Post-Election Reflection

It's official. Virginia has just come through for Jim Webb. George Allen, the guy who looks like Spiro Agnew with a bad John F. Kennedy haircut, is on his way to well-deserved political obscurity. The Democrats now control both houses of congress. Maybe we really will be able to take our country back from these hideous bastards after all. One week ago, we had every right to be pessimistic. All of that has changed. Oh, happy day! As a caller said on the Sam Seder program on Air America Radio yesterday, "I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl"! Full disclosure: the caller was a guy. It's a new morning in America, baby! As Mr. Dylan said in perfect context over forty years ago, "the times they are a'changin'"!

The unavoidable conclusion is that the Bush administration is as dead as a door nail. Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace exactly one week before my sixteenth birthday in 1974. At the time I remember thinking that the American political landscape would never again get as interesting as it was during the Watergate era. Oh, brother! Fasten your seatbelts, kids! The next two years are going to make 1972/74 look boring civics lecture. George W. Bush now has to answer for his crimes against humanity. He now faces a legislative body that not only possesses the power of the subpoena but has every intention of taking advantage of it. But the depressing era of a corrupt and sycophantic rubber-stamp congress is not yet over - not at all. Remember, these criminal fools have over a month left to inflict even more destruction on your once-great country. Keep your eyes on the damage they do between now and then.

Come January 1st, it's all over - and by "over" I'm not merely referring to the Bush presidency - I'm referring to the entire right wing movement that began with the so-called "Reagan Revolution" over a quarter of a century ago. For twenty-six years we've had to listen to these assholes lecture us about family values while they waged an unrelenting war upon the middle class. As a result, the disparity of income in the United States has not been this blatantly obvious since the end of the nineteenth century. The middle class, which during the last half of the twentieth century was the oil that fueled America's economic engine, is on the verge of virtual extinction. There's a very good reason why the GOP hadn't controlled both houses of Congress in over forty years when they took power in 1994. The Eighty-third Congress of 1953-55 saw some of the worst abuses of congressional power in American history. If you'll remember, that was the period when the infamous "witch hunts" provided by the House Un-American Activities Committee sent our Bill of Rights through the sausage grinder. When the Dems were finally able to regain control of the situation in January of '55, the Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, shocked by his own party's mindless extremism, breathed a prolonged sigh of relief. The irony of it all is the fact that the McCarthy era, as damaging to our nation's psyche as it was, was a relatively brief span of time. This situation has gone on for twelve long years!

Finally there is light at the end of this long, depressing tunnel. Very soon, the Bush Mob will have to raise their right hands and take an oath to tell the whole, ugly truth. True, some of them will lie their asses off - don't forget this is the most dishonest White House we've ever had - but some of them are going to crack, make no mistake about it. Within a year it's going to be official and undeniable: George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They wanted to seize control of the second largest oil reserves on the planet. It was never about "bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people". These are the same people who stole two elections in their own country. These are the same people who spied on American citizens without a constitutionally mandated, court-ordered warrant. These are the same people who gave us the Patriot Act and effectively did away with habeas corpus. These are the same people who now advocate torture. Implying that they believe in "freedom and democracy" in Iraq (or anywhere else for that matter) only insults my intelligence.

It's just so much fun watching this disgusting administration fall apart at the seams! The First Fool's day of reckoning is nye (and I don't mean Louie!) My prediction is that Bush will be remembered as the first US president in history to go to federal prison. Dick Cheney will probably avoid the same, well-deserved fate. Sadly, that fatal heart attack we've all been waiting for these past six years is likely to come any minute now. (Question: Would it be a federal offence to send a Triple Whopper with Cheese to the vice-president's residence? Just wondering). But while he may be able to avoid the judgement of a jury of his peers, no one is immune from the judgement of history. The most eye-popping aspect of this administration's arrogance has always been their obvious belief that they are so immune. That is why, within minutes of swearing to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" on January 20, 2001, the half-witted little thug we now call the commander-in-chief issued an executive order to seal the papers of not only his father's administration but Ronald Reagan's as well - curiously omitting the Clinton papers at the same time. They don't want history to know the truth. Sorry folks. History knows.

The clock is ticking and the sun is setting. A whole posse of murderously angry chickens will be coming home to roost very soon - and they have a serious agenda. Our president (yours and mine), George W. Bush is guilty of genocide; that is the very unpleasant reality that we all have to come to terms with. The sooner we do, the healthier - mentally and maybe even spiritually - we'll all be. Someone mentioned the other day that this is the beginning of the end of the George W. Bush presidency. That's not quite correct. The beginning of the end came the day in March of 2003 when they made the stupidest military blunder in American history by invading Iraq. The end arrived on Tuesday. It's over. It's all over.

Pray for peace.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net