Something I posted on Bart Cop on the first day of spring.....

Three Years ago.....


I couldn't take it anymore, the constant beating of the war drums from every channel, from every station, from every stop along the dial. Everywhere I look I see people numbed by the sanitized violence, children sitting rapt in front of the TV watching model airplanes and simulated swoop downs of jets on strafing runs in cities with strange names like Basra and Umm Qasr, cities where people are praying just to make it though another day, another day closer to liberation.

Then the troops jitty jolting by on video phones where reporters who believe with all their heart they are the modern day incarnation of Ernie Pyle talk about the sand, the wind, the loneliness but never about the death and carnage that is stretched out before them.

The troops. They truly believe they are on a righteous mission and in their minds I believe that they are. It's easy to fall prey to the steady drum beat of propaganda. It's happened before, it will happen again.

I am in my car with my wife driving to have dinner with my sister and her husband of three months, a Dr at the VA who treats the continued mental illness caused by a war now glorified in the minds of Bruce Willis and Sylvestor Stallone. I wonder how many of these bright young men and women playing their scripted part in the newest reality show will fall prey to the demons that haunt after so many many years, after so many mornings in America.

The Clear Channel country station says they will still boycott the Dixie Chicks while our troops are in harm's way and Toby Keith Faux patriotism blares out and reminds me that scoundrels who exploit the people who truly love their country are the ones who will dance with Satin in the fifth ring of hell.

Last night a client told me his mailbox had been taken and stomped on three times this week by neighborhood kids. The reason, he had a Pray for Peace yard sign on a street dominated by pastic coated messages screaming in loudest red, white and blue that America Stands United.

I notice the traffic is lite, very lite. It is almost eight on the first Friday of Spring and yet the traffic rolls on under a solemn shroud tonight. One by one we tick off the restaurants and bars we pass on this glorious night when all should be overflowing with people about to burst forth from winters clutches.

And the parking lots are all, at best, half full.

We pull into the Custard shop, open for business on the first day of spring and the woman is glad to see us. You could tell her business is down, no one is sitting on the bench outside her stand on a night where it is still on the good side of 60. I ask her how business is and she says, you know, it comes it goes... I think it's the war.

I look around and everything is the same but I know it is all changed forever. The announcer on the local NPR station tells me they are suspending their fund raising drive during this time of national crisis and I look and see no sign of crisis, no sign of sacrifice, just a slowdown in life for a while, a little blip and then the markets will come alive, the tax cuts will trickle down and all will be well again in America.

It's over. The $ 738 billion dollar tax cut is going to pass this weekend only $100 billion lighter, the amount needed to cover the war carved out at the last minute by a few republicans who had a rare pang of guilt. Nothing of substance from the democrats. No one will take notice. The richest people in America are going to have another one up on you and me because we let it happen, we let ourselves be distracted by war.

We are now officially on our own for everything with only war acting to pull us together as a nation. Don't count on any kind of prescription drug relief because there will be no money to pay for it. Don't included Social Security in your retirement plans because it will not be there when it comes your time. Don't you dare loose a job or let any kind of crisis arise in your life. You will have nowhere to turn except a faith based charity that will dispense mandatory salvation along with your redemption soup. You must repent since being unlucky is now officially a moral defect.

But we will always have Baghdad and the glorious war of liberation.

This is the America we now live in. This is the America we bequeath to our children.

Kicked.

And our grandchildren...and I can;t even imagine about what my great-grandchildren will have to deal with in terms of debt, health care, living wages, environment, and more.

Am writing a letter to my granddaughter who is almost 4 years old. I want her to know I tried. I want her to know I believed in the fight to secure a decent future for her, and for her children in that someday far away.

I take pictures now for her to remember what this world looked like before those in power chose to destroy it.

It is such a sad story, ours in America.....

It makes me sick at heart.......

Kicked and recommended......

I'm not too old yet, but I'm old enough to remember a different America.

I remember an America that held promise. I remember when parents worked hard to get us through school, so that we would have a future. Now, education no longer matters-what matters is whether your company will be outsourced.

I remember Jimmy Carter daring to talk about the importance of nuclear disarmament in his inauguration speech. Now we use depleted uranium in our wars without batting an eye.

I remember Carter fostering peace between Egypt and Israel. I remember how stunned and moved we all were. Now America actively tries to promote war for unjustified ends, and americans are proud of this.

I remember a time when my mother could raise 2 kids on a secretary's salary with no college education. Try that now. Try even getting by alone on a salary with no college education.

Where is America? It's gone now. It's been replaced by a wannabe Rome full of proudly uneducated bullies. The whole world is ashamed of us.

I'm talking about the people who've lost their jobs, savings and hope for a future. And the dead in this war, in New Orleans and in so many other places.

It's easy to say that an "evil cabal" of people took over the Republican Party and caused it to happen. And sure, there are concerns with those voting machines that undoubtedly stole millions of votes (not to mention the electoral college system that makes some people's votes more valuable than others).

But there are a lot of people that supported Bush and the war publicly. Even though they're losing their jobs, benefits and sons, they still have those W stickers on their cars.

Even if you assume that they're gullible people, they could have been led in a different direction, if the Democratic Party and its candidates had any courage, principles and conviction.

What I'm saying is something that almost sounds like something out of the mouth of a televangelist, but unlike those guys I offer no promise of salvation if you send a check.

I think we're ALL to blame for this.

We all went along with this, we all voted for it or we didn't protest enough against it. We've earned our entry into Hell. Nobody pushed us.

And the only way out of it is if we all admit our guilt and work for redemption. No blaming Bush or Rumsfeld or Limbaugh or anybody else, since those excuses are simple. The fault is ours. And so is the cure.

That the rush to war overtook reason.....

For most of the country, at least....

I was always a critic and skeptical of any foreign adventure promoted by these guys...

and the whole mess would break my heart if it didn't piss me off so much.

But that night....

Driving home....

I almost broke down in tears after the Custard Lady said that....