the real anti-americans

the real anti-americans are fred phelps and the congregation of the westboro baptist church in topeka, kansas. they have been dishonoring the memory of our men and women in uniform who fell in combat, because according to their twisted version of christian fundamentalism, the united states is an evil, godless country, and god hates us and sends american soldiers to hell because we are accepting of homosexuality. there are, in fact, a number of other christian fundamentalists across the nation who have that same view of our country, some of whom praise god for letting 9/11 happen, saying that 9/11 was righteous punishment for a sinful nation.

in my opinion, all of these anti-american christian fundamentalists are the real ones who would go to hell if it existed, so they are damned lucky that it does not. the united states does have its flaws, but we must stand by our nation even if we do not agree with the government or with the majority of its citizens on certain issues. there are also many christian fundamentalists across this nation who think george w. bush is some sort of messianic infallible prophet who is doing god’s will. those people are also quite insane, but luckily they are not traitors like fred phelps and his congregation.

recently i saw a speech noam chomsky gave at binghamton university, and while he was very critical of the united states government, and very critical of both the current administration and the former clinton administration, he is still a patriotic american. he said that this country has more freedom of speech and is a freer country than any other country in the world, and he told us all that the reason we have so much freedom is that in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and in the civil war in the 1860s, freedom-loving people fought and died for the rights that should have been granted to everyone in the first place. the reverend martin luther king, jr. loved this nation despite the many flaws he saw in it, and he knew he would be killed for his beliefs and his actions, but he heroically led a nonviolent movement that achieved victory after his death.

and who led the fight for freedom in the civil rights movement, and in the civil war? it was liberals, the same people who ended the practice of men, women, and children being used basically as slaves in large factories under horrible working conditions, the same people who created government social programs as a safety net for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly, the same people who created the fda to regulate the quality of our food and medicine back when the meat-packing industry and patent medicines were full of abuses. it was right around 1900 when the progressive movement really came full force, and it also brought anti-trust laws to the forefront to break up monopolies and restore capitalism and competition into the marketplace. from liberals like thomas jefferson and abraham lincoln, through theodore and franklin roosevelt, and harry truman and john f. kennedy and lyndon johnson and jimmy carter and bill clinton, liberals have brought us a lot of the good things that we take for granted. the republican party under abraham lincoln and teddy roosevelt was liberal. the democrats under william jennings bryan, the fiery fundamentalist who never got elected president, were very liberal. but liberalism hit its peak in the 1960’s, and since then it has steadily gone downhill, with the resurgence of conservatism. conservatives were the ones who opposed banning slavery, who opposed child laber and worker safety laws, who opposed the creation of the fda, who opposed the creation of social security and medicare, who opposed giving women and blacks the right to vote. throughout history, conservatives have been dead wrong on virtually every major issue, which is why we should never support them. while george w. bush is not a real conservative, he still has many radical followers who advocate policies far to the right of his, policies that would take us back into the dark ages.

so i am grateful that the democratic party will win control of congress in the 2006 elections, because it’s about time. it’s about time somebody taught george w. bush a lesson. not that he is a bad person or anything... he is just arrogant and thinks he knows better than everybody else. his administration does not listen to anyone else, not even to republicans in congress or to republican activists. they just broadcast their message out to everyone and brainwash their followers into agreeing with all their policies. george w. bush is a misguided fool who has the best of intentions but practically no understanding of the consequences of his actions, who lives in a bubble surrounded by syncophants who agree with everything he says and never dare question him. if it weren’t for his interactions with people in congress, foreign leaders, and news reporters, he would never get even an inkling of an idea about what is really going on out there in the real world, because nobody in his administration ever tells him anything that he doesn’t want to hear. it is a classic case of “shoot the messenger”. that is why bush is brain-dead on the issue of arabs controlling our ports, why so many people died in hurricane katrina, why we invaded iraq, why the medicare prescription drug bill was a disaster, why the effort to privatize social security failed miserably, why bush’s compromise on stem cell research made the united states last on the list of countries to do cutting-edge research in, why we still aren’t doing anything about global warming even though the vast majority of bush supporters support the kyoto protocol and believe bush does too, and why the national debt is going through the roof despite so-called “fiscal conservatives” in office (if that even means anything). george w. bush is a classic case of a so-called “enlightened despot” in the model of catherine the great of russia, or henry viii of england, or napoleon bonaparte of france. those despots were called enlightened but really they were just megalomaniacs and tyrants who somehow enchanted the public with their propaganda. but his isolation is keeping him so out of touch from the masses, he is also very much like louis xvi of france; his propaganda, which once was enthralling and often convincing to those who were un/misinformed about the truth, is sounding more and more unrealistic and ridiculous these days, even to his supporters. lately he has been giving speeches praising the advance of democracy in the middle east and condemning terrorism, where he doesn’t address the question of hamas at all, because hamas getting elected is like a fly in the soup of his high-minded rhetoric, one that he doesn’t dare mention because it proves everything he says about the united states supporting democracy in the middle east is wrong. let us hope that when he leaves office, it will be a peaceful, democratic transition out of power for him, either through impeachment or through letting him finish his 8 years in office.