How Do We See Ourselves?

Identity is a complex process of often painful evolution. But we have developed an identity, as a culture, a nation in a world of other nations, as bullies and thugs. That is a big part of the Bush Legacy. Thank you Carl Rove, Thank you Vice President Chenney. Thank you Donald Rumsfeld. I could go on and on with the kudos, but if you’ve been paying the slightest attention over the past seven years, you know the cast of characters. Second raters, one and all. Mean and greedy. It’s hard for me to believe that these people all had reasonable credentials—good schools, a history of public service, business, law. What happened along the way that made them all so cynical and mean and greedy? What’s in it for them besides wealth? Is wealth enough of an incentive to work so hard to wreck a country?

We have a chance right now to stop this on-coming train-wreck. We are speeding toward a fascist dictatorship, willing to wage wars of aggression, willing to occupy other countries just like an old fashioned Colonial Empire. Is that how we want to see ourselves? Our decisions, our personal, private choices about this upcoming Presidential Primary are critical right now. If we choose not to vote we give up all our power as a people, as a nation, we are lost. If we vote mindlessly, out of habit for the party of our parents, we have abdicated our responsibility to think for ourselves. If we don’t listen to the debates on both sides of the aisle, we can’t vote intelligently. Do not let your Church or Parent or Spouse or cable news pundit tell you what to think about the important issues of this election season. Think for yourself, make your own decision, and then vote. For God’s sake VOTE. That is what Democracy is all about. If you don’t vote, do not doubt that someday you will loose the right to vote. And this will be a Democracy no more.