Many of you will recall that the Bush regime came into office with the bold promise to restore integrity to the White House. What they have done, however, is desecrate the office of the presidency with drunken belligerency and unbridled criminality. There hasn't been real integrity in the White House for decades. There is not an ounce of integrity to be divided amid the entire Bush cabal""not an ounce!
Congress has degenerated into a dung heap of moral prostitution""a system of legalized bribery without shame or regret. It is a festering cancer that is eating away the integrity of our national identity. We are becoming mired in a judicial system that appears to be following a similar path to depravity and corruption. This didn't happen as the result of an unfortunate accident. It happened because we allowed it to happen; we willed it into existence through indifference and apathy. We abrogated our duty as citizens to be vigilant and active. We bought the goods those in power sold us. Now we are left to hold the bag and the bottom is falling out.
Never in the course of the American experiment has a more opaque and secretive government occupied the White House. Never has a more anti-democratic group of miscreants slithered through the halls of power. Democracy requires transparency and openness. It demands respect for the Constitution and for the Bill of Rights. It requires respect for and adherence to the law. It requires a deep and abiding deference to the people and the public good. It esteems International law and the rights of other nations to sovereignty. It respects the right to privacy of its citizens. The Bush cabal has done none of those things. Indeed, they have consistently shown not only disdain for the higher principles of civil society""they are openly contemptuous of them.
Whatever entities Bush managed in his adult life have always met a swift demise. This does not exactly inspire confidence now that he has his hands on the presidency. Say goodbye to all that is good and decent about America and welcome depravity.
The ruling principle of this regime is that might makes right. Physical force may rule on the school playground; but it does not hold sway in a world of nations that believe in International Treaties and the rule of law. It is justice that makes right, not the iron fists of militarism. Rule by coercion always results in armed conflict. Militarism can never result in peace or social justice. Without justice there can be no peace. Thus the lid boils off the pot in the volatile Middle East and beyond. You reap what you sow. Force is always met with force; and forever with the result that people will needlessly die.
We know we are in a bad place when the likes of George Bush and his enablers in Congress come into power through the edifice of the Supreme Court. We should realize that we are in trouble when we idolize morally bankrupt players like Donald Trump as shinning examples for our children to emulate. America has a love affair with the class system""with those born into positions of power and privilege that most of us will never know or even want to know. To our eternal shame, these are the kind of men that America has come to respect and to emulate. The more ruthless and craven these men are the louder we seem to sing their praises.
We had the outstanding and uplifting moral example of Dr. Martin Luther King to guide us; but we assassinated him when the nation was on the brink of revolution. We have made our personal and our cultural choices. Now we have to live with the consequences of those choices. We could have had the saintly Dr. King. But we chose George Bush and Donald Trump. If only we could wrestle back the hands of time and choose again. Perhaps we would get it right.
