STAND AND FIGHT!

GuinivereElise · Post by **GuinivereElise** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:01 am

samtzu wrote:
GuinivereElise wrote:
samtzu wrote:What Rob said. IT astounds me how people rewrite the constitution to suit their own ends, and not according to what the founding fathers meant within their cultural context. Rob is correct... as always.
It astounds me how people do the exact same thing with the Bible...
Yeah... who the hell was this Jesus guy, anyway? Why should we do unto others as we would have others do unto us, and what is this "Love thy enemies" bullshit?

More along the lines of "homosexuality is against god's plan" blahblahblah...

thinkcooper · Post by **thinkcooper** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:10 am

So who wants to learn to safely handle and shoot firearms?

Soapbox stance ---
I had wanted to familiarize a group of friends on non-california soil outside Reno prior to this year's BM and was told by BM office in Gerlach that even if I had my firearms securely locked in a case in my vehicle's trunk, I would be evicted if caught. I asked Gerlach BLM, and the Washoe county sheriff what their stance was. Both said come back up the week after BM and shoot on the playa to my heart's content, but not during the event. I wasn't interested in shooting at BM, but wanted to before getting close and then pack 'em away for the event.

I even wrote a letter to the Forum program on NPR posing the question and it was read by Krasny(sp?) to guests Larry Harvey and Brian Doherty. Larry ridiculed my position. Doherty otoh, a libertarian, was supportive.
--- end

Anyway, no sour grapes here... I just want to teach more people how to shoot and handle a firearm safely.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:32 am

Rob the Wop wrote:They purpose behind the 2nd amendmant was to have the populus armed and trained in the event that our own governement descended into tyranny. At the time, they required a trained and armed populus to accomplish their war. If you really need cites, I can toss in a bunch of quotes by Jefferson and the like- but a cursory overview of European history from about the 1500s to 1775 should show the basis behind a lot of the ideas behind the Constitution. An armed populus to defend against tyrannical government bodies (which happened a LOT during that timeframe) was one of the key ideals (hence the 2nd amendment, rather than the 6th or later).

Thanks, Rob. Actually some things Jefferson wrote tell me that he FULLY EXPECTED our government to fall into tyranny at some point. Quotes such as "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants". I FULLY support not only an armed population but a population armed with REAL weapons. Not sporting weapons. I also support severe penalties for abusing that right. Guns are not dangerous, PEOPLE are dangerous. Sticks can poke people's eyes out but we do not ban trees because of the potential damage they can do as stick providers. Why? Because people don't go around poking each other's eyes out with sticks. Why? Because our culture doesn't tolerate that behavior even among the criminal culture.

A hundred years ago just about every single home had a firearm. We didn't go running around shooting each other. Even among criminals, shooting someone in the back without giving them a chance to defend themself was despicable. You didn't' go around killing people just to kill them. If you DID, you got a "dead or alive" bounty placed on you and were hunted down like an animal. We have problems today like drive-by shootings simply because the community tolerates it. If people simply decided today not to put up with it any longer, it would stop.

I do believe in strict safety to prevent children from playing with firearms. They need to be locked up but I have no problem with people owning anti-tank rockets if they wish. The government needs to seriously fear an armed population that would stand a real chance of doing real damage to the Army. But we would need a responsible civil culture in order to have that, and we don't. So we have instead a government that sees itself as America's Mommy and a population that acts like irresponsible children and have abused and thereby abdicated their rights. It is seriously sad.

thinkcooper · Post by **thinkcooper** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:47 am

geekster wrote:...some things Jefferson wrote tell me that he FULLY EXPECTED our government to fall into tyranny at some point. Quotes such as "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants".

will we recognize that point when it happens?

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 11:49 am

I agree with everything Geekster has said, especially:

The government needs to seriously fear an armed population that would stand a real chance of doing real damage to the Army. But we would need a responsible civil culture in order to have that, and we don't. So we have instead a government that sees itself as America's Mommy and a population that acts like irresponsible children and have abused and thereby abdicated their rights. It is seriously sad.

