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Opinion by Lacy
Thompson, Jr.
Vocal Remover
Over the last year I have become
increasingly concerned with the direction my country seems to be heading.
I think the last thing America needs right now is more "Cheer Leaders" and
the thing we need most is every day American citizens that are sick and tired of
seeing their country misdirected to find their voices and make themselves heard. As an
American citizen I feel I have a responsibility to not stand silently but to
voice my concerns and I am gravely concerned for the future of my country. I
believe in the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights and
support those strongly. I have begun to question just what the
current leadership believes in.
Sadly, over time I have come to believe that the REAL "Threat
to National Security" is the moron in the Oval Office. I believe the
actions of George W. Bush have made America far less secure. I am
encouraged that the polls indicate that more and more other Americans feel that
the direction in which Bush has led this country is the wrong one. I
believe George W. Bush has betrayed the Constitution of the United States of
America. I believe he has lied to the American public repeatedly and spent
your tax dollars and mine (as well as those of our grandchildren) in no-bid
contracts that have enriched his and Dick Cheney's buddies at Halliburton.
I believe George W. Bush has committed numerous acts
that constitute grounds for impeachment and removal from office. I
have been ashamed of my country's actions under his "leadership". In
much of Canada and Europe Bush is even labeled a "war criminal". We
are not talking America's enemies saying that. We are talking our friends!
This is a truly sad state of affairs. How on earth did we get into
this awful mess?
I am but one American, and I would not pretend to speak
for America as a whole, but I do believe it is crucial when I see my government
behave in ways that do not represent my values to speak up for my part of
America.
The America I believe in supports the Geneva convention, The
America George W. Bush believes in apparently does not. From what I have
seen, prisoner abuse has not been the product of isolated incidents but a
systematic administration approach which has been criticized by former POWs like
John McCain and the former ex CIA chief Stansfield Turner. The CIA
renditions where people are flown to foreign countries for torture and
interrogation has shaken my faith in the Bush Administration.
The America I believe in supports the United States
Constitution. The right to Habeas Corpus, to face charges or be released
is central to the constitution. The treatment where an American citizen
Jose Padilla was held without charge for three years in violation of the
Constitution tells me George W Bush believes in a very different concept.
The very thought that Bush could point his finger and label you or me as an
"enemy combatant" and lock us away no questions asked scares the hell out of me.
When that occurred, I said to myself, well that's how American freedom ends, not
with a bang but a whimper. How can we call this a democracy or a
"free" country when that sort of thing is defended and fought by the Bush
administration?
It's not at all about Padilla. I personally don't care if
they hang him, IF it is the result of DUE PROCESS and a FAIR TRIAL.
The fact that the Bush Administration fought this tooth and nail, and charged
him ONLY TO AVOID a Supreme Court Showdown I feel they would loose, makes
me question just who these people are in the Bush administration and what they
believe in.
I guess the whole thing that started me questioning just what
was "Really Going On" with this whole "War on Terror" was that there
seemed to be this incredible rush to war. I felt Hussein was pretty much
contained and boxed in. He would be an idiot to try to do anything.
The absurdity of the world's greatest military power being afraid of him
conjured images of someone standing on a stool shrieking over a mouse. It
just didn't add up.
I thought the whole rhetoric about "Weapons of Mass
Destruction" sounded like something conjured up by some Madison Avenue types to
sell a war with Fear. I mean, like if anyone possesses Real Weapons of
Mass Destruction, it has to be the US with our nuclear arsenal.
After Iraq, I think a lot of these smaller countries are scrambling to develop
nuclear weapons, so we will think twice about invading them. We seem
to have a foreign policy that is totally devoid of Principle. How can you
trust a country that acts only in it's "National Interests" unguided by
Principle? My feeling, is ..... you can't.
The events of 9-11 were indeed a tragedy with 2,752 lives
lost. America will never be quite the same. As
devastating as that loss was, it still needs to be put in some rational
framework. The whole idea of Terrorism is to take something that is on one
scale and blow it up through media coverage into something that provokes an
irrational fear. In the July 26, 2000 issue of the Journal of the
American Medical Association (JAMA) it was estimated that medical errors kill
between 225,000 and 285,000 Americans every year in the hospital setting and
another 199,000 in the outpatient setting. If we use the low numbers,
that's 424,000 Americans killed Every Year from medical mistakes!
In the 4.4 years since 9-11 that means over 1.8 Million Americans have died from
medical errors....... yet few are even aware of the risk. It's so
incredible and unbelievable I have put the
report on my site in case you have any trouble locating it at the
original site.
Putting things in perspective, using the JAMA article,
as of 3/1/2006 Americans have been over 677 times as likely to die at the
hands of their doctor as a terrorist. The WTC towers were 1,360 feet
in height. If we used it's height to represent the total lives lost
on 9-11 and the American lives estimated to have been lost to medical errors,
the terrorist toll would be 2.00 feet in height and the remaining 1,358 feet
would represent the toll of medical errors.
