Cancer In America

Spreading like wildfire, a cancer is infecting this country, devouring the flesh of our society and threatening to turn what was once the greatest nation on Earth into a rotting corpse of political corruption, greed and abuse of power. That cancer is Bus$hCo.

Call me a Bush-basher if you wish, but there have been a lot of dangerous men pass through the portals of politics: Demagogues like Senator Joseph W. McCarthy, Racists like Alabama Governor (and Presidential candidate) George Wallace and Former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke (another Presidential candidate).

But none, repeat none, compare to the fear mongering, hatred, homophobia and anti-American actions of Dubya and his klavern of fanatics who are hell-bent to destroy the Constitution, personal freedoms, civil liberties and just about anything else that provide the foundation of this place called America.

No President has done more to destroy freedom in America. His first Heinrich Himmler, the bible-thumping, tight-assed John Ashcroft, threw Americans in jail without cause and denied them due process while ignoring the Constitution with the rights-robbing USA Patriot Act. Bush’s new Himmler, new attorney general Albertto Gonzales, promises to take jack-booted thuggery to new highs, prosecuting citizens for watching dirty movies and pushing for more spying on American citizens while calling the Constitution an “outdated document.” (Floridians, please note, your our own Democratic Senator voted to confirm this guy. His staff tells me the Senator believed him qualified for the job.)

Meanwhile, the brain-fried Republican lemmings who lick Dubya’s ass and boots and proclaim his mythical greatness apparently relish the destruction of America while wrapping themselves in faux-patriotism and claiming that anyone who doesn?t follow their madness in absolute lockstep is un-American and un-patriotic.

Bullshit. These people are the real traitors to America and should be treated as such. They have sold out their country in the name of political power and greed, willing to sacrifice what’s best for the nation in order to maintain control and push their narrow-minded, Puritanical agenda on a numb populace.

Bush and his fellow Republicans are also traitors to their party, one founded on the principle of less government, responsible spending and states rights. Together, the Bush White House and his Republican-controlled Congress have created the largest federal bureaucracy in history, pushed the deficit to all-time highs and forced an ever-increasing glut of federal regulations on state governments.

They’ve lied to the American people, cheated on the principles established by our forefathers and brought disgrace to this nation on the world stage. International respect for America is at an all-time low, thanks to an Iraq war based on lies and arrogance without limits.

Like Hitler, Bush may well go down in history as a mass-murderer. Nobody knows for sure how many innocent Iraqis have died at American hands because the Pentagon hides those figures but the number grows every day. Hell, an Italian hostage negotiator can’t even try to bring back someone from their country without getting gunned down by American troops in Iraq.

Thanks to George W. Bush and those who follow him, America is no longer the home of the brave or the land of the free. That America is gone. Maybe, just maybe, it can be reclaimed when the goons, crooks, thieves and traitors who control our country are driven from office. I become less hopeful each day. As I’ve said before, for the first time in my life, I fear for the continuation of our democracy. Maybe we’ve sat on our collective asses too long while these traitors took over America. Maybe we’ve been silent too long while American citizens with Arabic last names are rounded up like cattle and sent to concentration camps at Guantanimo Bay, then rendered to other countries to continue their torture.

Maybe we should remember these words:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

The Rev. Martin Niemoller wrote those words in Germany in 1945. An early supporter of Adolph Hitler, he realized, too late, his terrible error.