I admit to being an optimist, but I am also grounded in a lifetime of real experiences and having been present during many significant worldly events. Because I believe a Democrat will be elected in 2008, to replace President Bush, I feel a renewal to Americas commitment to human rights, justice and the return to checks and balances in our government is just on our political horizon and I am raring to see it happen and be part of its rebirth.
Soon, I believe, America will be waking to the real prospect of universal health care, an end to America?s military involvement in Iraq?s civil war and the beginning of a worthy and long overdue American war; a war on poverty, hunger and sickness in America first and to the world as well. Our trade deficiencies will be addressed and the hard work of reducing the crippling Ten Trillion dollar U.S. deficit left by the Bush Administration will begin.
The coming change in American leadership (and mindset) will see our military veterans finally receive the respect and attention they so richly deserve. The de-militarization of the White House will occur and the many military generals, now reporting directly to the President, will once again, and rightly so, report to the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense whose primary concern will, again, be the defense of our country and not being, as they are today, the apologist for, and minions to the President. Soon the people will again refer to the President as ?Mr. President? and not ?Our Commander and Chief?, a title constitutionally reserved to his relationship exclusively with the military.
(The President is not, and has never been the Commander and Chief of the American People at large. His title of Commander and Chief does not apply to any civilian citizens. He is the Commander and Chief of our military forces only).
The American people are speaking. A Reformation is coming to America.
The sun is rising on America?s best years and the future holds endless possibilities for international understanding, diplomacy and statesmanship. I am excited about the coming reformation which I am sure will be welcomed by America and the world after 2008. It could begin today, but President Bush will see that it does not happen on his watch. He has committed himself to preventing any forward movement in America. His time is ending; America will wait. Our patience and diligence will be rewarded with a new dawn when American values and dignity will begin the journey back to the center of our political and international endeavors.
America has been through seven years of a draconian style mentality, leadership without vision, wreckless attempts to expand United States influence in the Middle East and a six year organized effort by the Republican President and a ?lock step? Republican House and Senate to undermine the very fabric of our Constitutional Republic through the same fear and intimidation commonly used by third world dictators and despots. Tactics and methods reminiscent McCarthyism when accusation and guilt by association were valid tools for American leaders seeking to further their political agendas, increase their personal wealth, power and to demonize segments of American society in their ?divide and conquer? efforts. It almost worked completely, but America was able to see beyond our fears and, in 2006, began the ?taking back? of our government. We are disillusioned by President Bush and the Republican Party, but not divided, not defeated. I hear a bell ringing in the near horizon. It is a Liberty Bell.
Abraham Lincoln once said ?I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts?.
The plain truth is that the Republican Party and President Bush never subscribed to that wisdom espoused by President Lincoln, or believed the great words from one of the greatest of Americans who ever lived. They should have. We will overcome. An American Reformation is dawning.
Since 2001, President Bush and the Republican controlled House and Congress managed to isolate America among, heretofore, friendly nations, institutionalize the practice of torturing human beings, make spying on Americans an every day event and got the United States bogged down in an Iraq conflict between two Islamic rivals who?s commonality is an extreme dislike and distrust of the United States of America. Many of these Iraqis believe they have witnessed America, single handedly; make Iraq a hell on earth for the Iraqi people. All of this whiles those most influential with the White House and Republicans, Corporate America, have laughed all the way to the bank.
The laugh has been on the American public who, post 9/11, fell for the ?Us against Them? rhetoric and fear mongering designed and orchestrated from the Bush White House which provided those in control the opportunity to disregard and run roughshod over the United States Constitution they are sworn to defend. I am not dissuaded or shaken by any of it. They will not have the last laugh. A reformation is beginning in America and justice is returning to her proper place.
Since 9/11 President Bush has raised private armies in Iraq and Afghanistan, conscripted The National Guard, decimated the Army and Marine Corps Reserves and abandoned our military to an unworhty war in Iraq born of dishonesty, deciet and failed leadership. President has abandoned the thousands of Americans stricken by Katrina in the great states of Louisiana and Mississippi, shielded Saudi Arabia from American scrutiny, spent the United States into an over Nine Trillion Dollar debt, making us the largest debtor nation in the world, and created a Department of ?Homeland? Security adding an enormous bureaucracy to ensure and enforce the Bush-Cheney anti-American, Anti-freedom agenda against America, under the guise of our ?War on Terror?.
(The ?Homeland? is what the Nazis called Germany during WWII. Protecting the ?Homeland? became the Nazi rallying cry which also was the basis for beginning the Holocaust in Germany which exterminated over six million Jews. Even choosing the word ?Homeland? was an insult and an assault on the fabric of American sensibilities).
