(Photo update only. Click for larger images. If it doesn't work the first time, hit your 'back' button and click on the photo again.)
It's not really rage, Cat. It's indignation, disbelief and, finally, determination. We've lived through something like this before. Long before you were born, there was Vietnam, an unwinnable and torturous 'police action' which stretched on for years and years. Because a military draft had been instituted for young men, there were protests and riots on college campuses and in government buildings. In 1970, the National Guard was called upon to keep order during an anti-war protest at Kent State University in Ohio. They ended up shooting 13 students, killing four of them.
The American people were lied to. During the time that we were fighting the North Vietnamese, we were also waging secret wars in Cambodia and Laos. I know that history repeats itself, and, since we never learn the lessons history teaches us, it repeats itself over and over! But for this to happen again, in our lifetimes, is like a bad dream. And some of the very people who colluded with the Nixon/Ford administration have helped orchestrate our invasion of Iraq.
Nixon didn't get us into the war in Vietnam; we were already there when he took office. But he used White House staff and resources to secretly spy on the Democratic National Committee, in hopes of consolidating GOP power by sabotaging the Democrats. He encouraged secret wiretaps and he obstructed justice by withholding and destroying evidence. Eventually, his Vice President faced criminal charges and was forced from office, his attorney general and chief of staff were in disgrace, and the President himself would have faced impeachment if he had not resigned. (He evaded criminal charges because Gerald Ford, the man Nixon had chosen to replace Vice-President Agnew, pardoned him. If it seems like they were making up their own laws, they were.) For your mom and I, it's deja vu, all over again.
Anyway, from what you say, you are doing something about it. You're staying informed, you're writing letters and you're getting out there to vote. If more people do what you're doing, we may be able to clamber out of this pit that we're in.
I don't want to speak for your mother, but I think she'd agree with me on this point. We're not going to lay down and roll over for criminals who think our Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper"! George Bush said that. The man who vowed to "protect, preserve and defend " the Constitution said that! George Bush wants us to be scared of him; scared that we might end up on an enemies list if we say or do or think the wrong things. Scared to buy the 'wrong' books or belong to the 'wrong' organizations. He wants us to spy on our neighbors and report 'suspicious' activity. He wants to hold secret trials for people who violate secret laws. Well, he can kiss my blatantly Socialist, Feminist, Atheist ass. There comes a time when you have to stand up. Here I stand.
- Maggie
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