And it is sad. Gun control plays right into the hands of tyrannts, and irresponsiblity plays right into the hands of the government's attempts to outlaw firearms... *sigh*

BTW... I hate firearms and don't own any, but I fully believe in and support the right for the citizens to keep and bear arms. Even medium duty missles.

Rob the Wop · Post by **Rob the Wop** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 12:25 pm

geekster wrote:Thanks, Rob. Actually some things Jefferson wrote tell me that he FULLY EXPECTED our government to fall into tyranny at some point.

Absolutely. A lot of people seem to equate '230 years ago' with 'unintelligent' or 'uneducated'. Mostly because they didn't have modern ammenities like telephones, computers, or television. I think that, in a lot of areas, we are less educated than our founding fathers for the same reasons. Trends in history haven't changed. They knew all about the turbulant times surrounding Europe in the centuries prior to coming to America. They knew the cycle of governments, from rise to decline, and were concerned that the populus would require the ability to defend themselves.

What if Bush manages to overturn Roe vs. Wade, erodes the seperation of church and state, and tries for a third term of office (aka the rumblings of Clinton)? What if you take that farther and governmental agencies start 'removing' key opposers to the Republican party? Rounding up and locking up liberitarians? While these seems like childish and unrealistic scenarios- remember that this has happened before in all parts of the world. If history shows us anything, its that governments do not stand the test of time. Power has a habit of corrupting.

Then ask yourself what your personal breaking point would be before you contemplated violent revolt. Then seriously think about the series of events that would have to take place prior to this point and whether you would have the ability at that time to violently revolt. Before you point at Ghandi's acheivements, realize that the inherant caste structure and mainly Hindu religion played a huge part in his satyagraha campaign. Our society does not have underlying faith in our religious leaders or the distinct separation of a warrior class to foster a widespread non-violent revolution.

One of my pet peeves is being told, "Well it would never happen nowadays/here!" At which point I simply point them to the library, tell them to read the entirety of human history, and say that with a straight face. And the more 'harmless' the populous seems to the corrupt or power-mad in our government, the more leeway they have for their own personal agenda.

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 12:44 pm

Rob, I have to agree with you on most points above, specifically those indicating our ability to repeat poor behavior

One of my pet peeves is being told, "Well it would never happen nowadays/here!" At which point I simply point them to the library, tell them to read the entirety of human history, and say that with a straight face. And the more 'harmless' the populous seems to the corrupt or power-mad in our government, the more leeway they have for their own personal agenda.

and we, as a society, have repeating the same boneheadness of the past perfected.

tisha2 · Post by **tisha2** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 12:57 pm

Hey lookee...my first article post!

