There’s an old expression in American slang: “when you’ve got a hammer, all you see are nails”. The nails represent problems we think with force, we can solve. Nothing could be further from the truth, and everyone in the world can see this truth except for us in the United States.

There is hope for change in this perverse stance of logic.

In their desire to ratchet up the rhetoric for a continued offensive against Iraq while laying the groundwork for an Iranian invasion, the Bush Administration has committed serious strategic blunders worthy of a “Darwin Award”. (For those unfamiliar with this satirical honor, it is given to those individuals who do the most for humanity by taking themselves out of the gene pool by their own stupidity.) It started with Vice President Cheney, snaked its way to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and as the “buck stops here”, finally ended with President Bush.

When Joe Lieberman recently lost the nod to hold onto his seat in the Senate, shockwaves reverberated all the way to Israel. The Jewish newspapers were completely beside themselves over the unexpected unseating of “their man”. Now if you read the same papers, they are already running polls as to which would-be presidential contenders would be “best for Israel”. Of course the American backlash against the Jewish speculators is white-hot anger in the forums, with the typical answer being, “if you want a strong leader for Israel, might we strongly suggest you elect one IN Israel and stay out of our politics, and take your AIPAC with you!” If you listen closely, you can even hear American Jews starting to strike out against their Middle Eastern brothers for interference with our political system since it’s come to light that AIPAC has been caught bragging about whom it chooses to be vice president.

These sentiments are coming from angry Americans who are starting to stand up and scream for things to change. The mood in our political system is going to last for two more election cycles as Americans angrily clean out the House of Representatives and the Senate for their do nothing attitudes, blatant corruption, and constantly selling themselves to every PAC (political action committee) that writes them a check. Amongst all these screams, one can now hear in the blogosphere a deafening cry for the impeachment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Attorney General Gonzalez, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

As “what you know, Joe” went down in flames due to extreme voter dissatisfaction over his stance on the Iraq war, Vice President Cheney put the key into the engine of fear and tried to turn over the engine. The statements that poured out of his mouth were at first ignored by the general population, but he couldn’t leave well enough alone and screwed up a free lunch. Soon the American public kept hearing statements akin to, “a vote against Lieberman is a vote for terrorists and Osama Bin Laden!” that questioned our loyalty and patriotism. This didn’t sit well with the average citizen, who no longer supports the military campaign for oil shrouded in ethnic cleansing and empire expansion. The engine of fear turned over and began to heat up.

People began to question the harsh, senseless chatter and openly wondered if he had played the ace up his sleeve in one too many poker games. Had Cheney finally gone too far for Americans’ taste?

 “The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.”

Hot on the heels of the Cheney fiasco, the administration unleashed attack dog number two in the form of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In retrospect, it was the wisest move Bush could have made by showing his true colors. Although it may have appeared to some as a good strategic offensive, the stinging rhetoric may have won him a small audience battle, but cost him the war of common sense. In this speech, Americans who exercise their consciences and Constitutional rights to peacefully dissent had their ire raised to “Homeland Security: RED”; it was the debut of “Islamofascism”. It was also a critical juncture for all true American patriots when the Bush Administration drew a line in the sand and demanded we not cross it or them. Since then, the gloves have come off and bare-knuckle boxing has commenced.

Who the hell does the government think they are? They work for us! We are not a fiefdom – we’re a republic being imploded by the highest levels of this corrupt neo-conservative administration. Our assets are being sold off to foreign companies behind our backs and at alarming speed. We don’t even own the roads we purchased decades ago – some are owned by Spain, others by Australia. The United Nations has control over our precious national parks. Our borders are being erased, our middle class is being destroyed, and our jobs are being exported in frightening numbers. The median income in Texas is the 6^th top loser of purchasing power, dropping a whopping 9.9%, with top honors in advancing the poverty bracket going to Michigan (12% down). The economic picture is sobering, with most people feeling the economy’s not doing well. You hear the economic reports that tout “100,000 new jobs were added”, but you never hear how the average American needs two jobs to make ends meet.

The world sees Americans, I believe, disconnected from international politics. To follow it with any due diligence here, one has to have at least 10 domestic news sources, and a combination of 30 blogs and international sources in order to get a realistic picture of what’s being severely filtered and censored. How many people have that kind of time when they’re working overtime or two jobs trying to eek out a basic living? It’s not laziness; it’s long hours that keep most of us from the realities of the rest of the world.

