Soapbox

George Bush was elected because he had better “values� than his opponent. We know this because the media force-feeds us this idea every single day. Here are some of the values Bush has shown the country since Nov. 3rd:

~Because George Bush values his friends in the upper 1% income bracket, the first thing his cohorts in congress had to do was increase the “birth tax� on all our children and grandchildren by raising the debt ceiling to record levels.

~Because he values loyalty over morals, his friends in congress felt empowered to change their rules so that their dishonest leader, Tom Delay can retain his leadership position unhampered by petty little issues like ethics and impropriety.

~Because he values immediate gratification over patience, Bush and his administration deliberately misled not just America but the world about proof that Iraq was an imminent threat iin order to start a war. Now the world is loath to believe us even though we have uncovered evidence that Iran is producing nuclear weapons… or have we? The IAEC says this claim is exaggerated, and after what happened with Iraq, who do you believe?

~Because Bush values his friends in the pharmaceutical industry, the American people are no longer sure that the drugs quickly approved by the FDA and hustled on TV won’t cause their hearts to explode or their brains to leak out of their ears.

~Because he values the Beef industry, the bare minimum was done 3 years ago, when “Mad Cow� was first found in the U.S., to protect us from this silent killer. Now it may be back.

~Because he values is friends in the energy industry, George Bush has denied the dangers of global warming, refused to take steps to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and denied states the right to raise their own mileage standards. Now his administration says that wide-spread melting of the global ice sheet is a good thing because it will make it easier to tap arctic energy reserves!

~Because Bush values power, his Attorney General has warned judges not to exercise their sworn duty under the system of checks and balances by judging the constitutionality of presidential decisions in time of war. Because he values uniformity, his CIA director has cautioned his employees to make their facts fit the Presidential agenda, rather than hope the agenda might possibly be shaped by facts.

~Because he values only some lives, he has elevated to position of Attorney General the man who says that torture is OK and who, when Bush was governor of Texas, presented only the pro-death opinions when preparing death penalty appeals for commutation review. He also refuses to allow America to see the coffins of the sons and daughters he sacrifices in the desert sands for an unknown cause.

~Because he values his plans for empire-building, Bush has elevated to Secretary of State a woman who largely ignored warnings by the Clinton team about the danger of al Quaedato focus on Iraq, and dismissed a PDB entitled “bin Laden determined to attack inside US� as an “historic� document.

~Because he values re-regulation at all costs, Bush has allowed media near-monopolies to flourish and has been repaid with a slavish devotion to presenting only his side of the story by the very people we once trusted to expose the truth about corporate and government waste and corruption.

These are the “Values� you voted for, America: hope you like them. As you sow, so shall you reap.

We live in scary times.

It is scary to think that our sons and daughters may one day be drafted to fight a war- and the reason why doesn’t matter to half of the country.

It is frightening to know that Asian nations now hold half of the U.S. Treasury bonds out there, and if China should need to call in our debt, we cannot pay it.

It is frightening to see civil rights and free speech protections marching backwards into the 19th century, and to know that the man largely responsible for that regressive policy will probably appoint 3 justices to the Supreme Court.

It is scary when you do all you can to try to prevent all this from happening and get called a nut-job and a sore loser when the defeat comes under a cloud of suspicious circumstances.

It is downright disturbing when the Attorney General of the United States of America, the man charged with upholding the laws of the land and protecting the rights of all Americans, states that no judge should disagree with the president.

John Ashcroft said yesterday that “activist judges” are endangering this country when they rule against the President’s positions on treaties and conventions: things like saying he should not imprison people secretly for years and never charge them with a crime. They should not interfere with the President’s “constitutional authority to make decisions during war”, he declared.

Let’s be clear about this: he is basically saying that our president, (who is not even a lawyer, let alone a judge) should be considered infallible in times of war, and none should disagree, even if he violates the Constitution. Doesn’t this mean that all a president has to do is start a war and he has issued himself a blank check? And apparently it doesn’t matter if he lied to start the war, either!

Well heck- Clinton should have just started a war somewhere and he might never have been impeached!

Sadly, this is not really new. Republicans have been branding “activist judge” anyone who rules against their repressive, discriminatory and even un-constitutional policies. “If you don’t agree with our methods, it couldn’t possibly be because we’re wrong: it’s because you’re helping the terrorists! And anyone who doesn’t believe in witches is a witch!

It is in this climate of infallibility that I move that we change to motto of this country to something more along the lines of that of the British monarchy:

“Dieu et mon Droit” :
God is my Right

because it seems that King George the Second is to be granted the divine right to rule! Then we can make him a paper crown out the Constitution and go our merry way into the past.

If I have to endure one more story saying that George Bush won re-election because of his “Christian valuesâ€? I will vomit. Based on his actions, his “values” are even weaker than his grasp of policy.

In the Bible the only “values� Jesus preached are taking care of the poor and sick, and loving all persons. These are two things Bush has completely rejected in his policies. I’m also sure Jesus never condoned lying, twisting facts to fit your agenda or deliberately misleading people.

Jesus told us to be humble, yet our president refuses to admit mistakes or even to acknowledge that he rules a divided nation where almost half the population disapprove of his policies enought to vote against him. His claims that “God tells him” what to do sounds like a mere boast, not a sign of any genuine seeking for God’s will.