While this guy gets a little bit extreme, i love the message, and i am a little bit in love with him...
and i really, in no way mean to belittle anyone's opinions here..the point i like in this is the one that Joel keeps repeating - that this isn't the end of the world. there are things to do now...

~~~~~~~~
Hello, Uranus? Got Any Room?
Must. Move. Away. Cannot endure more Bush. Soul about to implode. Right? Not so fast
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, November 5, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I said it, you said it, pretty much anyone with a brain larger than a grape or a soul more nimble than a rock said it maybe a thousand times over.
And you probably weren't even all that drunk when you said it and maybe you were even a little more than half serious and maybe you said it just like this: If Bush somehow snags another election, if the unthinkable comes to pass and the Dubya neocon nightmare refuses to end, well, that's it. I'm outta here.

Done. Over. Gone. Moving away. To Canada. Or France. Latvia. Uranus. Anywhere, really, that doesn't have Bush as leader and that doesn't make me openly ashamed to be a citizen and that doesn't make me feel like a sickened disillusioned ulcerated outcast in my own happily divisive country every damn day including Sunday.

You want a place, you say, that doesn't right this minute seem to be working heroically to make homophobia and born-again fundamentalism and pre-emptive isolationist warmongering and environmental ignorance a national religion. A place where SUVs aren't considered minor deities and where gay people aren't loathed for wanting to slice a wedding cake and where brazen heavily narcotized denial in the face of a veritable mountain of presidential lies isn't the national pastime.

Tempting, isn't it? To just move away to a sunnier, clothing-optional utopia and wait for it all to be over, for the dark days to pass and the Shrub era to sink into the tar pits of history and the fog to finally lift?

After all, most all of us on the progressive Left feel we truly faced the dragon this election, and we put up a valiant fight and marshaled as potent an army of dissenters and intellectuals and moderates and liberal crusaders and feminists and enlightened activists as possible, considering.

And we supposedly had more of the youth vote and the disenfranchised single-female vote and the "Daily Show" vote and the Eminem vote and the celebrity vote and the humanitarian vote and the antiwar vote and the gay vote and the pro-choice vote and the Howard Stern vote and the immigrant vote, and still the dragon just sneered and hacked up another fireball of bogus fear and evangelical Christian self-righteousness and torched our glimmering sword of juicy hope into a smoking cinder.

And now, this. The nation has officially, stupefyingly handed the world's worst president a blank check to do whatever he and his cronies like, without fear of major repercussions or voter disillusionment or damage to an imminent re-election campaign, because there won't be one.

Which is to say, Bush now has no one to worry about now but his true constituents (hint: it ain't mainstream Repubs, or even the born-agains), no one to answer to but the CEOs and the energy barons and the military-supply corporations co-owned by his father, and nothing to guide him but his own deeply regressive, monosyllabic moral compass. Hell, why stick around for more of that?

But here's the catch. Here's the tough part to accept. Here's what everyone who's right now on the brink of packing their bags and checking the real estate prices in Vancouver has to know and has to have drilled into their disconsolate hope-crushed souls right this minute, before it's too late:

You cannot leave. You cannot drop the armor now. Why? Because you are needed, more than ever. You are mandatory to keep the energy flowing, the karmic vibrator buzzing, to keep the progressive and lucid half of the nation breathing and healthy and awake and ever reaching out to the half that's wallowing in fear and violence and homophobia and sexual dread, hoping to find harmony instead of cacophony, common ground instead of civil war, some sort of a shared love of a country so messy and internationally disrespected and openly confused its own president can't even speak the language.

After all, you don't hand over all your children the first time the flying monkeys bang on your door. You don't give up your dream house just because a bunch of gangbangers moved in down the block. You become a bit more wary and alert and you stock up on the superlative porn and the expensive wine and the deepened sense of true beauty and sex and love and hope and you hunker down and grit your teeth and dig in for the long haul, and you work on making your own goddamn garden more beautiful than even you could have imagined, because, well, the neighborhood -- and the world -- needs it, more than ever.

Look. No one said it was gonna be easy. No one said it was gonna be painless. And no one said it was gonna be quick. As I've noted before, the neocons have been planning this takeover for decades. The Bush regime, despite feeling like a massive indigestible incomprehensible fluke, is no accident.

The GOP is deeply entrenched and the razor wire is all around their compound and they are masterful at working the angles of fear and manipulation and of kowtowing to the least tolerant and least morally flexible segments of the population -- this is, after all, how Bush won a second term -- and hence they aren't about to just roll over at the first sign of outcry or dissent or a snowboarding senator, even if he's 10 times the man and a thousand times the intellect of the smirking lunk currently in office.

