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Changing horses

Dear Editor:More people die of pollution-related diseases each year than both prostate and breast cancer combined. We cannot eat fish from the rivers in the Northeast and we shouldn’t eat more than one can of tuna a week. And yet the Bush administration has reduced air pollution standards 60 percent.Do you really want to go it alone in this world? Think about this – Tony Blair will soon be gone, Pakistan’s Musharraf will be gone, and then we will really be alone in this world. Australia sent 2,000 troops into Iraq in exchange for the promise of a NAFTA treaty. Ninety percent of people in Australia are against the war in Iraq and 75 percent of the English are against the war.One month ago, troops were coming under attack in Iraq a dozen times a day; now, it’s 100 times a day. More than 15,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.George Bush never went abroad before becoming president. Is “Bring it on” what you would like to say to this world?Yes, Kerry will be hesitant about going to war, yes, he’ll be careful, yes, he’ll even care what the French think. Do you think being careful about war is wrong?Do you want tax cuts geared to people with a lot of income, so the middle and working classes gradually disappear?Do you want health research for the next 10-20 years, or do you want the same diseases that we have now still around in 20 years?Bush is pulling troops from near one of the countries that he called the “axis of evil” (North Korea), and yet he says he is going after countries that have WMD. Which is it?Kerry wants to take away the license of any lawyer who pursues frivolous lawsuits more than three times. But remember, it’s the juries and judges who give crazy awards, not the lawyers.In the ’80s, while G.W. Bush was getting DUls in Texas, John F. Kerry was serving his country.The Swift Boat ads accuse Kerry of accusing the vets of atrocities 35 years ago, and yet, the truth is – he was restating what had been told to the commission looking into war crimes. His actions of repeating the claims to the Senate helped stop the war, a war that was not winnable, in which we were losing soldiers by the thousands.It’s about more than what someone was doing 35 years ago, or gay marriage, or women’s freedom to choose, or global warming, or oil drilling and ruining our wilderness, or which party you belong to. Our very existence is at stake.We are electing the head of the free world. When polled last week, 35 of our closest allies are hoping we elect John Kerry; no country is pulling for G.W. Bush.Do you change horses in midstream? If you are on a lame horse and someone comes up with a boat – you bet you do!Donna ThompsonAspen