When Rumsfeld waved the red flag of “dissenters are morally confused” in front us at the American Legion, we could smell the bull, and we took notice of the Stalinist stench in the air once again. We know the truth: we were lied to, the case for war was pure fiction, and the only weapons of mass destruction found were old shells the weapons inspectors already knew about. Our troops knew about them as well, but under orders, they were not allowed to dispose of them; many have been stolen by rogue elements so the US government can incredulously state, “we told you there would be another attack.”

It was Keith Olberman, an MSNBC commentator, who gave voice to our frustration, indignation, and with passion and eloquence, fired the first shot of a new American revolution. His entire commentary deserves a careful and thorough reading.

“Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as ‘his’ troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq. It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile… it is right - and the power to which it speaks, is wrong. In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For, in their time, there was another government faced with true peril - with a growing evil - powerful and remorseless. That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the secret information. It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s - questioning their intellect and their morality.”

Americans will tolerate many things, but being referred to as “intellectually challenged” by temporary residents of the White House isn’t one of them. Since then, shirt sleeves have been rolled up and despite what the Republican National Committee tells itself, I believe republicans, in a display of mass defection and defiance, will take revenge in November of 2006 and in November of 2008. There is undoubtedly a fat (foreign policy) lip in the future of the neo-conservatives, thanks to traditional republicans fighting back. If the democrats only do one thing in the next two years, I would give my left kidney for it to be the impeachment of President Bush and his top cabinet members.

This is a rare admission coming from a staunch evangelical republican who helped elect this regime to office, but when it comes to what is good for this country, partisan politics has absolutely no place in salvaging our sovereignty and dignity. The terrorism against us comes not from extremist Islamic elements, but from the elitist elements within our own borders:

“For I know this, that after my departure grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock.” Acts, 20:29

The mindset of neo-conservatives is boggling and complex, but is driven by their desire to create an imperialist empire at the expense of the blood of others. They revel in belief the United States is numero uno and makes no apologies for it. They subscribe to the doctrine of “expansion and dominance comes only through the crosshairs of a weapon sight”, obscenely postulating it will foster peace. It is a classic “the ends justify the means” faulty logic argument.

The position might be credible if other mitigating circumstances were not part of the social fabric of this country. In schools, we have a zero tolerance rule when it comes to weapons and violence. In houses of worship, we post signs that inform one that firearms are not allowed inside the building. It’s quite clear in federal buildings and airports, weapons as small as a fingernail file are not allowed in onboard luggage. In court systems all across the country, judges routinely send guilty parties to anger management classes in domestic cases. Enter the self help section in a bookstore and you will find countless books that will help you to identify the root source of your anger and teach you how to release it in an adult way that’s productive and healthy.

We might also want to consider our current behaviors in regards to civil rights and cultural diversity. It’s a fact we do discriminate against each other, but our nation has come a very long way from the time in which blacks sat at the back of the bus and accepted it. Color blindness is something we keep working on, trying hard to overcome the prejudices of the past generation, and I pray we are making progress. One can see the ground being covered toward this goal when incidents are caught by the mainstream media and shoved back in the face of the shameless, racist elitists in Washington, D.C.

·        Sen. George Allen’s “macaca” racial slur.

·        Sen. Conrad Burns jokes about seeing the green card for the "nice little Guatemalan man" in case he’s an illegal alien.

·        Rush Limbaugh, who doesn’t understand why insulting an Indian man born in Virginia by calling him in “money girl” in Spanish, is offensive.

·        President Bush referring to North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il as a “pygmy” and wondering why he has a near impossible diplomatic task of containment.

·        President Bush should be credited for his remarks regarding engaging in a “crusade” in the Middle East post 9/11/01, as well as his flagrant adoration of the term “Islamofascism”., and finally let’s not overlook his “Paki” slur.

·        Former First Lady Barbara Bush was caught on a Houston, Texas radio station immediately after Hurricane Katrina, expressing her low view of poor black Americans.

·        White House Press Secretary Tony Snow in his first briefing, used the racial slur of “tar baby” twice.

·        Sen. Joe Biden was caught disparaging Indian entrepreneurs who own certain franchise chains (7/11 and Dunkin’ Donuts).

·        And who can forget how presidential contender Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 Jewish slur of “hymie” ruined his bid for the White House?