And besides, most hardcore Republicans would, of course, love it if you'd leave the country, and take your gul-dang gay-lovin' tofu-eatin' tree-huggin' pierced-labia values with you. They would love it, furthermore, if the libs in the morally shredded red states would split for the coastal cities and the major metropolises of America, all those godless heathen places where the neighbors won't yank the Kerry/Edwards sign outta your front lawn and chase you down and beat you with it and call it patriotism. Remember: bullies never deserve to own the playground.

And one of the most stirring e-mails I received during the outpouring of grief the day after the election was from a young female reader, "an artist, an intellectual and a Jew" who's been living in Mexico and who now says she's so enraged and saddened by the election's ugly outcome that she's preparing to return to the States ASAP, just so she can help, so she can join the resistance, keep the right-wingers from coming after our souls. Now, that's patriotism.

The bottom line: Don't disband the newfound army just because one ugly battle was lost. Mourn, commiserate, lick wounds, lick each other, drink heavily, spit out your stale gum of disappointment and pop in a fresh clove of laughter and spiritual heat and then regroup and sober up and take an even deeper breath and watch in hot wet spiritually emboldened amusement as the cosmic circus unfolds.

It's far from over. The tunnel is just a little darker -- and longer -- than we imagined.
///
...sigh...

(the bolding is mine)

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:18 pm

I like what Rob said, particularly about the founders being well educated. Jefferson and Adams both had extensive libraries. Ben Franklin was extremely smart and even put away monies that are only NOW being made available as grants for people wishing to learn trades and further their education.

For example, very time I re-read Plato's Republic I learn something new or see something in a different context. This is a book that was available to them too.

I am not sure that overturning Roe V. Wade or any separation of church/state stuff is what really worries me. Government is likely to be more subtle and insidious than that. If RVW is overturned, it will mean that states will make their own abortion laws and people can vote with their feet. Maybe the South will loose population and become less influential in future politics, or maybe the opposite will be true. It isn't important to me that other people share my values. As for church/state, I see things a little different. As long as the government does not establish a state religion, I am okay. I see a statue of the 10 commandments in a courtroom not as a symbol of any particular religion but as a symbol of law itself and how the rule of law goes back to ancient times and that is one manifestation of it that most of the people in our culture can identify with. And it isn't a Christian symbol, it is a Jewish symbol if you want to be accurate.

But there is a darker problem. Governments and political parties are not like people. They live longer than people do. They can take actions that are, on the surface, very subtle and nearly invisible and have an impact over decades. Now imagine the government controls health care. Now imagine you have a system such as Oregon put in place with it's public healt care system where it is rationed. If you engage in high-risk activity such as smoking and are retired, maybe you are put further back in line for that chemotherepy than a 20 year-old marathon runner. Now what happens if your "priority" begins to be adjusted according to political behavior or connections with powerful people. Lets say everyone is given a "score" from 0 to 100 and the higher your score, the higher the priority you have. Let's say you are not allowed to know your score, know when it is adjusted, or know why. All you know is that a request for treatment for you is entered into a computer, and an appointment date is spit out. You don't know if you might have gotten the treatment a week or a month earlier if your "score" was different or maybe gotten a better doctor. Over time it would diminish the relative number of "undesireables" by natural selection. You would simply have more obsticles to survival placed in your way and the odds slightly tilted against you. The reason I don't want to see government control healthcare is that the possibility of abuse is too great and some people might not be able to resist the temptation. Eugenics could be put into place. Is your score different because of your religion? Eyesight? Genetic predisposition for diabetes, cancer, some other disease? Sorry, I would rather not even go into that box.

Smaller government is better government.

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:23 pm

GuinivereElise wrote:
samtzu wrote:
GuinivereElise wrote: It astounds me how people do the exact same thing with the Bible...
Yeah... who the hell was this Jesus guy, anyway? Why should we do unto others as we would have others do unto us, and what is this "Love thy enemies" bullshit?
More along the lines of "homosexuality is against god's plan" blahblahblah...

*snort* what ever happened to the disciple whom Jesus loved, huh?
clearly, Jesus was bi. mary on one arm and, was it John? on the other...

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:26 pm

