Surprised, readers?
"2007 - Look Back in Anger !!!
Reg, Contributing Editor, TvNewsLIES.org
I just can’t do it this time, folks. I simply cannot wish you all a Happy New Year with a straight face and a hopeful heart. The words no longer make any sense at all, not after seven years of descending every so consistently into Bushco Hell. I no longer believe in the good wishes we traditionally exchange at this time of year and I no longer can summon up the hypocrisy needed to pretend that 2008 will be an iota better for any of us than any of the other years of this murderous regime. .
In fact, I am dead certain it would take a miracle to have anything close to a really Happy New Year. And I do not, I absolutely do not believe in miracles.
I also believe it would take a miracle for many people to understand that my anger and my frustration are based in tragic reality rather than partisan politics. Americans seem to be a people with a very short memory span and a very limited sense of outrage. I don’t know what it will take to shake them into any semblance of collective outrage or united action. I do know however, that I am angrier at the close of this year than at the end of any other year that has passed.
As you might well imagine, I am furious with the usual suspects: the corporate thugs, the PNAC warmongers and the religious fanatics who have wreaked such irreparable havoc on us all. TVNL has raged against what they have done to destroy the lives of so many.. But this time around I am ever more unforgiving in my despair and pessimism because of what has NOT been done by those who could have and should have lived up to the promise of change
.
It was a year of stunning inaction, during which so much that might have been done, and that could have been done, was NOT done, 2007 was heralded as a year of hope and progress. It was not. At year’s end, the crimes of the Bush administration still were business as usual. At year’s end, every outrage against the nation and the world remained uninvestigated and unpunished.
And by the year’s end, members of both parties had joined forces to do nothing at all that might lead to a Happy New Year for anyone..
Just think about it for a minute. Here are some of the issues that could have been dealt with in 2007 and are OFF THE TABLE for any legislative action as I write. Even if every one of them had failed to pass a divided Congress, in the very least, the facts finally would have been placed in the public arena. In the very least, they would not have been swept under the proverbial rug of our shamefully intimidated and cowardly elected legislators.
As 2008 begins, here are SOME of the issues that have endangered our democracy and the lives of so many around the world. For all of 2007, there was no action, nor were there any plans to:
• Impeachment against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
• End the illegal and immoral wars against Iraq and Afghanistan
• Challenge the lies about a nuclear buildup in Iran
• Investigate what really happened on 9/11
• Repeal the Patriot Act
• Investigate official misconduct by Alberto Gonzalez
• Investigate the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame
• Charge those who allowed the torture of Iraqis
• Investigate rendition and torture of detainees
• Close Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay Prisons
• Challenge the abuse of signing statements by George Bush
• Investigate the administration’s spying on Americans before 9/11
• Challenge the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act
• Challenge directives giving George Bush dictatorial powers
• Demand accountability for billions misspent and ‘lost’ in Iraq
• Demand accountability for billions paid to private contractors
• Expose the influence of PNAC members on US foreign policy
• Challenge the lies to minimize the dangers of global warming
• Restore the constitutional division of church and state
• Protect a woman’s right to privacy
• Restore habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment
…and on and on and on…
So, where is the sincerity in wishing anyone a Happy New Year, when it is so painfully apparent that it will be a lousy year for so many once again? The economy is tanking, gas prices are going through the roof, tens of millions of Americans are without health insurance, and a half gallon of orange juice is somewhere around four dollars. China owns us, the dollar is worthless, Pakistan is imploding, the massacres in Darfur go on unabated, Israel is building hundreds of new settlements in the West Bank. Tens of thousands of Katrina victims are still suffering, US military deaths in Iraq have topped 3900 and we’ll never get the real numbers of maimed and wounded of our kids or Iraqi or Iraqi civilians.
And George Bush has not yet given up on the idea of bombing Iran.
I know, I know…..look for the silver lining, - after all it’s a new year and there’s always the hope that things will get better. No way.
I honestly wish it were different. I wish the reality of where we are, and what his happening was not fading from the public conscience. I wish that the mainstream media were not controlled by their corporate masters and would report the news with some journalistic integrity. I wish, I wish, but wishing won’t make it so.
I don’t know what will. But make-believe is out this year. I can’t do it.
Please forgive.
REFERENCES:
Dick Cheney: Ground Zero of Corruption
Lies of an American President
