President George W. Bush has managed to accomplish two things that no other US President has ever even come close to – uniting the Shias and Sunis and killing the American dream. In just four years, America has lost what made it the greatest country on earth.
President Bush has transformed almost every aspect of American society for the worse. It is becoming increasingly difficult for a person from the lower middle class succeed to the point of moving up the economic or social ladder; if things do not change fast, a person may never be able to improve his family’s status in society.
Perhaps if our current President took a moment to read the inscription that Lady Liberty holds so proudly, he will realize how quickly he is deteriorating what her torch shines so brightly for. The inscription reads,
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
The sad and most unfortunate reality is that this beautiful poem written by Emma Lazarus has gone from a promise and a beacon of hope to millions around the world to just 34 beautiful words written on a statue in New York harbor.
President Bush has systematically made it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to move up the social ladder through calculated tax cuts benefiting just the top 1% of Americans, forcing the lower class to make it on their own with fewer programs designed to make it possible to recover from a state of homelessness and bankruptcy, no universal health care program and the increasingly growing realization that Social Security will not be around for many more years.
America has been known for decades as the world police and the world peacekeepers. The United States continuously fought under every presidential administration, both Democrat and Republican, to ensure that the world was a safe place for that and future generations. However, in January 2001 everything changed. A Texan by the name of George W. Bush was sworn into the Office of the President of the United States of America. He must have had his fingers metaphorically crossed when he took the oath of office and said, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
President Bush has consistently done only one thing to the best of his ability – preserving, protecting and defending his own ideals. Shortly after stealing the 2000 presidential election with the help of his brother’s administration in the state of Florida, he began to work on plans to invade the sovereign state of Iraq.
Instead of focusing on national security, developing a Middle East peace plan or working on tightening global treaties, President Bush went on an extended vacation that lasted…well basically throughout his first nine months in office. Ok, to be fair, constructing plans to convince the entire world, in addition to the United States, that an unjustified war where thousands of lives would be lost is justified is a lot of work.
Also unprecedented in American history was the imprisoning of people without charging them or declaring them POWs for extended periods of time. To our knowledge, it appears that those held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are primarily non-Americans, however, given the apparent hostility of the present administration regarding the disclosure of information, nothing would surprise me at this point.
However, what is known is the direct attack on American civil liberties. People migrate in droves to the United States in search of freedom, however, anyone who had the privilege to enter this country following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, would find that through new policies, such as the Patriot Act, people could now be spied on and have many liberties that Americans have historically held without question trounced upon.
It is absurd and preposterous that we shun other countries for asking the tough questions. Was it really necessary to rename “French fries” “freedom fries?” Was it necessary for the current administration to publicly attack countries like France and Germany for not always going along with everything we do? Was it necessary to say that every country in the world must decide if they are “with us or against us?” Was it really necessary to break numerous treaties and go uni-laterally in numerous global issues?
Americans must wake up, the press needs to brave up and confront the current administration before another sovereign state is attacked. We are America! We have always held ourselves to a high standard. We never attacked a state unless it posed an immediate and direct threat to us! We were always the greatest country in the history of the world for all of these reasons and I fear that we are no longer. We must stand up and demand more…we are all Americans and that is not only our right, but also our duties as Americans!