And then there was that son of Moses ...

Want to read some erotica in the Bible, check out Ezekiel sometime.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:28 pm

Oh, one comment on my "health care score" post. You wouldnt even have to know that you HAVE a score. The Doctor either. The only person that has to know is a computer programmer someplace.

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:28 pm

what I want to know about the whole jesus and republicans thing is have none of them ever come accross that whole eye of the needle thing? Fuck sake man it's so blatantly obvious from reading the old testament that Jesus was a socialist.

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:34 pm

stuart wrote:what I want to know about the whole jesus and republicans thing is have none of them ever come accross that whole eye of the needle thing? Fuck sake man it's so blatantly obvious from reading the old testament that Jesus was a socialist.

\

dude. the OT is pre-Jesus.
that's the NT where he shows up.

but i assume you meant that.

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:39 pm

don't ask me for cites, but i think he was killed by capitalists...

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 1:39 pm

my dad, who has a phd in biblical studies, likes to point out that much of the bible is about social justice and the championing of the oppressed.

and that the 'people of israel', in the NTsense, which was meant to be, you know, version 2.0 with the updated rules and regs, means all of 'god's children' or some crap like that. the point being, gods chosen people aren't an ethnic group.

course, if you believe the muslims then the jews ARE gods chosen people... but they fucked up. unfortunately, no one i was talking to could remember what exactly it was....

but anyway, yeah. jesus was a flaming radical who believed in socialism and property damage. if he was real.

Apollonaris Zeus · Post by **Apollonaris Zeus** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 2:11 pm

I tried to tell you folks a long time ago. The God of the children of Abraham is a Titan God. His Jewish followers killed and destroyed the many other Jews that believed in the Gods and now the Christians and muslims will finish the job. Then they will fight themselves until all are under their One God! Too bad for the Jews, for they will be consumed by the Christians and Muslims. He has no love for those that follow him but use them to consume all in his eventual Black Hole of the One God.

Sadly, Our Law enforcement, read FBI, are now controled by these lying fuckers. Anyone of you that have voiced your anti-war-Bush-christian position is now under survailence. Your phone, email and all other electronic communications is being controlled and filtered. Even your local phone company has no control because of this Patriot Act.

Bush gets up and says its time to heal and bring this country together and march like the Brown shirts destroying the income and lives of all those that are against them.

Buy your machine guns now before the rich make them so expensive only their armies can afford them.

A II Z

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 2:26 pm

Islam and Judaism are the same religion interpreted differently by two different cultures. Both are the teachings of Abraham.

Q_ · Post by Q_ » Fri Nov 05, 2004 2:29 pm

geekster wrote:Islam and Judaism are the same religion interpreted differently by two different cultures. Both are the teachings of Abraham.

Islam is the teaching of Abraham but the Koran recalls the life and teachings of Muhamand 400AD. Slight difference there...

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 2:36 pm

Q_ wrote:
geekster wrote:Islam and Judaism are the same religion interpreted differently by two different cultures. Both are the teachings of Abraham.
Islam is the teaching of Abraham but the Koran recalls the life and teachings of Muhamand 400AD. Slight difference there...

No, not really. God revealed the Qur'an to The Prophet at a later time, that is true, but he was practicing the religion of Abraham at the time and strove to return the people to the teachings of Abraham. At least that is my understanding from my reading.

According to the Quran, Abraham reached the conclusion that anything subject to disappearance could not be worthy of worship, and thus became a monotheist (Quran 6:76-83.) As in Jewish tradition, Abraham's father (named Azar in Islam) was an idol-maker, and Abraham broke his idols, calling on his community to worship God instead. They then cast him into a fire, which miraculously failed to burn him (Quran 37:83-98.) The well-known but wholly non-canonical Qisas al-Anbiya (Ibn Kathir) records considerably more detail about his life, which are commonly referred to in Islamic accounts of his life( http://iisca.org/knowledge/biographies/ibrahim_1.htm ).

Traditionally, Muslims believe that it was Ishmael rather than Isaac whom Abraham was told to sacrifice. In support of this, Muslims note that the text of Genesis as it stands, despite specifying Isaac, appears to state that Abraham was told to sacrifice his only son ("Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac," Jewish Publication Society ( http://www.breslov.com/bible/ ) translation, Genesis/Bereshit 22:2) to God. Since Isaac was Abraham's second son, there was no time at which he would have been Abraham's only son, so they take this to imply that the original text must have named Ishmael rather than Isaac as the intended sacrifice. The Qur'an itself does not specify which son he nearly sacrificed (Quran 37:99-111).

