(cross-posted at Daily Kos)
Warning: some graphic photos below.
It’s nice to see that good people like John Kerry are beginning to recognize that the Bush administration is crawling in the feces of its own incompetence, that it is governing about as poorly as a boozed-up alcoholic. But it’s stories like this one that really piss me off.
I’m a thoroughly middle-class American. I was born in another country. I have no delusions about the ‘American Dream’; that’s been dead since before I was born. But I would expect that our government would have sense of common decency, a sense of fairness, that they would care an iota. But they don’t, and I’m sick of it. I can’t take it anymore.
Our president couldn’t give half a shit about us.
Our rightly chosen president was forced to concede a race when partisan, activist judges on the Supreme Court stepped into something they had no business getting involved in.
Our president can’t be bothered with the specifics of national security, so thousands of people die while he reads a children’s book. But hey, brush needs clearing, right?
We get tax cuts that give more money to the rich when we have record budget deficits.
We have Congress legislate what a woman can do with her body.
We’re told that Saddam Hussein is a grave threat, even though it’s clear he has no weapons of mass destruction.
A couple who have devoted their careers to public service for their country have their reputations destroyed for sheer political gain.
We invade a country on false pretensions, killing untold thousands of civilians who will only be remembered as ‘collateral damage’.
Our president declared that our mission was accomplished three years ago, even though it was clear the job was far from done.
We’ve lost 2,433 of our young soldiers – people my age – in a senseless cause. I hope and pray that my cousin, who is in the Army, does not become one of those. Our leaders can not even be bothered to show up to their funerals. But we won’t forget them.
An honorable man who volunteered to serve in a war few people in his position were involved in, including our current president, is smeared with shameless lies…and the media eats it up.
Our leaders don’t bother showing respect, and it shows in the way they present themselves.
We lose our moral standing as a country…
…and we lose respect around the world…and in our own country.
Republicans rush back from vacation to intrude on the life of a person they’ve never met, passing judgment on her medical condition by videotape and pushing through legislation to serve purely political purposes. In the end, her husband is finally allowed to fulfill her wish, and a woman can finally rest in peace.
While Bush is on another long vacation, playing the guitar and eating cake…
…a beautiful city drowns, and, to this day, the government simply doesn’t care.
Gas prices soar, and average Americans are beginning to pawn off their valuables just to fill up.
The NSA initiates an illegal wiretapping program that violates the law, but we’re told that it’s part of a perfectly legal ‘terrorist surveillance program’.
A White House aide is indicted for the first time in over 130 years.
Corruption runs rampant in the Republican Party, whether it be…
Tom DeLay…
Jack Abramoff…
Duke Cunningham…
Bob Ney…
Ernie Fletcher…
…and many more to come.
But what gets me most is that for the last 5 1/2 years, we’ve been lied to again, and again…and again…and again. This administration and the Republican Party have taken the American population to be completely oblivious and have bankrupted us socially, morally, and economically, and who knows what else. It’s the fact that they are so comfortable in their lies that really makes me mad.
Whether it’s the president…
…or the vice president…
…or the secretary of defense…
…or the attorney general…
…or the previous guy…
…or the secretary of state…
…or the previous guy…
…or the recently departed CIA director…
…or the previous guy…
…or the National Security Advisor…
…or the previous guy…
…or the new press secretary…
…or the previous guy…
…or the guy even before that.
And the media just ignores it. It’s sad that the two most honest journalists out there are the following:
I’ve had enough.
Wow, that really hammers it all home.
Outstanding diary!
John
Both here and at the orange place. Very powerful…
Me too. Unfortunately George is just the puppet to a scary group of handlers.
We have alot of work to do.
Manee, I saw that game on ESPN. They show’d bush when he was owner of the Rangers. Had to be a full minute of this idiot picking his nose. I always wondered if anyone had the clip.
Its like his wiretapping and torture he thinks no one can see him and no one is repulsed by his actions.
The list of atrocities just keeps getting longer. I want my country back.
Great diary! Shout out to Keith O, that other other honest journalist.
Great diary-puts into words and pictures what so many of us are feeling and wondering just what in the hell it’s going to take to get people out in the streets marching and demanding either Congress does it job or demand these crooks and liars are run out of town on a rail. This madness has to stop.
A great diary…especially Hurricane Katrina and Terri Schiavo..it shows the extreme indifference the Republicans have to the plight of the poor. W. can rush back to D.C., to sign the Schiavo Legislation, but does a fly over of NOLA.
Ok, I’ll agree that you pointed out the problems. So what is everybody going to about it?