It is Not a Christian value to be more concerned about who is having sex than who is going hungry! Jesus preached about sex not at all, but he did say it is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. And still our president cuts taxes to the wealthy when hard-working families can’t even afford a doctor!

It does not value life to kill 100,000 Iraqis in only 18 months, surely rivaling the number who perished in a similar span of time under Sadaam Hussein! It is not moral to institute policies that let abortion rates rise and unborn children be sickened and killed by rising levels of poison in the environment.

It is immoral to create record profits for your friends in high places when un employment is high, the public education system is failing and our once-strong country is staggering under the burden of a debt owed to Asian nations (some our enemies) that will haunt us for a generation or more!

So, since Bush’s values are clearly not in line with the teachings of Christ, tell me exactly what “moral valuesâ€? it is Bush represents. His own?

“Bush’s own brand of faith has gained the imprimatur of the federal government. There is reason for concern that those whose faith, or lack thereof, strays from that embraced by the administration will face excommunication from the political ranks.”
~ Judith F. Daar, professor of law at Whittier Law School

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday there was an energy in this town. I was a poll-runner, and as I drove around town I saw people standing in the rain, holding signs that said “Kerry/Edwards for a better America!” and “Vote today!” And people did! Despite the weather, they stood in line and refused to leave until they had cast their votes. It was so energizing: now it feels like all that is gone.

The results of the election are disheartening, to say the least. How can we claim to bring democracy to the rest of the world when our own government worked feverishly to deny as many citizens as possible the right to vote- and got away with it?

Did you notice that the exit polls that pundits now tell us are so unreliable were actually right on the mark about the senate races, the local races, even Issue One- yet were totally wrong only on the presidential race, and only in the swing states? Do you think it’s fair when the referee of this election “game” (Ken Blackwell, charged with assuring fair elections in Ohio) is also allowed to be the coach of one of the teams ( Bush’s campaign co-chair in Ohio) ? You would never allow that at your son or daughter’s little league game, yet the powers that be expect you to tolerate it in a national election!

The media talking heads is now telling us that George Bush won because of “values”, but that is just more Republican spin. I question the values of people who believe that it is right to cut taxes to the rich when all around them, poverty is rising like a tide of despair. I am outraged by the tunnel-vision of a public whose only moral concern is who is having sex with whom and refuses to recognize the immorality of passing the biggest debt in history on to their own children. I worry about the soul of a people who would willingly send their children off to be killed for no explainable reason. And I grieve for the mothers who will get that knock on the door from a military officer but wil never, ever get a word of explaination from their president.

Here in Ohio we passed just that hideous and mis-named “Gay Marriage ammendment” that isn’t about marriage at all, but is about the government telling us how to live our lives by putting bigotry and discrimination into our laws. In re-electing Bush and a Republican majority we have also re-elected government secrecy, corporate greed and the Patriot Act in all its awful implications.

Welcome back to the 19th century everybody, where the needs of the company boss outweigh the needs of everybody else, and it’s dangerous to be different: where corproate growth is more imortant than the very air we breath and the people who breath it. And when George Bush gets through with the Supreme Court, we may well find ourselves in the 16th century, burning witches again!

As a liberal, I am used to supporting causes and candidates that lose. It’s rotten. You get disappointed, maybe you get mad, but you shake it off. Life goes on, right?

Except it doesn’t, always. Life will probably not go on for at least one young American in Iraq today, and another tomorrow, and another the next day. That’s part of what makes this defeat so hard to take. We feel like our children, our grandparents, our homes and jobs and even our right to speak are under attack, so we fought back with everything we had- and we lost.

What can you do when your best wasn’t enough?

To all the people who never before donated to a campaign or worked for a candidate but got involved in politics this year for the first time, I ask you to remember why you did it. It wasn’t because John Kerry was the only answer to our problems: it was because you wanted a better future for our nation and the world. You still want it! That better day will be more difficult to achieve with George Bush at the helm, but it is still out there: a golden ring, waiting to be grasped.

If you got involved in the campaign because you fear Bush’s bizarre foreign policy will spread the fires of war, get involved in a group working for peace! If your greatest concern was the assault on civil rights and the Constitution perpetrated by Bush, contact the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law center and other like-minded organizations. If you supported John Kerry because you were appalled by Bush’s hideous environmental record, talk to the Sierra Club or Greenpeace. If the disgraceful poverty and hunger in the U.S. was your motivation, check out Results a group active in that area for 25 years. The fight for justice didn’t begin with John Kerry’s campaign and it won’t end with it either.

So join up and speak out! Volunteer your time and donate your money to the causes you care about most. Above all, write to your congressional representatives and remind them that no matter how much campaign money the president has steered their way, their obligation in Washington is to YOU, not President Bush! Fully half of this country does not approve of Bush, and our senators have a duty to support us and our needs over the neocon agenda.

It would be easy to wash our hands of this whole mess and say “I give up! American has gone to the dogs!” But please don’t. This summer there was a fire kindled in the hearts of many Americans that has not been seen in generations. Don’t let the light go out! Put your fire to work where it can do the most good to benefit this nation. The battle is not over: it has only begun.