I have a list, a list engraved upon my brain and burned into my heart in October, 2002. It is the list of the 29 "opposition" senators, 29 Democrats from their majority constituency in the Senate, who gifted George W. Bush the unprecedented and unilateral authority to wage war.
The resultant war has now proceeded for six years, has consumed the lives of over 4000 American soldiers, has laid our economy to waste, has destroyed the image of America in the international community, and most foully has slaughtered a million innocents whose names we will never know.
This War-of-Lies goes on and on, its end defying prediction, this War-of-Lies gifted by a majority-Democrat Senate to a morally and intellectually deficient Commander-in-Chief, now exposed as our history's most treacherous figure.
And now comes Senator Obama, the "nice" intelligent man from Illinois who would be our next Commander-in-Chief, he who championed "change," but who has since his nomination drifted more toward political expediency than in the direction of the changes decent people hoped for, changes such as conclusively outlawing torture for any purported reason, immediately abolishing the encroachments upon our Constitution made precedent by Bush, and, most urgently, quickly ending the War-of-Lies, the Democrats' gift to the annals of treachery.
Which brings me back to my list.
Last night the "nice" man from Illinois named as his running mate Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Joe Biden is on my list, the list of Democrats who sold out America for political expediency, who sold out America to those who lusted for war however treacherously contrived, who sold out America thinking to save their own political asses.
I ask you for nothing except to pause and think before you make your decision. As for me, I will never, cannot ever, regardless of the alternatives, regardless of the "lesser-evil" proposition -- ever cast a vote for anyone on or associated with persons on my list made in 2002.
Think about it. And think about where this could next lead us.
Rafe Pilgrim, after "a life largely wasted on hard honest work," found himself a jungle of turkey oak, scrub pine and giant palmettos up a dirt road running east of Crystal River, Florida, which neither school busses nor the U.S. Postal Service dare (
more...)