Zinn Chapter 25 Notes

The 2000 Election and the "War on Terrorism"

· Albert Gore "faithfully" served as Clinton's vice president

· Next Election was Gore v. Bush

· Zinn says Bush was known for his connection to oil interests and he held the record number of executions while in office. The fact that Zinn mentions these two things shows that he believes he was concerned in the matters of the wealthy through his oil interests and the fact that Zinn mentioned he had the record number of executions shows he is against death penalty

· Zinn says you can measure their rankings through corporate support as Bush had $220 million of it and Gore had $170 million.

· Zinn mentions that neither had plans free national health care, extensive low-cost housing, or changes in environmental controls.

· Both candidates, however, supported death penalty and the growth of prisons (Zinn writes this in a tone that shows he is against it). They both also favored large military establishments, continued use of land mines, and use of "sanctions against the people of Cuba and Iraq"

· Many lower income citizens did not even vote as they felt that neither candidate would bring them any changes. The third party candidate, Ralph Nader, supported many changes for these groups, but because of his lack of funding and since he wasn't in a major party, he had a very little chance of being elected.

· During the Election, Gore was ahead by 100,000s of votes but electoral votes were what mattered and the election came down to the electoral votes of Florida

· Zinn makes it seem as if Bush didn't deserve to win as he mentions that he had the "advantage" of his brother being governor in Florida and another Republican, Katherine Harris, as Secretary of State. He continues with this attitude as he believes the election was corrupt and says that Katherine Harris had to certify the votes and due to some issues in the ballots, she had to "quickly" recount the votes. The case was brought to the democrat dominated Florida Supreme Court and a recount was ordered. Once again, Zinn tries to point out that it was corrupt as he says that Harris set a deadline when it is clear that a fair recount was granted and Bush still won the election

· The case was brought to the US supreme Court and denied. Zinn says this was so that "its [the government's] favorite candidate, Bush, would be President."

· Zinn mentions things he feels Bush did that were wrong as he cut the taxes imposed on the wealthy, was against strict environmental protection regulations, wanted to "privatize" social security, increase the military budget, and pursued the "Star Wars" program. However, he doesn't mention any good plans Bush had or the reasons that he imposed or opposed those plans Zinn points out.

· The events of September 11, 2001 occurred (Terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and killed thousands of people.

· Bush then declared a "War on Terrorism'

· Zinn makes Bush's actions seem useless and too forceful as he believes that we should not be handling force with force.

· He thinks it is hypocritical that we focus on all the destruction and deaths of innocent civilians in our country and in retaliation, we kill innocent Afghan people.

· Zinn talks of how the US would control what the media showed of the war as they showed very little of civilians being harmed in the Middle East and when they did they justified it

· The government passed the USA Patriot Act which allowed them to detain suspicious noncitizens and they were able to claim any group "terrorists" and were allowed to arrest any member or supporter of that group and they would eventually deport them.

· Critics of the war believed that the US must address the grievances that these groups had against the US instead of responding with violence. These groups' grievances included the stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia, 10 years of sanctions against Iraq, and the support of Israel in their occupation of Palestinian land.

· People wanted the US to give up their role as a military superpower and become a humanitarian superpower by withdrawing from all of their worldwide military efforts and spending all this money on the health and living conditions of those of the US and various other peoples worldwide in need