The entire episode of the sacrifice is regarded as a trial that Abraham had to face from God. It is celebrated by Muslims on the day of Eid ul-Adha. Muslims also believe that Abraham, along with his son Ishmael, rebuilt the Kaaba in Mecca (Quran 2.125.)

He is one of the most important prophets in Islam, and Muslims have a specific dua that (in some traditions) they recite daily which asks God to bless both Abraham and Muhammad. According to Islamic tradition, he is buried in Hebron. In the Masjid al Haram in Mecca, there is an area known as the "station of Ibrahim" (Maqam Ibrahim مقام), which supposedly bears an impression of his footprints.

Q_ · Post by Q_ » Fri Nov 05, 2004 2:45 pm

/\

That is kind of like saying that Judism and Christianity are the same thing because they both started off worshiping the God of Abraham, but Christians got themselves the New Testement and Islam got themselves the Koran. The addition of new works changes the religion and the belief system. Just because they stem from the same point in history does not lead to a conclusion that they are basicaly the same. There are 2000 years of seperated development.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:10 pm

No. They both started worshiping the God of Abraham. At some point later, the Jews got the Torah and the Muslims got the Qur'an. The New Testament is an extention of the Torah in it's earliest sense.

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:11 pm

thanks Rian

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:16 pm

You might find the following reading to be interesting:

http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_quran_moses.htm

Wow, a single thread woth both politics AND religion!

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:21 pm

geekster wrote:No. They both started worshiping the God of Abraham. At some point later, the Jews got the Torah and the Muslims got the Qur'an. The New Testament is an extention of the Torah in it's earliest sense.

btw, i believe that the Torah is only the first 5 books of the OT.

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:21 pm

they all worship the same god, they argue about who is or is not a savior or prophet.

obviously their modes of worhsip are different but so are catholics and 7th day adventists.

Q_ · Post by Q_ » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:24 pm

geekster wrote:You might find the following reading to be interesting:

http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_quran_moses.htm

Wow, a single thread woth both politics AND religion!

I have already read both books....

calicowboy925 · Post by **calicowboy925** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:28 pm

And for every person that changes from Republican to Democrat there are many more that have/will change from Democrat to Republican as evidenced by the sound thrashing the leftist tax and spend party of lawyers was handed in the 2004 election. The Democratic party is shrinking due to their inability to find electable candidates, due to their entire platform of "At least we are not Bush" while having no real plan. The populace is tired of the left pushing their entitlement programs on the taxpayer, the left claiming to create jobs that are just another position in their ever expanding government. The populace does not want the socialized medicine that the left is intent on providing. The populace chose NOT to be led by a LIAR such a Kerry who claimed to have been in Cambodia on X-Mas eve when that was an impossibility. Nor did the populace want to have a backwoods hillbilly sounding freshman senator who did not even vote in most senate issues during his first term, one heartbeat from the Presidency. FACE IT, the Democratic party was ground into the dirt. When your base of popularity is women, young and minorities, groups that are the least likely to get out and vote, you will lose again and again. I relish the next few Supreme Court appointments that will be made to keep the "anything goes" left in place, 2nd place that is!

Q_ · Post by Q_ » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:30 pm

/\
Crack baby.

Sorry that was rude. Much love.... I will agree that you are wrong and I assume that you will agree that I am wrong..

Peace,

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:31 pm

NEW YORK — Former President Bill Clinton, in his first public remarks since the election, said Friday that President Bush's re-election offered great opportunities for both the incumbent and the Democratic Party.

"The two are not necessarily in conflict," Clinton told the annual conference of the Urban Land Institute, a Washington-based think tank. Democrats "shouldn't be all that discouraged" by Bush's narrow victory over U.S. Sen. John Kerry, he continued.

It would be a mistake, Clinton warned, for Democrats to "sit around and whine" after Tuesday's results.

Clinton, whose second term was hampered by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, said Bush should use his second four years to move the United States toward an economy less dependent on foreign oil. Such a move would shift the balance of power in the Middle East, the ex-president said in his address at a midtown Manhattan hotel.

One crucial concern will be brokering a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which Clinton said could happen during Bush's second term. He said the uncertain health of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who remained in a coma Friday, made an agreement more likely.