THE AMERICA OF GEORGE W. BUSH

Conservatives have questioned whether a citizen who loves this country
would oppose the policies advocated by Bush. The answer is that every
citizen who loves this country opposes Bush and is appalled by the
devastation he has wrought upon our democracy. For those who share the
ideals of King and Jefferson and Franklin, there can be no greater act
of patriotism than to defeat the malicious demagogue who is destroying
the best of America.
____________________________________

THE AMERICA OF
GEORGE W. BUSH



By David Podvin

Martin Luther King dreamt of America as a land where people value each
other based on their individual merits without regard to superficial
differences. Thomas Jefferson visualized America as a land of
ever-expanding freedom, where each generation would pass on more liberty
to its descendants. Benjamin Franklin foresaw America as a land
guaranteed to elicit the most creativity and genius that human beings
have to offer because unlimited opportunity produces unlimited greatness.

When it strives to achieve the aspirations of noble people, our country
is a place of incomparable hope and beauty.

The America of George W. Bush is not such a place. It is a place gripped
by fear, a cowardly nation where personal security is considered to be
more important than preserving the precious freedoms that were purchased
with the lives of selfless patriots. It is a place of intrigue where the
majority of people are manipulated into supporting policies that are
designed to defraud them. It is a place where the ends justify the
means, and corruption is the governing philosophy. It is a place where
“restoring honor and dignity to the Oval Office” consists of lying and
cheating and breaking the law.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where conformity is prized over
individuality, and reason is synonymous with hatred, and dissent is
indistinguishable from treason. It is a place where science is
subservient to superstition, and truth is viewed as being subversive,
and democracy means not counting votes.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where might makes right. It
achieves foreign policy objectives the old fashioned way – by
slaughtering defenseless people. Loyal allies who fail to appreciate the
wisdom of this approach are excoriated for their treachery, while
domestic dissidents are shouted down and marginalized. In Bush’s
America, fighting terrorism abroad is used as a pretext for vanquishing
civil liberties at home.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where military personnel are
exalted as national treasures at photo opportunities, then shipped off
to die to enhance the profits of the Fortune 500. Those soldiers who are
not killed come home to a future of reduced medical care, because
lavishing largesse on military contractors is more important than caring
for has-been warriors who no longer serve a useful political purpose.
Like the elderly champions who once labored to build the economy - and
who courageously defended the nation against attack - our returning
young heroes are now ruthlessly abandoned to fend for themselves…to sink
or swim.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where it is believed that
common people have too much power and government has too little, that
average people have too many rights and corporations have too few, that
working people have too much money and the rich don’t have enough. It is
a place where wealth is equated with virtue, a place that is bereft of
compassion for all but the most privileged.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where caring about children is
a rhetorical ploy calculated for political gain, where “leaving no child
behind” is merely an expedient lie. It is a place where the future of
the next generation has been mortgaged by creating vast budget deficits
for the purpose of providing trillions of dollars of kickbacks to
corporate campaign contributors. It is a place where the nation’s most
vulnerable victims of violent crime lose their lives because child abuse
clinics have been closed so that more money can be given to people who
already have so much money they can never possibly spend it all.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where the most cherished form
of human life is the fetus. Even the Aztecs were not barbaric enough to
throw pregnant women into volcanoes, but the theocratic primitives now
running the government have decreed that the health of females who
experience severe late term complications must be sacrificed in homage
to the unborn. Cruel and unusual punishment cannot be inflicted on
rapists or child molesters, but it will be applied to women who fail to
properly fulfill their function as brood mares. This outrage is to be
committed in the name of religion – it is misogyny made holy – and such
depravity is symptomatic of a nation that is being led morally astray.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where the doctored image of
Jesus Christ is the symbol of an agenda that repudiates His every
principle. Christ repeatedly condemned the hoarding of great wealth
while never once mentioning homosexuality, yet He is now falsely
presented as both a supply side advocate and a homophobe. In a
blasphemous twisting of His word, gay people who express love are
condemned as immoral, while the hateful people who torment them are
exalted as righteous. Jesus implored His followers to generously help
the poor, but instead the poor are vilified as failures who are unworthy
of any succor. The name of Christ is now invoked to justify the
destruction and looting of countries that pose no threat: The Prince Of
Peace has been perversely transformed into the God Of War by a greedy
Texas politician who worships not at the altar of the Almighty, but at
the altar of the Almighty Dollar.

The America of George W. Bush is a place where nature exists to be
destroyed and endangered species become extinct species. The air and the
water that were once public domain now serve as cesspools for those
robber barons who are willing to buy the appropriate changes in
regulations. As the Arctic shelf continues to melt and the arable
topsoil continues to erode and the lung capacity of the nation’s youth
continues to shrink, the Bush campaign coffers continue to grow.

The America of George W. Bush is a betrayal of everything worthwhile
this nation has ever represented. It is a capitulation to the basest
instincts of society. It is not what the Founders created, nor is it
what the American people should ever be willing to accept.

Conservatives have questioned whether a citizen who loves this country
would oppose the policies advocated by Bush. The answer is that every
citizen who loves this country opposes Bush and is appalled by the
devastation he has wrought upon our democracy. For those who share the
ideals of King and Jefferson and Franklin, there can be no greater act
of patriotism than to defeat the malicious demagogue who is destroying
the best of America.