I hope I can make this short (If you’ve read any of my other posts, you’ll understand my uncertainty). Today I was driving around thinking about some of the books I’ve read regarding the bush administration, cheney, and the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. I think it is indisputable that most Americans felt the extreme sense of violation when the al qaeda criminals murdered around 3000 Americans on 9/11/2001. As the anniversary of that date approaches my thoughts are that I really hope that something isn’t planned for a “re-enactment – that’s my first wish for any republican that thinks I’m “un-American” – and my second thought is; why haven’t the criminals in our government had to stand for their violations of the most basic laws that have served this nation for over 200 years?

I’m presently reading “The Way of the World” by Ron Suskind – another fabulously informative book that gives ample evidence that, not only has bush/cheney et. al. been incredibly incompetent in their decision making – they have virtually taken the position that the laws don’t apply to them. Additionally, telling the truth seems to be something for whimps. They seem to believe that the American public needs to just keep shopping and everything will be all right. At some point they will figure out how to kill all the “bad guys” as they call them, and eventually we will have what bush/cheney/mccain have infused into the republican “talking points” as victory.

This victory is coming at a very high price. And the discussion here could go on for – well I’ve read about 20 books about the subject since the invasion of Iraq, and these books aren’t short on information about the incompetence, the lies, and the purposeful disregard for our legal system. But for starters, somehow the republicans are going to have to eventually be able to claim their “victory” was worth more than the 4100+ American troop’s lives, the 30,000 and rising wounded (and poorly cared for veterans), the estimated 1,000,000 Iraqi lives lost – not to mention the wounded and displaced, the distruction of the Iraq infrastructure and it’s internal institutions, and the impending failure or near failure of our economy. Additionally, any “victory” will find Iraq and Iran “united” in the sense that the Shia majority in each country will more than likely lead to a “union” that will put the worst fears of many middle eastern “experts” on red alert. Moqtada al Sadr is presently in Iran, and supposedly his return to Iraq in about 3 years will happen when he has become the “Grand Ayatollah” with, I’m sure, a similar vision of Iraq as that of Iran since 1979. And, of course, our leaders have done everything in their power to guarantee that al Sadr will be very strongly anti-American when he takes power in Iraq.

To me, an even bigger price for “victory” in Iraq, will be what the bush/cheney criminals have done to our “nation of laws and not men.” They have broken laws with impunity, they lie about what they’re doing incessantly, they refuse to even appear before congress for questioning – like we don’t have a right to know what is going on, and the biggest “price” for me is that without the so-called Christian “right” these guys couldn’t win an election for dog catcher. These people have attacked the constitution ruthlesslly. And for all my Christian friends who seem to think that the right to privacy and habeous corpus are insignificant “sacrifices” to gain this “victory” well, to me, the fact that we have cowered down to the point we are giving up our civil rights means “victory” isn’t possible – even if ultimately bush/cheney/mccain get their precious oil out of Iraq.

Additionally, bush/cheney (I’m trying to be judicious about including mccain, but make no mistake about it – he will be the perfect puppet for whoever is behind these goons) have committed treason – at least once – in the Valery Plame Wilson affair – congress seemingly willing to look the other way. They have committed fraud on a huge scale in the doctoring and forging of documents used to justify the above mentioned disaster in Iraq. They have totally politicized the justice department – and when I bring this up to any “conservative” (to me the so-called conservatives are anything but conservatives) friends, instead of thinking about the danger of having a justice department made up of political cronies, they start babbling about how Clinton replaced all 93 US attorneys when he took office in 1992. They can’t bring themselves to think that this is a horribly dangerous precedent – probably thinking that they would never be in a position to have to worry about this – but if republicans are putting people in jail for being democrats – I don’t think they want to think about the shoe being on a different foot. bush/cheney have “privatized” enormous parts of our most important government structure – the scariest being the private militias that, should they get out of control, will be a story that will be, for most people in this country, a nightmare.

The trail of lies to justify invading Iraq is obscene and long, the outing of a CIA agent, the profiting off of a war they created, the direct violations of the constitution, and the thumbing of their noses at congress. I’ve always been an “independent” and I’m definitely voting for Obama in November, providing bush can’t figure out how to cancel the election, but I can’t understand how Nancy Pelosi can say “impeachment is off the table.” This is like enabling a 6th grader to lie, cheat, and bully his/her way in school – it’s just going to get worse. Additionally, I will be extremely disappointed in Obama if he, like Clinton before him regarding ghw bush and Iran/Contra, looks the other way once in office – not wanting to “rock the boat.” The bottom line is that these criminals need to be sent a message and future administrations need to be sent a message – and the message is that WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS!!!!!!!

