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A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Bri Held

Dear BuzzFlash:

Re: Maureen Farrell's excellent "Double Standards" piece on your site; this is how I respond to her and Paul Krugman's (no doubt) rhetorical question, namely:

Paul Krugman reinforced this view. "[T]he big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America," he wrote. "Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?"

I certainly don't get it, do you?

Yes, I do. Firstly, John Ashcroft is Attorney General of the United States. This man owes his livelihood, nay his very professional existence, to the Bush Administration. With someone like this at the helm of the highest legal office in the land, who is there to prosecute, or call for an independent counsel, to prosecute Bush & Co.?

Next, both houses of Congress are currently owned by Republicans, and their leadership is for the most part, corrupt. Apparently, whatever decent Republican representatives there may be are too intimidated (who can actually blame them, these guys ARE brutal) by the GOP power structure to do anything but tow the party line. NONE of them are going to call for investigations of any import.

Next, with FAUX News solidly in place as the #1 news source in this country, it goes to show there are a lot of ordinary folks out there who are already programmed to love Big Brother and are a lost cause. They certainly don't ask any probing questions regarding their "God-fearing, freedom-loving preznit."

Finally, we have the complacent American sheeple. I can't tell you how many times I talk to DEMOCRATS, who are actively "out there" working on Democratic candidate campaigns who don't have a clue about the sheer incompetence and duplicities of the Bush administration, and WORSE, the first words out of their mouths are "oh, I can't believe Bush actually said they didn't let the inspectors in" -- or, "no, I don't think it's odd that one of the hijacker's passports survived a fireball," or, "oh, I can't believe the Bush family actually had a long-time relationship with the bin Ladens...."

WHY NOT?

The same question is asked over and over -- why is Bush getting away with it? He's getting away with it for the same reason he got away with being appointed president with a minority of the popular vote -- the American sheeple lay back and let him get away with it!

I can't imagine anything will ever change until millions of us converge on Washington and demand accountability (I say, impeachment and prosecution). Without the American people waking up en masse, Bush & Co. will just continue to get away with every single greedy, power-grabbing, democracy-shredding scheme they want to impose on this country -- until we vote them out of office.

And even that's not a certainty -- the American sheeple will no doubt actually vote Bush into office once he unveils bin Laden -- not bothering to stop and think that had Bush & Co. not cynically ignored spot-on intelligence, 9/11 in all likelihood would have, and could have, been prevented, and there would be many more of us alive and well today.

These may be strong words from me, but I am tired of not only fighting to keep my sanity in this GOP-controlled, uncompassionate nightmare that has become America, but I'm tired of encountering individual after individual who lack (here comes a familiar phrase) intellectual curiosity about the very administration that has put our country into perpetual horrific war, perpetual mind-boggling deficits, and a police state in all but name.

There would have been a time when I would never have thought twice about signing my name to what I've said, and here I am, a USAF vet, thinking twice. I'm signing my name anyway.

I pray for the best for this country.

Sincerely,

Bri Held

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY