Kellie Powell (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} wednesdayview) wrote,@ 2006-04-10 15:24:00 |
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Warmonger in Chief
I was a senior in high school when the Pentagon was attacked and the World Trade Center fell. More than 2,000 people died while I sat in pre-calculus class. I was seventeen years old.
Around the world, countries observed this tragedy, and expressed sympathy and solidarity. The world grieved collectively for the loss of lives. And the American government responded to these sentiments by exploiting them. Our government crossed out the "World" in World Trade Center and exploited a tragedy we perceived as singularly our own.
I was a freshman in college when the Bush Administration abruptly changed its target from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. I have been getting my college education while Bush was telling lies about weapons of mass destruction (that he knew weren't there), about imaginary links between Saddam and al-Qaeda (that his administration manufactured).
I have been earning a degree while people my own age were being sent to the desert to be used as cannon fodder in a war designed not to protect America, but to make America's richest people richer. I have come of age while military recruiters were targeting poor people and minorities to send to their death, presenting the invasion of Iraq as though it were a job-training program instead of a bottomless sewer of death and destruction.
I sat in a dorm room with my best friends and watched the illegal invasion of Iraq.
My college years have been filled with outrage and fear. My college years have been overshadowed by a criminally selfish Mad Cowboy in the White House who can't pronounce or spell diplomacy and thinks it's for "sissies."
The past three years have been stained by an unnecessary, un-winnable war that has made America far more despised, and therefore far less safe, than any terrorist leader hiding in a cave could ever have dreamed.
My college years have been defined by wire-tapping, Homeland Security, and the Patriot Act, by unexplained evidence of the U.S. government's complicity and possible involvement in the 9-11 attacks, by torture, by Guantanamo Bay, by the Abu Ghraib files, by the Project for a New American Century.
My college experience has been marred by people dying from a natural disaster because they were poor and black, and because Bush appointed an incompetent crony, and because the National Guard was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and anywhere but here, doing everything but protecting Americans.
My education has been undermined by manipulation of the media, creation and exploitation of unwarranted fear, greed, commercialist stupor, cynicism, apathy, pessimism, and fatalism.
My youthful naiveté has been crushed under the weight of the knowledge that the world has been damaged to the point that repair in my lifetime seems inconceivable.
My "Redbird Moments" have been stolen by the actions of the Bush administration's soulless mercenaries.
The best years of my life have been tainted by outrage over the appalling war profiteering of Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group.
And now, my graduation is being overshadowed by the knowledge that in the next two years, other terrorist attacks could destroy Congress, allowing Bush to declare martial law and do what he's been dying to do for the past six years – throw the Constitution out the window and turn America into a fascist theocracy, a totalitarian state.
It's hard to get excited about finishing college when you realize that America is one more well-executed conspiracy away from living in 1984.
The Bush administration, and everyone who supported them, robbed us all. They robbed me of my faith in humanity. They robbed me of my hope for the world's future. They robbed me of my pride in this country. They destroyed my civil liberties. And they demanded that we all be grateful for it.
And I got off easy. The same heartless mercenaries robbed soldiers and civilians of their lives, their limbs, their health, their sanity, and their innocence. They robbed parents of their children. They stole siblings, friends, spouses, lovers, classmates, co-workers, relatives.
I was lucky. I got to go to college while 2,350 young American men and women were being sacrificed to the hungry gods of Bush's greed and retribution.
Our government sent American soldiers to be killed and maimed. At least 2,350 were killed and at least 17,269 have been wounded.
They did it for money and for power.
And instead of being in jail, they're still leading us on a crash course toward the apocalypse.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're about three years overdue for a regime change.
www.dailyvidette.com
I was a senior in high school when the Pentagon was attacked and the World Trade Center fell. More than 2,000 people died while I sat in pre-calculus class. I was seventeen years old.
Around the world, countries observed this tragedy, and expressed sympathy and solidarity. The world grieved collectively for the loss of lives. And the American government responded to these sentiments by exploiting them. Our government crossed out the "World" in World Trade Center and exploited a tragedy we perceived as singularly our own.
I was a freshman in college when the Bush Administration abruptly changed its target from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. I have been getting my college education while Bush was telling lies about weapons of mass destruction (that he knew weren't there), about imaginary links between Saddam and al-Qaeda (that his administration manufactured).
I have been earning a degree while people my own age were being sent to the desert to be used as cannon fodder in a war designed not to protect America, but to make America's richest people richer. I have come of age while military recruiters were targeting poor people and minorities to send to their death, presenting the invasion of Iraq as though it were a job-training program instead of a bottomless sewer of death and destruction.
I sat in a dorm room with my best friends and watched the illegal invasion of Iraq.
My college years have been filled with outrage and fear. My college years have been overshadowed by a criminally selfish Mad Cowboy in the White House who can't pronounce or spell diplomacy and thinks it's for "sissies."
The past three years have been stained by an unnecessary, un-winnable war that has made America far more despised, and therefore far less safe, than any terrorist leader hiding in a cave could ever have dreamed.
My college years have been defined by wire-tapping, Homeland Security, and the Patriot Act, by unexplained evidence of the U.S. government's complicity and possible involvement in the 9-11 attacks, by torture, by Guantanamo Bay, by the Abu Ghraib files, by the Project for a New American Century.
My college experience has been marred by people dying from a natural disaster because they were poor and black, and because Bush appointed an incompetent crony, and because the National Guard was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and anywhere but here, doing everything but protecting Americans.
My education has been undermined by manipulation of the media, creation and exploitation of unwarranted fear, greed, commercialist stupor, cynicism, apathy, pessimism, and fatalism.
My youthful naiveté has been crushed under the weight of the knowledge that the world has been damaged to the point that repair in my lifetime seems inconceivable.
My "Redbird Moments" have been stolen by the actions of the Bush administration's soulless mercenaries.
The best years of my life have been tainted by outrage over the appalling war profiteering of Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group.
And now, my graduation is being overshadowed by the knowledge that in the next two years, other terrorist attacks could destroy Congress, allowing Bush to declare martial law and do what he's been dying to do for the past six years – throw the Constitution out the window and turn America into a fascist theocracy, a totalitarian state.
It's hard to get excited about finishing college when you realize that America is one more well-executed conspiracy away from living in 1984.
The Bush administration, and everyone who supported them, robbed us all. They robbed me of my faith in humanity. They robbed me of my hope for the world's future. They robbed me of my pride in this country. They destroyed my civil liberties. And they demanded that we all be grateful for it.
And I got off easy. The same heartless mercenaries robbed soldiers and civilians of their lives, their limbs, their health, their sanity, and their innocence. They robbed parents of their children. They stole siblings, friends, spouses, lovers, classmates, co-workers, relatives.
I was lucky. I got to go to college while 2,350 young American men and women were being sacrificed to the hungry gods of Bush's greed and retribution.
Our government sent American soldiers to be killed and maimed. At least 2,350 were killed and at least 17,269 have been wounded.
They did it for money and for power.
And instead of being in jail, they're still leading us on a crash course toward the apocalypse.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're about three years overdue for a regime change.
www.dailyvidette.com