Well, it’s time for school again, and I need to get focused on teaching my students. Today, as I was getting my room ready, I thought about how insignificant one voice among billions is, and that in this case I’m basically writing to myself. It does make me feel better to write about some of today’s issues, issues that I obviously have passionate feelings about, and it helps me to understand my own thoughts. But I have to make sure that I don’t get too carried away. The truth is that whatever is going to happen is going to happen no matter what I write here. I was watching Fox “news” (it was my only option while I was getting my room ready – I’m not a fan of fox “news”) today as they were covering the blast from hurricane Gustav on the gulf coast and I have to admit that I was very happy to see that the federal government – who failed so miserably 3 years ago – showed that they have the capacity to learn. bush had the good sense to act like a leader and I hope this sets the tone for the future, that the government has a major role in situations like this – that’s why we have leaders. I’m hoping and praying that we will not have to endure another four years of republican “rule” but at least I have to give credit for this “crisis” as being handled very professionally.

One other thing on my mind from what I heard on fox “news” today. Evidently Sarah Palin (who, by the way is the niece of a man in Vancouver who was in the real estate business in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was doing the same – I did business with him) has a 17 year old daughter who is pregnant and expecting toward the end of this year. I just have to say that I admired, and agreed with, Obama when he said he would fire any one assosciated with his campaign who used this issue politically. He rightly said family members are “off limits” and to leave the debate to the issues. I hope people do that. I believe that Sarah Palin needs to answer a lot of questions due to the fact that mccain has brought his own age and her lack of experience to the forefront of this election by nominating her – but the questions need to be about Sarah Palin and not her daughter. I would say Kudos to her for having the baby (I’m assuming it wasn’t planned) and kudos to the family for supporting her, assuming that they are.

There probably won’t be many posts as school gets underway, but it is fun for me to write and just throw out my thoughts – of course it would be more fun if there was someone to respond to. I fully understand that I come off as a flaming liberal – and I’m perfectly fine with that – but I still contend that most of my thinking is very conservative and old fashioned. I believe the republicans have convoluted the term “conservative.” When I first got interested in politics the first book I read was “Conscience of a Conservative” by Barry Goldwater. I can guarantee you that he would be no where near these so-called neo-cons. And today I heard one of the national republican “advisors” defending the deficit spending of the nixon/reagan/bush/bush administrations as simply a “small percentage of the GNP.” That was how nixon justified it in the early 70’s as if he was simply mortgaging all the government real estate across the nation. With that thinking it won’t be long and it will be Chinese real estate! Getting back to my point, a balanced budget, prudent national defense, traditional values, honesty in government, these used to be conservative values. I just would add to that that we are stronger together than we are divided and that as Jesus says; “What you do for the least of these, you do for me.” Government should work from the “bottom up” and not the “top down” approach of the republicans. I look forward to the day when we realize we haven’t ended welfare, we have just shifted policy so that welfare has become corporate welfare.

The major thought on my mind as I sign off here is that I still can’t believe that someone like Sarah Palin could conceivably be “a heartbeat from the presidency.” I’m sure that America’s women won’t be fooled by the move, but until November 4 we won’t know for sure. Today I googled mccain and the keating 5 and I’m just waiting for this to be injected into the campaign. There was plenty of “stuff” about mccain readily available for people to mull over. I think of the accusations against Obama by the right and then I wonder why mccain is able to get away with helping a donor try to avoid charges – a donor who’s actions ended up costing American taxpayers 3.4 billion dollars – why isn’t that part of the debate if William Ayers and Obama being on the same board is – why isn’t mccain’s admitted adultery part of the debate, why aren’t his numerous “flip flops” part of the debate. I guess the reason is that Obama is trying to run an “above board” campaign and if he doesn’t bring this stuff up, the media isn’t going to do so – although it seems to me that much of what Obama has had to answer for has come from the media. All this said, I still believe that the American people will vote Obama into office and the direction of this country will change in a way that will be beneficial to the vast majority of it’s citizens. Well, I’ve got to sign off, it’s time for school!