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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 02:45 AM
Original message
Thinking About 2004, and 9/11.....
I laid awake in bed, thinking about New York, and the summer of 2001. The summer when I still believed in an American democracy, in the freedom of the press, and a time when it seemed like we were becoming a part of an international society.

That summer, I had stood in the shadows of the World Trade Centers and wondered whether lightning would strike again, thinking about the 1993 bombings. The worst answer came to that thought a week later when two planes hit the towers, and in turn, irrevocably changed my view about America.

In those first three months after the towers had fallen and when families still held out hope for the lost ones, we had a unprecedented solidarity with the rest of the world. That solidarity was pissed away in the wind by the leader of the most corrupt administration in our government.

Corporations benefitted, grew larger and fatter, and more Americans were getting laid off each week while their jobs were being outsourced to India or to China. They started drilling in once pristine woodlands, and fabricated lies to go to war with Iraq, killing over 500 of our soliders and over two hundred thousand Iraqi civilians in the process. Over lies, lies told on television by our President.

The media, the once free press now bought by corporations, parrotted the lies told by those in the White House and those in the majority of Congress. They kept praising Bush for how well the economy was doing when thousands and thousands of Americans were laid off. In the Clinton administration, twenty thousand jobs were created every hour. In the Bush administration, we have lost over three million jobs.

Our health care is a joke, and over forty-five million Americans have to decide between food and health care. The pills on the shelf or the bread on the shelf. What to choose? Starvation or Death? Old women, hobbled by arthritis and other ailments of old age, choose between a can of soup on the grocery shelf, and pills that help ease their arthritis. What to choose? Other nations, other countries, have universal health care where citizens do not have to worry about choosing food over medicine.

Housing costs have gone up, driving the middle class out of cities, and gas prices have gone up, forcing the middle class to ration their gas, and the poor to go on city buses. Oil is power. In Iraq, they station American soldiers around oil fields for Halliburton.

Halliburton is god in Iraq, as well in America. The Constitution to this administration is of corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. They overthrow democratically elected leaders in third world countries to have access to oil and cheap labor.

This is not the world I wanted to live in. This is not the world in which I want to marry my partner. This is not the world in which I want to raise my children, the sons and daughters of my womb. This is not America. This is not my dream. It is a nightmare.

Please let it end. Vote Bush out of office. Vote against the corporations. Vote against the enroachment of women's reproductive rights. Vote against the raping and pillaging of the environment. Vote against the free government handouts to corporations. Vote against those who do not care about us. Vote against those who want to use 9/11 for their convention, dancing and laughing on the bones of 3,000 dead men and women.

Hear my call for a free and a vibrant America. I want an America that is loved and respected by the world. I want my children to grow up strong and happy. I want them to laugh, to think freely, and to dare to hope. I will help do this by voting. Vote for a Democrat, not a Republican. Use that power of the ballot to voice your anger and protest against this corrupt administration, the pack of liars and scroundels. Vote.
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One Taste Donating Member (636 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 02:53 AM
Response to Original message
1. Well said!
:)
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Jane Austin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 02:58 AM
Response to Original message
2. Thank you
Thank you for such a thoughtful and heartfelt post.
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. I had to say what I needed to say in the wake of the 3/11 Spain bombings
Edited on Sun Mar-14-04 03:12 AM by slinkerwink
My ancestors came from Spain. The blood of the Basques and the conquistadors as well as the Native Americans flow through me. The blood spilled on those Spanish streets, cries of "muerte" from Spain, echo around in my bones. Spain is hurting now. My mother saw the World Trade Center towers crash. She walked through a cloud of white, gray ash, without high heels, to get home. Home from a fallen skyline.

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Jane Austin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 03:22 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. Well
You are not only very thoughtful and insightful, but a
wonderful writer, too.
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 03:24 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. thank you....
I tend to get eloquent at this hour. :-)
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Andromeda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 03:35 AM
Response to Original message
6. Very well written, slinker...
and straight from the heart. That's what makes a good writer.

Things will get better after this next election. Bush will not be re-elected. I've never felt more sure about anything in my life.

Hang in there and don't lose hope. The best is yet to come. Believe it.

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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 09:45 AM
Response to Reply #6
7. thank you for the optimism....
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 10:12 AM
Response to Original message
8. kick
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Hav Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 10:15 AM
Response to Original message
9. "and over two hundred thousand Iraqi civilians in the process. "
Is that really true? 200000+ civilians killed? I never heard that the number was that high. From where did you take that number?
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 10:18 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. yes, it's true----civilian deaths haven't been counted by the US
but international humanitarian agencies think the death toll could be anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000, especially during the Iraq war, and after the war.
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 10:48 AM
Response to Reply #9
11. also, there are reports that US soldiers' deaths may have been
undercounted.
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emulatorloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 10:55 AM
Response to Original message
12. Thank you, Slinkerwink. . . .we WILL Prevail
and we will make this world a better place.
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 11:26 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. hopefully so!
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 05:57 PM
Response to Original message
14. kick
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adadem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 07:03 PM
Response to Original message
15. Beautiful, Slink n/t
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 07:18 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. thanks.....it just had to be said.
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rumguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 08:45 PM
Response to Original message
17. Kerry will kick the shrubya's butt
I hope
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Paradise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-14-04 09:34 PM
Response to Original message
18. beautiful,
and from the heart. thank you.
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-15-04 07:26 AM
Response to Reply #18
19. you're welcome
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Paradise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-15-04 08:24 AM
Response to Reply #19
20. slinkerwink, can you believe
that i am so 'frickin' uptight from 'these guys' that i wasn't able to free the tears, from reading your poignant letter, until this morning reading your thank you.:cry: we just can't let them take away our civility, and decency.
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slinkerwink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-15-04 08:28 AM
Response to Reply #20
21. exactly----the very fabric of our society is being threatened
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