How American are you?
Mood:  not sure
Topic: The election for God
I don't think I remember this level of hostility between citizens, not even during the Vietnam war. Oh there was division, I remember that. I was in grade school so wasn't really sure what the division was over but I remember the anger, the faces on the news that carried so much rage and hatred. I remember the images from Nam of soldiers under fire and wounded. Their faces reflecting such a wide variety of emotions, some that could be pinpointed, some that would forever remain a mystery.

Now almost 40 years later the Vietnam War has returned to once more divide us. This time the division is not so clear. It's more than anti-war protesters against those who believed in the actions in Nam. Now we have God as a quarterback in a Holy War to safeguard our nation against the most heinous attack in our history.

Except for one small thing:

Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the WTC and Pentagon attacks, not Saddam Hussein.

But hey, no matter. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and posed a clear and present danger to the US.

Except..no weapons were ever found.

But hey, no matter..Saddam was a terrorist.
Except he wasn't. Oh, he was a madman. He is evil, but he wasn't a terrorist. He was a dictator that took delight in inflicting pain but was that enough for us to enter into a country without provocation and stage war? Do we really think the Iraq on the street, dodging bullets from either the insurgents or the US forces cares where death comes from?

But...shhhhhh
"We can't voice those words!!
Number one it means, shame on you! You don't support our service men and women."

Well, that's not true. I do support them. They do a dangerous job, they face it bravely and God bless em every one. I pray they can all return safely to their families.

"How can you invoke God's name? You aren't Christian if you don't follow Bush!"

I think this bit bothers me almost as much as anything else possibly could. How dare George Bush set God up as his private council? If Bush is a Christian, well and good, but he does not have a monopoly on God. Nor does the Christian faith. I feel for those of other faiths today who listen to the rhetoric of "religious men" (perhaps like Swaggart who threatened to kill any gay man that looked at him "that way") tell them that if they aren't Christians they aren't deserving of being Americans. Don't think that's what's being said? Listen to the undertones. When you block out a portion of the population that's the impression you damn well leave.

"You're not a true American, talking that way!"

Oh but yes I am. Truer than perhaps the Bushites will ever know. I am why so many men and women have sacrificed their lives. I am why hours and weeks and months and years are spent determining the course of civil rights, the laws of our land and the US Constitution. I am the personification of the right of free speech.

Because I don't agree with Bush does not make me unamerican or ungodly. It makes me a thinking entity with a mind of my own. This mind chooses to look at the mistruths of the Bush administration and step away from my own party affiliation to vote for John Kerry.

That does not negate my citizenship nor does it take my piety from me.

It does, however, make my heart heavy that after coming so far, we find ourselves back to the same narrow arguments we waged 30 some years ago.

And sometimes the past does repeat itself.

Please hurry November.