DAYS

DISSENT IS ON THE MARCH
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
-- Abraham Lincoln


Hmmm, this is curious... Karl Rove said earlier this week that "there is no real anti-war movement" in this country. Funny that Rove would say that the very same day it was reported that a whopping 67% of the country opposes the war. Sounds pretty "real" to me, Karl. Where does he live again? I think we may need to expand the route of this weekend's march to include a pass by his cave.

Yes, I am one of the "clowns" who will be in DC this weekend, and I don't feel one bit silly about it. Many people have been asking me, "why bother?" The most typical comment I get is, "it's not going to make any difference," which is exactly the reason I will be there this weekend. The Karl Roves of the world are counting on complacency amongst the populace. They're surely hoping another pretty, young blonde girl goes missing on a tropical island somewhere so we'll all forget about this disastrous war, a continued pattern of cronyism and corruption, and outright incompetence at the highest levels of government. Don't let it happen.

The time for being complacent is over. This shit is important. The state of the union is not well. I'm not demanding you all come to DC and march this weekend, but I am asking you not to sit back and simply throw your hands up when you see or hear the hypocrisy. Call bullshit on it all. Demand accountability. Educate those who refuse to pull their noses out of their gossip rags and their eyes away from reality television. Every little action matters. Every time we raise our voices it adds to an increasingly louder chorus across the country. A chorus that is fed up with the corrupt, incompetent and downright dangerous establishment currently occupying the seats of power in this country. And we should all be screaming at the top of our lungs at this point.

President Bush, We Hate Your War.

Not convinced? Want more reasons why this administration should be held accountable? There are at least 1,000, but try these on for starters:

• For 1,900+ dead American soldiers. 15,000+ American soldiers wounded. Countless numbers of innocent Iraqi civilians dead. ("We don't do body counts.") For what? For nothing.
• For doing squat since 9/11 to make us safer here at home.
• For the policies that have led to the tripling of global terrorist attacks around the world.
• For seizing on the fear that surged across this country post-9/11 to push your unjustified, unnecessary war on Iraq. Mushroom clouds anyone?
• For "fixing the facts around the policy."
• For flat-out lying about WMDs. And soooo many other things.
• For joking about those missing WMDs while soldiers were still dying. Yep, that was hilarious.
• For attempting to conduct a 'war on the cheap'.
• For not putting enough troops on the ground in the first place.
• For not properly equipping our troops before sending them to war.
• For failing completely to plan for or understand the post-invasion chaos and insurgency. Rumsfeld's explanation? "Stuff happens."
• For not firing Donald Rumsfeld.
• For losing track of $1 billion in Iraq earlier this week, added to the $8.8 billion you lost earlier. And hey, how about the $300 billion already spent on this endeavor? We can pretty much consider that 'lost' too, can't we? $300 billion... that's like an entire hurricane.
• For approving the interrogation practices that led to torture at Abu Ghraib.
• For the August 6, 2001 PDB which stated "Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S."
• For being too busy 'clearing brush' to pay attention to that memo.
• For clearing brush. Period.
• For 'My Pet Goat'.
• For continuing to cover-up 9/11 failures.
• By the way, where is Osama?
• For that bullshit bullhorn moment.
• For squandering the good will the world showered upon us after 9/11.
• For turning so many goddam corners in Iraq that we're now running in circles with no way out.
• For sending America's children to be blowed up when you yourself spent the Vietnam era swilling beer in Alabama.
• For the Swift Boat attacks.
• For Karl fucking Rove.
• For rushing back to DC from your ranch to 'rescue' Terri Schiavo.
• For fiddling at your ranch while not rescuing the entire city of New Orleans.
• For having the audacity to link anything, including Hurricane Katrina, to the War (Struggle?) on Terror in order to justify your policies.
• For continuing to reward loyalty over competency, moving forward with your policy of cronyism (and nepotism!) even in the face of the Michael 'Heckuvajob' Brownie debacle
• For continuing to allow the crooks and thieves who permeate your party to run wild.
• For having Lynyrd Skynyrd on your iPod.
• For completely ignoring the environment.
• For saying "the jury is still out" on Global Warming.
• For saying "the jury is still out" on Evolution.
• For thinking Jesus Christ was a philosopher. And a Republican.
• For being the only president ever to cut taxes during wartime. And for cutting them in such a way that the richest 1% benefit the most.
• For continuing to insist on making those tax cuts permanent, even in the face of a $200 billion+ reconstruction effort in New Orleans.
• For proposing cuts to benefits for military families to pay for that reconstruction instead.
• For repeatedly treating disaster as an opportunity.
• For an all-time high trade deficit nearing $700 billion.
• For the 7 percent decrease in real value of minimum wage over the past four years.
• For the 11 percent increase in poverty over the past four years.
• For four straight years in which median household incomes have not increased.
• For the 6 million more uninsured Americans created in the last four years.
• For hiding the true cost of your Medicare prescription drug bill until it was already passed.
• For ramming through a transportation bill filled with a record amount of pork to support such "special projects" as Alaskan Don Young's "bridges to nowhere".
• For pushing through an energy bill which includes billions in tax breaks for your oily friends as gas prices continue to soar.
• For treating your failed war as though it were a charity, asking Americans for donations to support it. Talk about last throes.
• For ignoring real crises while claiming a "crisis" in Social Security when there isn't one.
• For being a divider, not a uniter.
• For fueling discrimination and hatred of homosexuals by pushing the frivolous idea of a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in order to polarize the electorate so you could win re-election.
• For "Mission Accomplished"
• For "Bring 'em on"
• For "Last Throes"
• For "We'll be greeted as liberators"
• For "Smoke 'em out"
• For "Watch me hit this drive"
• For generally being an asshole.
  

How's that for starters?

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable -- a most sacred right -- a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world." -- Abraham Lincoln