Question in my mind is: Why are we fighting wars..... in the
countries not even linked to 9-11 in Iraq and oblivious to the
much bigger problem of medical errors? Why are we abandoning the
United States Constitution and our Civil Liberties. Exactly what is
going on here?
I am quite sure I do not know. I feel the media
failed the American people miserably in not asking more questions before the war
in Iraq. I have lost confidence in American media. I subscribe
to the Wall Street Journal, but I dig extensively and read extensively to try to
come up with something that makes sense of the absurdities and the insanities
that appear to be happening.
I remember seeing BBC coverage of a Lancet (British
equivalent of the JAMA) article estimating the Iraqi civilian deaths due to
coalition actions as over
100,000
with the majority being women and children. How on earth do you call it a
"surgical" war and kill over 60,000 women and children. Either we have
"Smart Bombs" aimed by "Dumb Asses" or the bombs ain't that smart. I
know if I was an Iraqi teenager and you killed my mother and sister, you would
be much more likely to make me an enemy than a friend. For the life of me,
I can't see how that is going to reduce terrorism.
It seems to me this whole escapade has been "packaged" in the
noblest of terms as the details of the true cost to the Iraqi people have been
hidden from the American people.
My feeling is that in this whole thing the American public
has been sold a "Bill of Goods" and exactly what the real story is behind the
motivations is, I am still trying to figure out. Seeing all these "No Bid"
contracts that go to Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton, the corruption in
congress, the deficit spending of over 280 Billion Dollars on what appears
to me to be a senseless war that has made us less safe. I am convinced if
you and I as Americans do not become FAR more involved in searching for answers
and demanding that our government represent the American People and not some
Corporate Special Interest, we are going to see things get worse.
I encourage you to not take things at face value. Read
and critically analyze. Our founding fathers knew that even the best
government is a Necessary Evil and that only an informed and active electorate
will create a viable functioning Democracy. I feel we have been
asleep and trusted people who it seems to me simply are not deserving of our
trust.
Write your congressmen, talk with your friends. I think
the encouraging thing now is that people are actually starting to talk, and find
out they aren't the only one who is concerned and feeling things are out of
control. I think dissent is not just a healthy symptom of a working
democracy it is a Necessary Component. This country does not need
Cheer Leaders! It needs an active concerned citizenry.
As stated, I have lost confidence in the ability of the
CNNs and the Wall Street Journals to provide critical analysis and differing
points of view. Use and support
TheRealNews and
abandon CNN who led us into this mess in Iraq doing the bidding of their
corporate sponsors. Also a web search of "Alternative Media" will yield
some excellent links. NOW on PBS is excellent. There is
a new documentary "Why We Fight" by Eugene Jarecki and I highly recommend seeing
it for perspective.
We have over 725 (non classified) bases in other
people's countries around the world. There are 14
permanent bases being constructed in Iraq. I Personally I cannot
fathom a foreign base on US soil. It would bother me. It seems to me that
the US has every right to be dynamically engaged in trade and global commerce,
and the exchange of ideas, however a far cry to say that we are "Isolationists"
as Bush's rhetoric suggests if we do not militarily dominate by force.
We as American Citizens must have a foreign policy that represents "We the
People" and not some elite corporate interests buying and controlling our
elected officials.
I believe America Desperately needs a third
political party and one that actually represents the people. We haven't had that
in a while. Until we see SERIOUS Lobbying and Campaign reform I
think we are going to see more of the same Den of Thieves that I feel Congress
has become.
My hope is that I encourage others to become more
involved, I feel this country is headed for Hell in a Hand Basket if we
continue to sleep as an electorate accepting the poor level of representation we
have. Both parties play one camp against the other and they are not in the
business of "Public Service" but of "Self Service".
If I played the "political divide and conquer"
game they want you and I to play, I would likely do what most people do...
weight the two candidates, and pick the "Lesser of the Evils". I don't see
it that way any more. In the last election, the question was "Do I Like
The Direction The Incumbent is Leading?" If the answer is NO well..... the vote
is cast - "You're Out!"
That had this former republican voting for the first
time for a Democrat. I don't care if the opposition was a Pink Hyena,
there was no way in Hell I was going to apply "Positive Feedback" towards the
Bush Administration which I believe is by far the biggest "Threat to National
Security" this country faces at the present time.
This November, if you are not happy with the
course of your representative let that be sufficient reason to vote for someone
else, let them try, vote them out in two years if they don't do a good job.
That's the ONLY way we are going to see change that represents the people.
We can't be "Democrats" and "Republicans" that's one of the ways things
got so screwed up and "We the People" became irrelevant and marginalized while
the special interests took over.
Find your voice in this matter.
Silence is deadly for Democracy. Fight for Your version of America. By not
fighting we have gotten "Their" version...... and I don't know about you, but I
don't like "Their" version At All!
Sincerely,
Lacy Thompson, Jr.
See Also
Making Sense Out
of Nonsense
 PS:
I know of nothing more critical to restoring the primacy of the Constitution and
returning the power to "We the People" than actively supporting and electing Ron
Paul as President in 2008. Get involved. Find a
Meetup Group in your area. Pleaser
egister to vote in the Primary
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