·        Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton have been accused of engaging in frequent anti-semitic comments by their body guard, Larry Patterson

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If we have hate speech laws, I’m curious as to why aren’t they don’t seem to apply to our sophisticated elect in Washington, D.C. We don’t sanction racial slurs in polite society, and we teach our children not to participate in such chat. Is there something inherently corrupt in our nation’s capitol, or is there a sign on the highway, “Now entering the Beltway. Please leave common sense and decency on the side of the road.” If it’s to be believed, kids of the Beltway are embarrassing their famous parents, but considering the way their parents act, I find their red-faced claims rather incredulous since “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. In short, if we can’t run off half cocked, foaming at the mouth because it’s socially unacceptable, then who the heck gave the Bush administration and the neo-conservatives a free pass to act like a wild animal? It’s a legitimate question that should have some accountability behind it.

To bring this article full circle, we must look at President Bush, who is trying to keep the spinning plates balancing on the pole like a circus clown. With the President’s poll numbers consistently in the low thirties, he lacks the finesse to maintain the act, so we know the “master architect” Karl Rove is behind the game, and he has a very full plate: maintain republican majorities in the House and Senate (if not gain seats), resuscitate the dismal Iraq war in the eye of the public, and stay one step ahead of Special Prosecuor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in his involvement in the Valerie Plame’ CIA leak case, all while crafting rhetorical verse aimed at selling the Iran war.

In a short time the news media has seen some interesting stories flow from the White House recently.

·        Bush has admitted the CIA has been operating secret detention facilities in Europe. Too bad they didn’t realize the rest of us knew about the secret CIA flights and the prisons (at Guantanamo Bay) for quite awhile before letting us in on the secret.

·        The White House is beginning to realize Americans have disconnected the war in Iraq from the larger “war on terror”. Most Americans know they’ve been lied to in regards to the intelligence between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair. Are they really just getting around to taking the pulse on this long dead horse? Seems ironic that as I’m writing this, the Senate has just passed a bill banning the slaughter of horses for food. Guess this is “one that got away”.

·        The party line laid down by the Bush administration is to strongly paint those who object to the war as being “disloyal” and “appeasers”, totally ignoring the fact it is a guaranteed right under the Constitution, which he wishes would evaporate into thin air. Bush is playing out a simple strategy: kill the messenger. Political dissenters have been under attack by the government for some time, including peaceful groups the government has no logical argument in which to accuse of subversion, but logic has no place in the White House.

The premise we started with (“when you’ve got a hammer, all you see are nails”) is ready to be honestly addressed. When one looks at the overall picture and asks, “are we better off today than we were on 9/11/01?” the answer is resoundingly no. We are much worse off than when this fight was started for a number of reasons.

1.     The Bush White House has trained the average person into being afraid of Muslims with their constant bogus “foiled” terror plots. For the first three years of this war, we were conditioned like a Pavlovian dog to get scared when the Homeland Security Threat Level was raised, and learned to breathe again when it was lowered. There hasn’t been a single credible threat since the attacks, but that didn’t stop the government from emotionally manipulating us at will.

2.     The “war on terror” is based up on the premise that 19 Arab Muslims hijacked four planes and flew three into their end targets. Considering nearly half of all Americans do not believe the government’s official story of this terrible day, there is sufficient reason to view it with great skepticism. For instance, six of the alleged hijackers as named by the FBI turned up alive and well, and proven not to be involved in the attacks. Mohammed Atta’s passport showed up in perfect condition two blocks away from the World Trade Center Towers, while reports go on for months about a pool of molten metal burning on site, where the passport should have been found.

3.     The Bush White House has repeatedly tried to make the connection between Saddam Hussein and Iraq harboring Al Qaeda people, as well as manufacturing evidence to suggest Mohammed Atta had close ties to Iraqi officials. These were lies and Bush knew it.

4.     If the official story and timelines have gaping holes in them, then the end conclusion cannot possibly support the original premise, and must call into question the reliability of the facts. The Bush White House allowed the attack to take place when they were repeatedly warned not only through domestic sources, but international ones.

5.     Most Americans believe Bush allowed the attacks for the sole purpose of expanding the powers of his presidency. The general public would never allow for the expansion of presidential powers during peacetime. Knowing Vice President Cheney has vigorously sought to “restore” powers taken away from President Nixon by Congress due to his abuse of power, short of a national catastrophe, there was no hope of him realizing this dream. The neo-conservative think tanks agreed and said what the country needed was another “Pearl Harbor”. What kind of sick, demented, twisted freak of a person dreams up this brand of horror for his fellow citizens to achieve political dominance? This is nothing short of satanic!

