curmugeon | I don't feel like waving the flag

This day, just before the 4th of July, I don't think of freedom, but I think of repression. We have the very misnamed 'Patriot Act', we lost a lot when that was hastily passed by a Congress to blinded by fear and nationalism to thorough read it. We have a 'president' who shots off his mouth with bravado, while trying to hide his shameful past as an alcoholic and 'rich man's son' who was A.W.O.L. for over one year during his service in the National Guard. We have an Attorney General (Ashcroft) who wants to do a recreation of George Orwell's 1984. Some people may be wearing red, white, and blue, but when you remove their cover you find a brown shirt or a white sheet. Hate and fear have been made fashionable. We have hate of Islam, Gays, Minorities, and France. We have a media we cannot trust to report the truth. We face the prospect that an ignorant mass of general public will support the Shrub for four more years. We have seen the concept of democracy become a one party system, both Democrats and Republicans are now cut from the same cloth.

Someone said to me lately that things will have to get a lot worse before we see better. I have a strange feeling that this may be too close to the truth and that we will have to go through an era of nationalism and piss off the rest of the world so bad that we find ourselves so deep in economic and social chaos to force another American revolution.