During the Bush years many Americans lost hope, felt abandoned and fell victim to the Bush ?security? agenda which has encouraged neighbor to spy on neighbor and has instilled fear in our hearts of each other. The President, through his policies, fear based rhetoric and failed leadership has allowed the ?mystical? Islamic Terrorist to ?occupy? America by occupying our hearts and minds with the fear that we will all be blown up tomorrow or the next day. President Bush has made these terrorist criminals into ?supermen? who cannot be caught, controlled or even contained. Suspecting us all, he created the Department of Homeland Security. Do not despair; a new day, a reformation is coming into the political landscape of America.
President Bush is fighting the supposed ?War on Terrorism? in a single country, Iraq, and holding its citizens hostage in the living hell his leadership has created in their country. Our American soldiers ?sacrifice it all? in Iraq in an effort to accomplish a mission with no, civilian oversight, leadership, exist strategy or end-state. In the meantime, President Bush coddles and has sleepovers with the makers of the Islamic extremist, Saudi Arabia, and withdraws our efforts to capture or kill those responsible for our tragic 9/11 mass murder. All the while, with the President's support (silence) the American oil industry threatens to reduce refining capacity to America and continues unabated in shipping refined gasoline to a sworn enemy, Iran, which manufactures and exports to Iraq the very same weapons which are killing Americans and Iraqis. Without U.S. refined petroleum products, Iran would be would suffer immensely without a shot being fired, but President Bush has not let that stop him. Having discarded all other means for resolution, President Bush has chosen his method for conflict resolution, war. He will not prevail and those who followed him, blinded with the lust for power and position, will be cast aside by Americans at the ballot box in 2008. A reformation is coming to America and waging preemptive wars will come to an end.
America is ready to come back into the light from, what I believe history will record as, some very dark days in America?s history and in American government. Having wasted the immense International goodwill after 9/11, the President managed to bring America to the level of being despised and feared throughout the world and has borrowed more money than even exists in the U.S. Treasury while boasting about never having raised taxes; having taxed future generations instead.
All is not lost though. Although it may have appeared so on some occasions, America did not go to the dark side. A reformation in America is waking soon.
The United States suffered a crushing injury on 9/11. When the towers went down and the Pentagon was attacked we were all devastated in our hearts and minds, but America remained strong that day. Ready to do the right thing, we struck back at those who would dare strike us. We decimated the government who protected Osama Bin Laden and came to their soil to hunt him and his cohorts and bring them to justice or kill them. We had the right and duty to do so and we did. The world supported our actions and our right.
President Bush side-tracked America in its pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and diverted our will and our might to Iraq where, since, he has orchestrated the squandering of our riches and caused the blood of our great citizens to be spilled. Thousands of Americans have died, at this writing 3,558 Soldiers and untold American civilians, twenty times more wounded, my own son among them. Thousands more Iraqi civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands wounded and displaced. Those who actually attacked us from Afghanistan, are still free men and they continue to kill and mock us where and when they can as we, being occupied in Iraq, relinquished our duty to find these criminals and either bring them to justice or kill them. The once supportive world has now, because of Iraq, demonized American actions. History will record our suffering. Be that as it is; a new day is coming to America and it is going to be magnificent. What is before us is a future of greatness, having learned the hard lessons from the G.W. Bush years.
America remains great and Americans great as well. We are beginning to remind ourselves that the United States is one nation, the greatest albeit, in a world of many nations, and that we have the ability to change the world for the better while we renew our own respect for the freedom and liberty which have made us a giant in a world where each country is able to define themselves on their own terms without enslaving or conquering each other.
In the America I was born in, one can love God, or not and be welcome and accepted. In America one can reach for the stars, or be happy in the back yard and both are honored and respected. America is big, America is compassionate and we have withstood the onslaughts of evil men, who after having taken their best shot, have been found wanting as America has remained standing in the field of liberty, freedom and strength. Our history has taught mankind that greater freedom manifest greater strength. President Bush and the Republican Party tried to diminish that freedom and failed. A wonderful time is coming to America. Our greatest moments are before us.
In 2008 those who tried to take our inalienable rights will be reminded of the words of President Thomas Jefferson in 1823, "The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union?. An American reformation is stirring in the hearts of freedom loving people.
Reformation is swelling in American hearts and minds. Hope is raising its head in America and Americans are raising their voices in that hope for the future, post Bush.
I, for one, am ready. It has been a long night and I am so ready.
"Whenever our affairs go obviously wrong, the good sense of the people will interpose and set them to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:322
I hope we're both right.