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The Crowe's Nest |
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Had enough? That is the question that has triggered the great Democratic wave of 2006 that has been moving across America and gaining strength the closer we get to the mid-term elections. I’m expecting the people to revolt against Bush, the Iraq War and the Republican Majority by giving the Democrats the Majority in the House and Senate on Nov. 7. I’m certain it will sweep away the Republican Majority in the House. I am not so certain beyond a reasonable doubt that the Democrats will take control of the Senate, but I have very high hopes. The possibility of the Democrats taking the reins in the Senate and making it a clean sweep hits close to home for me as a Chattanoogan because of the tight race between former mayor Bob Corker and his Democratic opponent, Harold Ford Jr. It has never been a pleasing thought that Tennessee, like so many other Southern States, has turned into a conservative, Christian rightwing Republican stronghold. It has been particularly bothersome that Chattanooga suffers from the same ideological malady. I have a nagging feeling that this Senate race in Tennessee may be the most important one in the entire country and will determine whether or not the Republicans are able to maintain the Majority in the Senate. It is imperative that the Democrats gain the Majority in both Houses of Congress,- or else Bush, with his expanded executive powers, a Republican Majority in the Senate and the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court, will still determine the course that America travels through the most desperate and dangerous times of the 21st Century. I have always bragged that Chattanooga is the funnel of the Universe and I have challenged anyone in the world to stand in middle of Walnut Street Bridge and dispute that. But this is no time for idle brags. This is the time for action and for Chattanooga to come to the aid of the cause. And there stands the uncertainty. How can I be sure that Chattanooga understands the cause when I don’t believe that the majority of voters riding this great wave of Democratic change that’s coming truly understand the cause? Let’s face it. After six years of Bush, the bloody bog down in Iraq, Katrina, an inept and power-hungry administration, outrageous debts and deficits, and a Majority of bootlickers in Congress that have soiled the nation with hypocrisy and corruption, the cause for most Americans is just change itself. They’ve had enough. Like a person suffering from the stings of a swarm of bees, all they know is that they have had enough and need a change. The true cause is a complete reversal in the course that America has been on for decades which leads only to universal war and destruction instead of peace, harmony and equality among nations and the peoples of the world. The American people must reject the course of peace and safety through war and world domination as illogical, immoral, insane and guaranteed to end in the destruction of America and life itself on the planet Earth. We must wake up and see ourselves for what we have become. We must shed ourselves of our hypocrisy and take on the virtue and wisdom befitting the greatest and most powerful nation in the history of civilization. Democracies don’t attack their neighbors. Wake up America! Who attacked Afghanistan and Iraq? What nation is it that has taken the course of attacking other nations and replacing their governments with Democracies? How can America take the position that it has the right to continue to build up its nuclear arsenal and continue its nuclear testing and yet threaten to attack nations such as Iran and North Korea for exercising their right to do the same? How can America make the claim that those are rogue nations when America showed itself to be the biggest rogue nation of all when it pushed the United Nations aside, broke International Law and attacked Iraq without provocation or just cause? Even if the Democrats regain control of the Senate, the American people must remind themselves that the Democrats were in control when they wrote a blank check to Bush to take whatever measures he wanted to deal with the threat of Iraq. Even if the Majority in Congress switches to the Democrats, the people need to realize that for the moment the Democrats are as blind to the larger threat to peace and safety as the Republicans. They don’t talk any different about how to deal with Iran and North Korea than the Republicans. The Democrats still do not realize that the time for war and the threat of war as a means of bringing peace and safety are over. The Democrats don’t realize that stick and carrot diplomacy is insulting and useless and needs to be replaced with honest respect and equality if we are to make any legitimate progress on the road to peace in the world. The American people have to come to their senses and shake off such stupid notions as, “If we don’t fight them there we’ll have to fight them here.” America must come to realize that we are in a war of survival, but it’s a war of our own making and perpetuated by our own false notion that it is our right and duty to correct the behavior of other nations through our military and the use of killing wars, which in the end only guarantees our destruction. We don’t need to stay any longer in Afghanistan or Iraq, anymore than we needed to attack them in the first place. We’ve caused enough harm. It’s time to cut and run and leave those nations alone and allow them to determine their own destinies. It’s time to make the United Nations work the way it was intended to work instead of using it as we please to have our way in the world. It’s time for America to resort to peace and equal respect towards all nations and the peoples of the world, for the sake of our own survival and the survival of mankind. This is the true cause, the real change, the correct course that we need to set our sights on, regardless of which party controls our government or has the Majority in Congress. It is up to us, the people, to make the Democrats and Republicans, the Independents and all other political parties aware of where we want to go and how to get there from here.
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