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  Congratulations
AmericaAn Essay, by Andrew Barriger Congratulations, America, you got what you wanted. The American Dream is dead and we’ve created a new underclass. Fear won out over Hope, and evil successfully gained a greater foothold by dressing itself in safety’s clothes. You got what you wanted. In order to keep a few men and women, no more than ten percent of the population, from being able to marry people with the same chromosomes as themselves, you opened the door and welcomed in the evangelical hate mongers. If the election of 2004 had been held in a 1964 context, you would have opened the doors of the White House to the Ku Klux Klan in order to keep a black person from having any rights. Way to regress. But you got more than that in your deal, America. You also shifted the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. The party of Christian extremism now has decisive control over both houses of Congress as well as the White House. Now, America, you can start taking bets on what will go first – clean air, clean water, national parks, taxes for the wealthy, the economy, personal freedoms, medical care… You see, what you’ve done is handed the extremists the perfect tag line – they will turn your vote into a “mandate,” saying everything they do is because it’s what “you” wanted. You also got a bonus with your decision, America, and it’s a big one. For the next two years, Supreme Court Justices can retire and have the knowledge that a Republican President and a Republican Congress will be there to fill their slots with someone conservative. For decades, we have had a fairly balanced Court, teetering a little liberal at times, a little conservative at others, but usually staying fairly middle of the road. No more – with your vote, with the shift in power you gave, we can be all but guaranteed one of the most conservative Courts in many years, if not in our history. And your President isn’t a total fool, America – he’ll select young Justices, to make sure their conservative power will last for many decades. Fear was the force that guided you in your decision, dear America. You live three years ago, in September, on the 11th. You see your buildings attacked, and your people killed. You look across the sea, to the desert where fighters continue to stand against you now. You worry that they must be stopped and you figure it’s best to keep the person who started the fight in office. Who else could finish it better? Consider, America, that just over three thousand of your people were killed in that attack on the eleventh day of September, three years ago. Since your President has started fighting his private little war in Iraq, where there is no evidence of a connection with the attacks on your soil, over eleven hundred of your sons and daughters have been killed. Almost a third of the losses on that fateful day have been repeated…yet you feel no safer. Was the bully the best choice to keep in charge? Time will tell. America was once a nation of Hope, of Dreams. We were the beacon of freedom for the world – we set the standard for the rest of the world to achieve. We worked to increase personal liberties, and close the gaps that divide us. We worked with our allies toward the common goal of a better world for all of humanity, not just White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Straight Evangelical Men. In 2001, the world rallied behind us. By 2002, most of the world had backed away. In 2004, we have become the laughing stock of many nations on many continents. Our “fear” has led us to a fruitless war that does nothing to promote the cause of fighting terrorism, and, in fact, does more to incite terrorists from other countries to attack us. The mastermind of the attack on our nation, Osama bin-Laden, is still alive and still promoting our downfall, but our focus remains on Iraq. America, you dropped the ball. You had a chance to begin truly restoring us to the nation we were, before that day on the 11th of September when we learned fear, but you let fear win over optimism and hope. Now we will learn the price of our fear. Our soldiers will stay in Iraq, and the death tolls will climb. Osama will still be alive, and no doubt will plan some new attack on our now fearful nation. The world will move on without us and the European Union will grow to become what we once were – the beacon of hope for the planet, the place where people can be free to be who they are, without fear of persecution or reprisal, the place where human rights trump corporate greed, the land of the free, and the home of the brave. Of course, you will largely miss the changes that happen, America, because you will believe whatever you are told, if the speaker smiles just right, turns up the Texas accent just a little more, and tells a little joke before invoking a prayer. The religious devout will tell you the Devil comes in many disguises…sometimes, it’s a poorly tailored shirt under a dark blue suit. You got what you wanted, America. Andrew Barriger is a regular contributor to this publication and can be reached online at andrew@andrewbarriger.com or through his website, www.andrewbarriger.com |
 Andrew Barriger is a writer whose work to date includes three novels in a series...  Finding
Faith $14.95 Paperback Pages: 266 ISBN: 0-595-26309-7  Finding
Peace $14.95 Paperback Pages: 215 ISBN: 0-595-28823-5  Finding
HopePublisher: Two Brother's Press ISBN: 1-59457-678-5 Paper, 324 pages, $17.99 |