Mass protest doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Contacting your representatives in Congress doesn’t seem to work either since they have given up all responsibility for their oversight function.
90% of the Media is told what to report and what not report so any help from the 5th estate isn’t happening.
85% of all Americans are sitting on the side lines content with watching this slow motion train wreck take place and a little under half of those are “praying” and in doing so are enabling a self fulfilling prophecy of “Gods Vengeance upon America the Impure”.
So what’s a true believer in Democracy to do?
The President is at 29% approval rating, so maybe all our protesting and LTEs and letters to reps have made a difference. I know, it’s slow, slow, slow, but perhaps the mills of [democracy] really do grind incredibly fine.
I’m convinced that Democracy as a guiding force in America is dead. Sorry that sounds so down but I don’t hold out much hope that this will change in the near or far future.
It’s just hard to get used to this new reality.
read. The nightmares are always the same, husband is gone though that’s never always clear how it happened and the family is in shambles. It is true that I married a soldier and I knew what that meant – that if the nation were ever in peril he willingly places himself in peril without question. I am alright with that, and all that cheering and handclapping and band playing is meant for something as a nation. It is the healing balm to facing the possibility of that wound, though I never cared much for the hoopla. When Clinton was president and Mogadishu happened we had an upset president on our hands back then. He wanted to know how this had happened and when he got the whole skinny he discovered that good intentions and rogue Commanders can make one hell of a mess, but he cared….he had tears in his eyes and it weighed on his soul and I could see that. Things were dealt with and all of those soldiers were career military who would have found a way to leave service if their hearts weren’t in it though some were very young and kind of silly about being a hero. Nobody cares now……..kids who stood in line to sign up after September 11 are being used to fight an illegal war that had nothing to do with that day. Too late though because they have signed and been stop lossed! They are so young and still looking to elders needing some sort of guiding hand which is not there! I imagine myself in their shoes and the only feeling that comes to mind is “FORSAKEN”. The National Guard is pulled from their beds to fight an illegal war also and these are the last people in the world who can conceive of finding themselves in jail to make a point. They thrive on stability and that is why most of them joined the Guard! They aren’t cut from firebrand cloth and probably never would have joined something as boring as the National Guard used to be if they were cut from such cloth. Most have family oriented lives and being on call during times of crisis within the Nations borders ensures a sense of safety and stability for all families, they usually are not much like active duty military. They pledged service for totally different reasons but none of that matters because the guys in charge will bend all laws and bend all norms to their liking and every eye in the room remains dry. AND PEOPLE DIE BY THE DUMPTRUCK FULL EVERY DAY!
in Congress preside at the execution of American Democracy as we have known it for over 200 years by Republican Fundamentalist Neocons.
And conscientious voters are responsible too — even in the face of possible voting fraud — if they do not seize control of the voting process on a local level to assure it is fair and uncorrupted.
Who do we think this country belongs to — the people, or the corporation? What are we going to do to back up our beliefs — sit and doodle, or fight in the legislature, courts, and the voting booth?
Where’s the New Revolution to take back the country of our Founding Fathers? Is two short centuries all it takes for a Nation to become spineless in the face of tyranny — because tyranny it is!?
Where is the patch of free soil which citizen and public servant alike can claim and say, “Here I rise. Here I stand. Here I stay. You will do no more to betray my freedoms.”? Let it be here and now where we draw the line and declare, “No further!” Then we can turn the tide and reclaim our lost liberties.
We must — each and every one — debate in Congress and on the street, wrest radicalism by reason from the perverts in power, reclaim our National Birthright, else we collectively accede that the Great Experiment has failed and the Light of Liberty been extinguished.
[posted at Daily Kos atached to Johns Kerry and Conyers, SHUT THIS PUPPY DOWN]
Triple recommend if I could. This diary says it all. I’, with ya buddy!
Great diary, I’m with you all the way, thanks for rounding this all up into one diary…
Good to see you, Diane: been missing you around these parts lately. Hope you are well.
Outstanding. I think this speaks for many Americans. Now, the issue is how to mobilize a majority to throw these fuckers out of office, and then preferably into jail.
This is a great diary, I applaud you, and second all of the sentiments 200%, but you should really give a warning if you want to show images of such obscene carnage. I get it and don’t need the pictures and feel they are a grevious insult to me and to the dead. You know which ones I am talking about. I think you should give a warning or delete them.
We bought it.
I’m with mythmother in the idea that someoneshould have warned us first. we probably woould have looked any ay but we would have been better prepared.
Good diary otherwise
I applaud you for your excellent diary. I agree with everything everyone else has said…Thank you for your hard work on this diary. hugs