghanistan? Not surprising. I imagine that's mighty embarassing for you conservatives, trying to attack Kerry for lack on conviction!

A little socialism which eschews corporate rule? No offense, grooveless, but I think you are far off base on this. Canada's semi-socialist form of government, with its policies on public health funding,transfer payments from rich provinces to poor ones, etc etc, also has its corruption problems that involve corporations and politics (ie Adscam and Paul Martin's steamship company). Any form of government that doesnt have checks and balances built into is susceptible to corruption. If it were really true that the Big Evil Corporations had Bush as their puppet, don't you think it likely that the EPA would simply cease to exist? Yet you don't see that happening, nor will it. Public discussion, warts and all, is the strongest check on the appetites of corporations or government bureacracy. An economic system that rewards people for their own entrepreneurship and creativity is better in my opinion than a system where the government decides the amount of wealth each person earns. A system where the government is the biggest employer and provider is a system built on a house of cards that will eventually collapse as people demand more and more services as a right yet feel resentful as their taxes to pay for all these services increases astronomically.

As a sidenote to the discussion about Afghanistan, I have the feeling that some of the US troops currently deployed in Europe and Asia will be shifted to bases in Afghanistan as part of the post Cold War restructuring. We are doing what we can to deal with the Taliban remnants but we also have to remember Afghanistan's history of hatred towards the appearance of occupation. No doubt there is chaos in Afghanistan but the situation isnt so simple we can send more troops into Afghanistan and have the populace, who are divided on many tribal/ethnic/religious lines, welcome us with wide open arms. We can't force democracy on them, they have to look past their ethnic/tribal differences and see the benefits of democracy for themselves. It's also one of the reasons we aren't using overwhelming force against Al-Sadr in Iraq, even though we could easily wipe the floor with his ragtag army.