Vietnam Service

Vietnam Service
Vietnam Service

Monday, September 10, 2012

To Be Or Not To Be

To be or not to be, that is the question.  The query is simple-what is going on in our country? Protests, ultra-right-wing governors, racism, fear mongering, etc. Don Rumsfeld is appearing on various programs to hawk his book, but his flawed publication is drawing immensive criticism.  He is attempting to construct a positive view of himself during the Bush Jr. administration, but documents keep arising challenging his nefarious points.  George Bush Jr. is facing arrest for war crimes if he travels to Europe and even Sarah Palin is facing the same in Australia for libel. Why have we entered a time where lies, calumny, smears and threats have become commonplace?

An era has begun where deification of the mediocre has been necessary to bolster particularly right wing politics.  Ronald Reagan, for example, was not a great president, but a multi-flawed individual.  He was a Cold War product who believed in rooting out communists, protesters and liberals wherever they existed.  In fact, he called for the "streets to run with blood" of demonstrators in Berkley, California, during the hectic late 1960s while governor. Reagan raised taxes eleven times, granted amnesty to 3,000,000 illegal immigrants, led 241 Marines to their death by ordering no defensive measures in Lebanon (GIs couldn't even load their weapons), took actions defying the Boland Amendment which forbade supplying the Contras, involved us in the illegal Irangate scandal by giving weapons/WMDs to both Iran and Iraq during their war, had over 700 indictments of administration officials and 335 convictions for corruption, traded weapons to terrorists for hostages and overall is rated as the second most corrupt administration in history.  Yet he is being deified as a "great" president.  Boggles the mind!

The 2012 campaign seems to value alienation more than participation in the electoral process.  Extremist governors and their legislative counterparts have zeroed in on voter lists shouting fraud and began screening voters out.  Commensurately, voter identification cards have passed into laws in another effort to eliminate citizens from their constitutional right.  Are Republicans so afraid of the electorate they are stooping to these tactics in an effort to salvage a win?

The recent Republican convention reminded me of a contest whereas speakers competed with each other over the biggest falsehood.  Black is white; white is black....wherever you travel, there you are!!!  I am of the belief they should all be given a hot lead enema to cleanse their souls and return to representing constituents; not big business and the love of money.

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