8. 3,000 people died on 9/11 as a result of the Bush administration's breath-taking incompetence (or unproven but highly plausible complicity in the destruction of the WTC).
9. At least 1,800 human beings are dead in New Orleans as a result of the Bush Regime's willful criminal negligence.
10. Over 2,600 US service personnel have been sacrificed at the Altar of Mammon and hundreds of thousands have suffered deep physical and psychological wounds. Many of these dead or broken people enlisted in the military because the corporate media and revisionist historians indoctrinated them into believing that they would be defending their country. Instead, their sacrifices came to bolster the fortunes of those at the top of the food chain. Over a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have died. But they are simply "collateral damage" in the Empire's "noble cause" to introduce "democracy" into the Middle East.
12. The Bush Regime's Patriot Act, NSA eavesdropping, assault on habeas corpus, and "free speech zones" have left the Bill of Rights in tatters.
13. The 2000 Presidential election was decided by Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court. In 2004, a powerful corporation with strong ties to the Republican Party ensured Bush's continued reign.
In November of 2003, Bush proclaimed:
"It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world's most influential nation was itself a democracy."
To what influential nation was he referring? I see little evidence of extant meaningful democratic principles in the United States.
And a recent personal experience crystallized this perception for me.
On 9/17/06, I attended a veteran's rally for Claire McCaskill, the Democratic challenger to Missouri's incumbent Republican US Senator, Jim Talent.
As I sat there, the sparse turn-out reminded me of the tragic demise of the influence of We the People. Two parties primarily representing the interests of the affluent have duopolized the political system. Impotence has engendered apathy.
Providing further evidence that Herbert Spencer's dream of Social Darwinism is becoming reality in the United States is the fact that a man like Jim Talent has not been forcibly removed from office, tarred and feathered. His voting record as a US Senator clearly demonstrates that he has vigorously devoted himself to corporate interests, militarism, and the demise of laws and public programs beneficial to We the People (the majority of his constituency!).
Democracy in the United States, you say? Where?
Yet it also occurred to me that within the almost hopelessly corrupt Republocrat system are some ethical individuals striving on behalf of the poor and working class. They are few in number, face numerous obstacles, and are limited in their influence, but they do exist. So I have concluded that participation in the process and efforts to evoke change are not completely futile.
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