"President" Bush may not be willing to visit Vermont, but one of Vermont's finest, ex-marine Matt Howard, was in Australia today delivering the message to Bush and the world that we have seen through his lies, calling him and his sycophants out for their criminal Iraq adventure.

The three mile steel barrier that the city erected to keep the Decider from being exposed to the multitudes who disagree with and despise him may have prevented him from hearing the words of Mr. Howard, but listeners to the BBC/WBUR program The World, distributed across the U.S. by Public Radio International were treated to a short but articulate condemnation of the Bush Iraq war policy by Mr. Howard.

It is good and remarkable that we were able to hear this bit of dissension, but it is too bad that we only seem to hear about it when it happens on the other side of the globe.

While the Bush administration is clearly the main culprit to be blamed for our current pariah status in the world, we must now be targeting the Democratic leadership that is enabling these crimes to continue and the media that reports selectively on the subject.

It is a difficult pill to swallow that the Democrats are ultimately proving themselves to be merely another branch of the national security state, continually funding Bush's war and giving him even more draconian powers to spy on Americans than he had hoped for, but that is the reality that we face.

It is also difficult to accept that the supposed liberal media, exemplified by National Public Radio, spend most of their time merely parroting the war machine publicists' talking points and framing the debate just as the Bush/Cheney orchestrators would have them do, but that is also today's reality.

As grim as our world has been for the past few years, it is only darker and more serious today. Bush is very likely to launch a military strike against Iran in the near future. Sources in the military have been leaking opinions that it may well be a massive strike, designed to cripple Iran's military capabilities by bombing targets throughout the country. This would have catastrophic consequences and we must not let it happen.

We cannot rely on the Democrats to do anything but wring their hands and fund such actions. We cannot rely upon the media to inform us about impending actions. They will only earnestly regurgitate the spin fed to them by the administration and scramble to make sure that they won't be perceived as not being patriotic enough.

It is time for every one of us to stand as Matt Howard did today. It is time for every one of us to accost the Republicans, the Democrats and the news outlets that serve us, both nationally and locally.

We must put them all on notice that the continuation of lawless, immoral and reprehensible policies by our government will be met by strikes, protests and disruption of business as usual by every one of us. We must shake them from their complacency and put them in fear for their very own livelihoods and futures.

September marks the beginning of many organized efforts in the peace community to raise awareness and to get people onto the streets and into the halls of Congress.

Bush famously stated that we are either with him or with the terrorists. The death and destruction resulting from his actions have now far eclipsed anything that the terrorists have done.

It is time that we repudiate them both and stop equivocating.