Of life and happiness...

Anyone still in favor of our war in Iraq, anyone who thinks that the human cost is worth what we are gaining, if anything, would do well to study the photo at left.  I urge you to look at it for as long as you can.  I can't seem to stop, and every time I look at it, I feel like I've been punched in the stomach.

I supported this war.  Reluctantly, yes, but I was still for it.

I believed General Colin Powell when he spoke so convincingly about WMDs to the UN saying "We know he has them."  We knew no such thing.  Those of us willing to take the blinders off realize that this war was planned long before the WTC attacks of 9/11.  This war had nothing to do with 9/11 or WMDs.  This was Cheney and Wolfowitz's pet project and I fell for the propaganda.

I found this photo on a blog called The Ideal Rhombus.  The author of that blog found it at another blog called The Agonist.  The Agonist found the picture so poignant that no accompanying text was necessary.  Rhombus was a little more verbal:

... The President caused this anguish. The President. Get it through your thick skulls, you dumb fucking conservatives. Not liberals. Not the Dixie Chicks. Not Iraqis because, had we not been there, these kids would have returned home to long, healthy lives. ...

His point is valid and obviously strongly felt, and I commiserate with him.  The other day I was remarking to my friend James how horrible this mess in Iraq was and how it tortures me.  Particularly because I had once supported it.  In that regard I bear more of the guilt for this woman's misery.  I bear guilt for the curtailment her happiness, and the curtailment of her son's life.  About 800 Americans have died in Iraq, along with thousands of Iraqis.  How many times has the scene depicted above been played out?  The toll of human loss and wretched anguish is staggering.

Yes the President did this. And I helped.   In contrast my wonderful friend James, his remarkable wife Maggie, and their kids participated in protests before the war began.  They too may feel horrible that their country chose to wage this war, but perhaps, they can take some solace in the fact that they tried to stop it from happening.

I decried the Bush administration's hamhanded bungling of diplomacy that denied this war international legitimacy and support.  I decried the fact that Blix was denied the months he said he needed to complete inspections in Iraq.  But in the end I still reluctantly supported the war--in effect, trusting that the WMDs were really there.

I am going to have to live with that mistake for the rest of my life.

Of liberty...

This article's title is about the curtailment of liberty, which I thus far have not touched on.  That subject arises from another comment I noted on The Ideal Rhombus:

...the media has been banned from taking pictures of American servicepeople's bodies returning from Iraq at Dover Air Force base. ...

Can that really be true?  YES.  From The Olympian 10/25/2003 "Bush edict: No coverage of returning deaths":

... This month, the Bush administration began enforcing a standing policy that forbids news coverage of killed American soldiers as their remains are returned to U.S. military bases...

Heaven forbid we be allowed to understand the real human cost of Bush's pet war.  We might otherwise think "Hey, maybe this isn't such a great idea."  And THEN where would we be?  Oh I don't know, LIVING IN A FREE SOCIETY MAYBE?

So much for fucking freedom of speech.

Of course, this should not come as a surprise from an Administration which supports the concept of "Free Speech Zones".  That is, special areas where you are allowed to practice your right to free speech.  For example, it is illegal to carry a sign protesting Bush's policies to an event where he is speaking, where you might be seen by other citizens, or worse yet, where your message might be photographed and printed in the press.  If you have anything critical to say, you must go to a specially designated area to say it (anywhere from several hundred yards to a few miles away).  Signs PRAISING the president are fine.

You might not believe me.  "Ridiculous!" you might say.  A country which holds freedom of expression so central a value would never engage in anything like that.  Right?

Think again.  Check out this excerpt from a report on Free Speech Zones from a Conservative news magazine.

From The American Conservative 12/15/2003 "Free-Speech Zone: The Administration Quarantines Dissent":

... When Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.

When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, “The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.” The local police, at the Secret Service’s behest, set up a “designated free-speech zone” on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush’s speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president’s path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, “As far as I’m concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind.”

[...]

Police have repressed protesters during several Bush visits to the St. Louis area as well. When Bush visited on Jan. 22, 2003, 150 people carrying signs were shunted far away from the main action and effectively quarantined. Denise Lieberman of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri commented, “No one could see them from the street. In addition, the media were not allowed to talk to them. The police would not allow any media inside the protest area and wouldn’t allow any of the protesters out of the protest zone to talk to the media.” When Bush stopped by a Boeing plant to talk to workers, Christine Mains and her five-year-old daughter disobeyed orders to move to a small protest area far from the action. Police arrested Mains and took her and her crying daughter away in separate squad cars...

So let's summarize.  You can practice free speech unless you are saying something bad about the President.  If you wish to protest his repeated urination on American values you must go to a special cordoned off area to do so.  The press will not be allowed to speak to you and you will not be allowed to speak to the press.  If you do not cooperate, you will be arrested.  Welcome to Bush's America.

Have you heard about this from the so-called Liberal Media?  I sure haven't.

It's high time that greedy or self-righteous conservatives wake up and smell the crisis in this country.  This administration has flouted all precedents in American Justice and has done far more to curtail our liberty, life, and happiness, than it has to help the average joe.

If you want a your elected officials to follow a conservative agenda, guess what, you have to APPEAL TO THE LIBERALS AND MODERATES.  You can't just ignore us.  We're at least 50% of the American population.You may not care if a woman loses her right to choose.  You may not care if the homeless are looked after.  You may not care about the separation of Church and State.  You may not care about international law and America's relationship with other nations.  But we do, and we aren't going anywhere.

Shaping society is a bit like bending an iron bar.  You can either heat the bar and gently remold it into a new shape, or you can apply pressure and bend it through force.  The difference is that if the pressure is removed the bar springs back and smacks you in the face.  Conservatives should be thinking about that backlash, because their President isn't.

Need I remind my conservative friends and acquaintances that Bush did not sweep into office on a tidal wave of popular support?  Conservatives do not have a mandate from the public.  Their bastard made it into office by the skin of his teeth with a little help from Darth Nader.  Bush would do well to keep this in mind and reach out to the moderates and liberals.  But that isn't going to happen, Bush is incapable of that sort of diplomacy... the sort of diplomacy that Clinton used to his advantage.

Bush's presidency will not last forever, and sooner or later the Conservative agenda will be swept back by a massive backlash.  Bush is only ensuring that the future America will be more liberal than ever.  Is that what you want? Sure it's what I want, but then, I'm a liberal.

Peace...