Zinn Chapter 25 Notes

Chapter 25 Notes: The 2000 Election and the “War on Terrorism”

The 2000 Election

Who was running?
George W. Bush for the Republicans, Albert Gore for the Democrats, and Ralph Nader as the third party candidate.
The Bush campaign raised $220 million and the Gore campaign raised $170 million. Neither had a plan for free national health care, both supported capital punishment. Nader’s plan emphasized health care, education, and the environment. He, however, was shut out of televised debates and since no big businesses supported him he had to raise money from people who believed in his program.
Bush and Gore both had support of big businesses, which gave them a large advantage in the election.

What did the people who Zinn quoted think of the two major candidates?
The two women he quoted thought that the candidates did not think about people like them, and the women didn’t even pay attention to them because they thought that either which way their lives would not change.
Zinn fails to say anything about the Americans who did care about the election. He simply focuses on the lazy Americans who don’t seem to understand that their vote actually meant something.

Where/Which state had the deciding votes?
Florida.
Zinn tells the story of how votes were not counted in neighborhoods with a large percentage of black voters, and ballots that had been disqualified on technical grounds. He also pulls the “Bush had the advantage” card by indicating that his brother, Jeb Bush, was governor of Florida, and the secretary of state in Florida was Katherine Harris, a Republican.

When were the other bizarre elections?
In 1888 and 1876.
The popular vote was in the favor of one candidate, but the other received more electoral votes, so that candidate won.

Why did the Supreme Court overrule the Florida Supreme Court’s decision?
They said that recounting the ballots violated the constitutional requirement for equal protection of the laws because there were different standards in different counties of Florida for counting ballots.
The liberal judges said that the Court did not have the right to interfere with the Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law. Zinn then goes on to say that since the Supreme Court refused to allow any reconsideration of the election, it must mean that they favored Bush.


War on Terrorism

Who supported Bush’s War on Terrorism?
Congress, Senate, House of Representatives, all but Barbra Lee.
Barbra Lee was a black woman from California, Zinn says. DOES THAT REALLY MATTER? Why she did not support the war means a whole heck of a lot more to me than her ethnicity.

What did the United States do to Afghanistan?
We bombed Afghanistan.
Zinn goes on about how the bombs killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan, and that the Pentagon said that they were only bombing military targets, and the killing of civilians was unfortunate, an accident, and regrettable. War has never been clean. Civilians have been killed in wars and attacks before, just look at 9/11 and all the innocent civilians that were killed. It is an unfortunate normality of war, there really is nothing that can be done about it.

Where did the terrorists come from?
Saudi Arabia.
They were radical Islamist. Zinn seems to praise them in saying that they were willing to die in order to deliver a deadly blow against what they clearly saw their enemy, a superpower that had thought itself invulnerable. Zinn, is this an act of bravery, or cowardice? Zinn seems to think of this as a good thing for America.

When did the American people begin speaking out against the war?
After the initial shock of the attacks was over.
People would protest about returning violence with violence. People became angered about the killing of innocent lives. Well, America is dealing with a different force here. These people who attacked America want to see its down fall and will stop at nothing, they are totally brainwashed. They even terrorize people into joining them by threatening their families with torture. That became more of the reason why troops were over seas in the later years. To protect and defend the innocent people against these terrorists. People just don’t seem to get that.

Why is America hated?
According to Robert Bowman, America is hated not because we practice democracy and value freedom, but because we deny these rights to Third World countries. Bowman believes that we should do good instead of evil, that our sons and daughters should not be sent over to Kill Arabs for the oil under their sand, but to rebuild the infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children.
America’s goal was to kill the terrorists, and we did that. THEN we protected the citizens against radical militant groups, all while helping them rebuild, govern, and help the children. It is unfortunate that innocent lives were taken in this fight. But war is war, and freedom is not free.