Tuesday, March 18, 2008

I'm going to say it too

God Damn America.

When financial institutions get the laws changed so Joe Average finds it harder to declare bankruptcy, then the same financial institutions run to the Fed for money because they're "too big to be allowed to fail" ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ... ), and take the same tax dollars they claim they shouldn't have to pay from the same Joe Average they screwed over - then God Damn America.

When we have terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the US leadership decides that it's more important to go after Iraq - a country that had no bin Laden ties, a country that was contained, a country that had no WMD's and posed no "eminent threat to the United States" - then told you that if you dared questioned them you were "emboldening the terrorists" - then God Damn America.

When we are told that torture is perfectly acceptable (for the same things that we punished Japanese soldiers after World War II for doing), then when our soldiers are caught without proper training, without proper supervision - and caught torturing physically and sexually Iraqi prisoners, and we are told that *none* of the leadership of those soldiers are responsible - then God Damn America.

When US veterans come home and they are told they can't be elegible for the GI bill because they were 10 days away from being qualified, when US veterans come home and have to wait 18 months before it can be proved that the shrapnel in their head was caused by their service to our country, when US veterans come home and have increased PTSD and other mental issues - but instead we leave them in places like Walter Reed or without help, then God Damn America.

When we decide that someone having the audacity to speak out against these evils from a church pulpit, and actually say out loud that American actions abroad of removing democratically elected leaders and putting in our own (like Pinochet, like the Shah of Iran, like propping up the dictatorship of the Saudi royal family) solely for the means of financial gain, then wonder why we are attacked - when we say to a person like Wright who has brought up these truths "Well, you are a racist for daring to say we have responsibility for our actions abroad" - then God Damn you, too.

Personally, I'd rather speak out for the man who has the courage to point out evil for what it is and name it. And once we have done naming the evils of greed, and kleptocracy, and incompetence from people like Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, then we can go fight these evils for what they are. And on *that* day, then we can all proudly say God Bless America for doing the right thing.

No comments: