The American people have spoken? OK, a bit over half have spoken enough to re-elect. Who did they re-elect? An unmitigated liar and criminal and weasel. And they voted on "moral values"?!!!
My wife and I were at Russ Feingold's victory party at the Marriott Hotel Tuesday night, but we were so tired from pounding the pavement for 5 days that we couldn't stay past 10:30. Feingold, who had waited for Tim Michels' concession, arrived at 11:15. We went home thinking the presidential race was very close and Kerry still had a chance to come back from trailing in the electoral vote. And we had the good feeling that all our hard work contributed to the resounding wins of Feingold, Tammy Baldwin, Fred Risser, and Spencer Black.
Next morning I was up at 3:30 (still haven't adjusted to standard time). I got online and saw the bad news. Bush had unarguably gotten the popular vote 51% to 48%. My stomach dropped. Then, worse, was that even though Bush was still leading with electoral votes, Kerry still had a chance provided Ohio went to him. He'd still have to capture Wisconsin and Michigan or Wisconsin and Ohio or New Mexico, etc (which were too close to call yet). All Bush needed was to win Ohio and it was over.
And then the bad news came. Ohio was out of Kerry's reach, so he conceded. "Oh, my god, I don't believe this." The forces of evil have won in America (while our leader claims to be rooting out the forces of evil elsewhere in the world).
The State Journal arrived, with the bad news. When my wife got up, I said there was good news and bad news. Good: Feingold and Baldwin won resoundingly, Kerry took Wisconsin by a small margin (just bigger than the Gore margin in 2000). Bad: The moron is back in office!
So many people sad because of it. A woman puts a sing on her dog and walks the neighborhood - "A Sad Day for America". People weep. Kirsten is really bummed out. My own numb pain has not yet morphed into righteous anger, but that is coming. Rally downtown by Mad Peace tomotrrow - maybe that will do it. (But family is coming for a visit, so that's out.)
The litany of crimes is endless.
After the initial responsible response to 9/11, Bush sank the country into curtailment of citizen liberties and a banging of the drum for war on the wrong country.
Lies piled on top of each other to convince America to go to war on the wrong enemy.
The disenfranchisement of our allies.
The dumping of much of the previous advances in stopping destruction of the environment.
The unconscionable kowtowing to the energy industry at the expense of freeing us from foreign energy chains and the destruction of our remaining wilderness.
Claiming to build "heathy forests" and "clear skies", while gearing these programs to even more profits for big industries.
Running our economy into the ground with reckless abandon, in the pursuit of tax cuts for those who don't need it and in the face of phenomenal resources squandered in Iraq.
Handing out lucrative war restoration contracts to corporations that support the administration with big money, while Iraqi enterprise is doing ... what? (nobody tells us).
Bumbling the invasion and followup in Iraq so badly that terrorists now control large portions of the country and use weaponry that we failed to secure against us.
1,200 American troops dead, thousands wounded. Countless thousands of Iraqis dead and wounded. Beheadings. Suicide bombings. Kidnappings.
Throwing another huge bone to the health industry at the expense of Medicare.
Threatening to gut Social Security for the benefit of the financial industry.
Giving big media business the right to plunder our airwaves for their profit, while not fixing them with the responsibility of complete and unbiased news delivered to the American public.
Taking 3 years to begin getting the fat cats responsible for the Enron disaster (and others) into jail where they deserve to rot for the harm they inflicted on investors and pensioners.
Standing up for big business (they give him the big bucks - more power than the vote) while tossing out pittance bones to the masses, explaining they will benefit from the trickling down.
Like I said, the list is endless; I could go on all day.
And the president says he's doing everything right!
And 22% of the people said they voted for him on "moral values"! This country is in the dumper because of this incomprehensibly stupid stand.
Yeah, apparently that's what Americans want. They don't want government interfering with business and with health care and the environment and free trade. But they do want government legislating morality for individual citizens. The paper entities called corporations get breaks galore from the government, but you and I will be herded like goats into moral pens.
We have sanctioned - because Bush has said time and again that he would not change a thing he's done, that his programs are working - continued rape and pillaging of the environment by corporations, pre-emptive war without just cause, the slaughter of thousands of foreign citizens to back a lie of a war, ...
And yet we insist we elected a man on moral principles!
And those who stood by him, even with reservations about his first term conduct (see the State Journal editorial), apparently ignore his own statement that he has made no mistakes, that he will continue to do what he's doing because it's the right thing to do.
He couches all objections in rhetoric that obscures the logic of those objections. He says we are bringing freedom to the Middle East, as though anyone who objects to his war policy is against bringing freedom to anyone. His claims about John Kerry's stands were disgustingly self- servng. His claims of "putting your money back in your own pockets" are blatant lies when you consider how that money and more is pouring OUT of your pockets to pay for the war and the astounding debt and big corporate payoffs.
The rage is beginning to return.
So, I speak to the common American, the ones who put him back in office ...
Those of you who voted for him based on "moral values". Are you saying Bush's moral values are better than Kerry's? I suppose if you limit "moral values" to being anti-gay and anti-abortion, you have chosen well. But what about the moral principles of truth and respect for the lives of all, including foreigners? What about the moral principles of live and let live as long as we're not hurting each other? Your vote for only two "moral values" falls extremely short of the entire scope of moral life. And that's not to even begin to discuss whether moral values should be a criteria for government in the first place. The problem with moral values is that you can't really discuss them because each person has pretty much settled on what his own moral system is, and all rational argument is moot. Governmental policies should be based on rational discourse, not revelations from Mount Sinai. At least everyone is on common ground when rational thought is the standard. And the Bush administration is the antithesis of rational thought.
Those of you who voted for him because you feel he is effectively fighting the war on terror - what can I say, but you are deluded. How did you get to be deluded? Do you just take everything Bush says as the truth, without question? How can you possible believe that fighting in Iraq is effectively fighting the war on terror? (Oh, I get it; Saddam was at the bottom of 9/11. Saddam was planning all kinds of shit with al Qaeda. Wake up and read something. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda! Bush wants you to believe that stuff so you will support him on Iraq!)
Those of you who voted for him because you feel he will get your jobs back - again, what can I say, but you are deluded. Bush cares nothing about your miserable little jobs. He prefers to hobnob with the fat cats who rake in millions of dollars every year, while guys like you get laid off because the company's in a slump. Did you ever calculate how many of your jobs could be saved if those corporate fat cats would take just a 50% cut in their own phenomenal incomes? It wouldn't cause them to lose their homes or Escalades. But hundreds or even thousands of jobs could be saved for ordinary Joes if the corporate execs would bite the bullet like they want all you guys to do. But you just lie back and take your layoff and never complain about the guys who could afford a pay cut not doing that. And the lying weasel on the campaign trail only sucked up to you to get your vote. Think you'll ever see him again on your factory floor?
Those of you who voted for him because he has a "vison" - once again, you are deluded. How can you possibly believe that his vision includes you (unless, of course, you are one of the fat cats who benefit greatly from his kind-to-everything-corporate policies - and you aren't one of those, are you, because you waouldn't bother reading this if you were)? Show me just one thing in Bush's agenda that you can truly say benefits you without paying off his big bucks benefactors a thousandfold?
Those of you who voted for him because you feel America is more secure with him - wow! tremendous delusion! The commander in chief utterly failed to foresee 9/11 or any other terrorist threat because he wasn't interested. His real interest lay in getting Saddam. You say we have not had another 9/11 since. What can I say? Of course that's true. But we didn't have a 9/11 before 9/11 either. And Bill Clinton's administration did foil such an attempt at the end of 1999, and he hardly gets any credit for that. Instead, Bush turns his failure to prevent 9/11 (or even try) into a rally for his false fight on terrorism in the wrong place. So what will you think when the next terrorist attack hits the USA? Will you cover for him? Or wll you see the lying weasel for what he is - a complete bumbler in the war on terror.
Have you ever seen the disdain he keeps for us lower class people? Please ignore that piece of tripe he "approved" as a TV ad, where he poses as a compassionate christ-like figure embracing a woman in pain. The man cares nothing for her! It's a gimmick. He cares nothing for you, except to get your miserable little vote.
Didn't you notice all the rallies that you couldn't get in to unless you pledged allegiance? unless you were a true blue Bush supporter? How many rallies did he hold that allowed anyone in to speak his own mind? How many press conferences has he had? a paltry few, and then the press was intimidated so much they hardly ever asked the hard questions. Have you noticed? He can't stand the hard questions. His miserable performance in the debates shows that. Against the hard logic and evidence that Kerry presented, Bush could do nothing but propound his "vision" - a factless, logicless, evidenceless mishmash of faith-based rhetoric.
Have you ever seen the video tape [see Note] where he makes a joke of the fact that the purported weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq? This was the prime reason he gave to the American people as justification for invading Iraq. So we don't see hide or hair of them, and he prances around the room looking under desks and tables joking, "They've got to be somewhere". Come on, go see it and report back to me.
The man is a fraud who is poised to take this country even deeper into the black hole from which it will take generations of truly visionary Americans to extricate itself - if it can ever be done.
If we don't pull ourselves out of this black hole, America is doomed to morph into a Taliban-like military empire that herds its people like goats into a moral pen that will not let them turn left or right without permission from the government. Ironically, Bush purports to dispensing freedom like candy in the Middle East, while Americans are increasingly bullied by moralists and corporate money into supporting values they can't possibly approve of and the American government becomes the theocracy it decries in Muslim countries.
The Bush burns bright, so bright Moses can't look, and America grows dark.
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