6.     There is absolutely no way to discuss the war on terror and separate oneself from the incredible abuses by war profiteers. Halliburton automatically comes to mind as the most egregious of the thieving lot, however, to ignore Cheney’s other holdings in a very well lobbied Lockheed Martin (ranked #1 on the Pentagon’s contractor list by dollar totals) or Donald Rumsfeld’s stock in the Tamiflu bird flu vaccine would let these two off the hook. This is insider information at its best! Rumsfeld made between $5-$18 million (depending on the sourced article and the date of it) on his, and Cheney’s Halliburton remaining 55,000 shares have increased a staggering 3,281%! Amazingly, no one seems to question him in regards to this astronomical growth, but everyone screamed to the high hills when Sen. Hillary Clinton invested $1,000 and achieved a $100,000 return.

7.      In retrospect it is clear the neo-conservatives and the White House are after a cheap and plentiful source of oil in Iraq for personal profit as well as favorable poll numbers. In eight weeks we will go to the polls, and if you think the sudden strong drop of nearly sixty cents is mere coincidence, think again. Yes, the US government will deny it up and down, but even commentators like George Will have faced the ugly truth. The sad irony of this situation is under the current occupation of Iraq, this oil rich nation is forced to import oil to meet their basic energy needs. This is all on top of the Oil for Food scandal that the US had oversight on this program, allowed corruption to happen in direct dereliction of its duties, and then blamed the United Nations for mishandling, as outlined by a GAO (General Accounting Office) report.

8.     To overlook the incalculable damage done to the Constitution and the basic rights of American citizens would be shoddy journalism. We cannot ignore the President’s use of signing statements or the 750 laws he broke, as calculated by the Boston Globe. Sen. Arlen Specter, considered by most republicans to be on the flaky fringe of the party, has surprised many and come out strongly and is preparing to sue the President in federal court in an attempt to force him to act in one of three constitutionally acceptable methods: sign, veto, or decline to act on a bill. Personal freedoms have been severely curtailed in many ways, especially in matters of privacy. Project Strikeback gave the FBI all personal information and demographics of students who applied for federal student loans, and the GAO filed a scathing report accusing the FBI of data mining. The National Security Administration (NSA) had its government pants yanked down around its ankles and left naked when it was revealed every American resident had their telephone conversations and the numbers logged “just in case”. The Department of Homeland Security has also been caught collecting information on peaceful groups like People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Quakers, Green Peace, and various Christian groups and then turning it over to the Department of Defense under the guise of “questionable subversives” that should be investigated. The most outrageous trampling of the First Amendment right to free speech resulted in the Secret Service arresting a couple who wore t-shirts that said, "Love America, Hate Bush" and "Regime change starts at home." Another young man found out the hard way a “King George” bumper sticker can get you into hot water with the government. You can’t drive your car around without wondering if the white van next to you is just a white van, or if your carton of eggs and bottle of milk are getting x-rayed by DHS thanks to a new mobile lab on wheels. Of course public Islamic events are often subject to the over reaching, ever prying eyes of the intelligence community.

9.     There’s no denying another obvious aspect as ugly and unfair as it gets: racial profiling. As a result of the government’s claims to the identities of the 9/11/01 hijackers, the world has become fearful and distrusting of Muslims and Arabs. After the thwarted London plane bombing, people became irrational and easily manipulated. There were incidents of planes that couldn’t take off until rowdy passengers got their way of having Muslims removed. In another story, an Iraqi man was harassed for wearing a t-shirt that upset passengers, and consequently, made to change. You’d think they’d be more upset over the college student who carried a stick of dynamite onboard a flight from Argentine to Houston or the Suspicious Behavior Police watching as you make your way through the RFID enabled airports. Here’s a tip: don’t look beady eyed or shifty and you might get past the “evil intent” detectors who are mixing it up to throw the terrorists off their game. Hey, it could be worse – you could be a European journalist flying to the United States.

10. In a horrifying turn of events, President Bush’s words are no longer carefully chosen with any thought – only with malice. In the beginning of the “war on terror”, he slipped by calling this a “crusade”, which made everyone cringe. His speech was adjusted to reflect not every Muslim or Arab was a problem, but a select few were labeled extremists. With caution thrown into the wind, he has embraced a last ditch effort to save his “war on terror” by claiming the war is being fought against “Islamofascism”; to anyone paying attention, his words now encompass an entire faith. How could such harsh rhetoric and faulty logic win hearts and minds? It can’t. There are two possibilities to account for the President’s drastic personality shift: his use of anti-depressant drugs, possible mental illness, and speculation he continues to drink.

If someone had told me before 9/11/01 that my government was going mass murder American citizens, blame it on the Arab world, and proceed in ethnically cleansing it for oil…I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s time for us to stop acting like a hammer and hallucinating the Middle East is one giant nail in need of pounding.