"War on America!"
March 9th, 2006

Rune Nordsman

I wonder if Karl Rove ever thought about ordering Bush to create a Freedom Czar to oversee the War on American Freedoms. The repugs have made their ‘vision’ for America perfectly clear with a stream of little wars on this or that, but will the ‘mainstream’ or ‘middle America’ ever realize that The War is on them. Let’s take a look at the ruling party’s agenda through a list of their wars on…

War on homosexuals—because there’s got to be a boogieman and a way to scare people and raise money

War on flag burning—because there’s been massive flag burnings all over the nation

War on Hollywood—because the movie industry is a forum that neocons do not control and it plays well with people who listen to talk radio to demonize the kind of free thinking and free market entertainment provided by D.C. outsiders

War on women’s reproductive rights—because a large percentage of those who vote repug do so religiously based on this one issue—the perception of concern buys the bulk of these votes

War on the poor and the disadvantaged—because compassionate conservativism is simply word play and sounds a lot better than selfish greed head

War on drugs--wasting billions every year and ruining thousands of lives one new prison at a time

War on environmental protections—for example passing the Clear Skies Initiative that allows for More acid rain

War on pornography—because nudity offends certain people and should therefore be banned for all people

War on worker’s rights and protections

War on separation of church and state

War on dissent and divergent thought

War on terror—the 911 Commission gives them an ‘F’ and states that we are less safe today

War on disaster preparedness—when you appoint cronies, you get mismanagement and when as an administration you truly do not care about things like hurricanes, then you get New Orleans 2005

War on a sensible gun control policy—because the NRA is very powerful and a great many people vote repug religiously to protect their misinterpretation of the second amendment—protection of semi-automatic and automatic weapons = automatic votes

War on fiscal restraint—against the advice of Paul O’Neil (Treasury Secretary) on the dangers of deficit spending, Bush has outspent every other president, destroyed the surplus that Clinton gave him and crippled future administrations for years to come

War on taxes for the very wealthy

War on civil discourse—while Repug Senators and Congressmen generally know how to appear polite, the same cannot be said for their Rovian handlers whose standard operating procedure is to smear and leak in the shadows or for the Fox propaganda machine, with it’s highly paid, vicious liars and tools who, as a matter of business, spew the agenda and spin of the RNC

War on corporate oversight—this apparently, is something that is better left out of government and placed in the hands of self-policing industries

War on protection from government wiretaps—because laws get in the way of spying on the citizenry, especially when we the citizens should know that it’s only for our own good and we can trust the president

War on legitimate elections—through laws like HAVA, which allow for electronic voting machines to provide no paper trail, Secretaries of States to certify the machines and the elections, even though they also happen to serve as campaign managers for the ruling party, and machines made by private companies who openly support the ruling party

War on media oversight of the government—it is apparently o.k. for Rove and Cheney to leak the name of CIA operatives, but reporters will be prosecuted for revealing our government’s secret gulags, so that torture can ‘occur’ without the pesky Constitution getting in the way

War on public education—No Child Left Behind is an abject failure because naturally, it wasn’t funded—it is an edict from above designed to weaken the system and open the door for yet further diversion of funds toward private schooling

War on public broadcasting—since the agenda in public broadcasting is to report the stories in as unbiased a manner as is possible and to provide content that isn’t given the forum on commercial TV, they are liberals and shouldn’t be publicly funded

War on telecommunications oversight—the most powerful lobby in D.C. is the telecommunications industry—where does America get its news, TV—who provides the broadcast, GE (NBC), who also supplies weapon systems and on and on for Bush’s invasion of Iraq—is there any doubt why NBC never asked why we were going to war, but only when?

War on affordable health care—Bill Frist dumped his family’s HMO stock before it fell, maybe he knew something we didn’t—the U.S. has the 37th best health care system of the advanced nations of the world

War on affordable college education--because millionaires and billionaires desperately needed tax relief

War on America’s image—we used to be admired and now we’re despised, not just by our enemies, but by our friends

War on campaign finance reform—if you take the money out of the campaigns, you’d have nothing left but regular people running for office in order to serve their country or state or county—this apparently, would be bad for Republicans

War on lobbying reform—if you take away all of the money and manipulation, you’d have nothing left but Senators and Congressman who actually voted for what they believed in

War on an actual energy policy—the current one was drafted by Ken Lay (Bush’s biggest campaign contributor) and his associates in the industry

War on Social Security—enough said

The repug wars are wars on individual freedoms and protections. They are wars on a responsible government for the people and by the people. Chief strategist for the Republican regime, Grover Norquist, wants to shrink government to the size that it can be drowned in a bathtub. I believe the great majority of Americans want a government that peacefully conducts the people’s business. But, America needs to wake up fast. I can here the water running.