Pave Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot

While I’ve always had strong political views, never have I cried for them until this year. There are many things that can happen in a person’s life that cause stress, but never before has the state of the nation distressed me as much as it does today.

I’ve always been proud to be American. It’s an honor. I’m in the land of the free. We may be a young nation, but our dreams are beautiful. Freedom and equality for all. Opportunities available for anyone willing to work for them.

As a little girl, I’d learn about third world countries and hear of what women endured, and think, “Thank God I’m American. That could never happen here.” My voice always counted. When I grew up, I could be anything I set my mind to be. Nothing was off-limits because I wasn’t a man.

I’d always believed in the sense of innate fairness that Americans stood for. It’s what makes us want the underdog to win, and justice to be done. Against overwhelming odds, this country has survived a host of scandals, and walked away wiser for having endured them. Hell, we used to be taught them in school.

They were the lessons upon which I based my own moral compass. McCarthy was a bad man, full of hate and fear, and transfixed the nation until a lone voice asked what many had been to afraid to say aloud, “Have you left no sense of decency?”

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream – and it was a beautiful dream. It was where we all stood shoulder to shoulder… Not as whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians – but as human beings and fellow Americans.

JFK represented America’s political Camelot, and FDR cemented a legacy of protections to keep us from having to again face the human tragedy that befell much of America during the Great Depression. The classic authors left a wealth of verbal pictorials for us to remind ourselves with… The Grapes of Wrath, anyone?

FDR understood how heavily poverty weighed on the soul, and believed that we as a nation had a responsibility to our smallest citizen to insure they would not starve, that they could have a roof over their head, and the freedom to hope.

World War II was a pivotal moment in our wartime history. There was a very real fear that we could lose, and never had there been such a clear case of good versus evil.

Vietnam has left a wealth of lyrical protest songs – soft voices questioning the right of the government to ask its’ young to die for an ever adjusting borderline drawn on some politician’s map. I was taught in school that these soldiers came back from insanity to face an unwelcoming and bewildered nation that had no concept of what they’d endured, still unclear why they'd had to go in the first place.

I hear those songs again now. They play a lot more frequently on the radio, and these voices from the past resonate in my heart. The past is alive here and now, and we are living in dark ages once again.

Buy your big screens now, because July 1^st the FCC requires all televisions over 36 inches to include digital receivers (the rest will be required to by 2007). Eventually, all digital TV transmissions will include a “broadcast flag” that will indicate shows that can’t be copied freely. Even the luxury of recording your favorite television show to watch at your leisure may soon be obsolete – unless you’re willing to pay extra.

If you need to file for bankruptcy, even if you’re facing extraordinary medical expenses or have been laid off, do it before October 12^th, 2005 (an estimated 180 days after Bush signs the bankruptcy bill into law, which will probably happen sometime today), or it’s likely that filing for bankruptcy will not only provide no economic relief, but you will end up having to pay additional legal fees as well. Paying credit card company debt will be able to compete with (and even surpass) a debtor’s child support payment obligations.

The GOP Leader Tom DeLay is so corrupt you need a website to graph out exactly who he’s in bed with, how much he’s profited, and who is in bed with him. Senator Bill Frist is gearing up to portray Democrats as “against people of faith” for blocking Bush’s judicial nominees… You know the ones – they were already rejected once.

The estate tax has just been permanently repealed. Who benefits? The super-rich. Have I mentioned that the U.S. National Debt Clock is at $7,801,824,563,532.62? We're still at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, right? Why are we making tax cuts permanent again?

The Federal Budget is so outrageously out of balance that even religious leaders decry that it is a Moral Document, and as such fails on every count. We are America. How can our government favor military spending and tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations yet give the cold shoulder to the poor, the dispossessed, the infirm, and children?

The rich are getting super-rich, the poor are getting destitute, and just how much of the money I pay on gas ends up in Bush’s cronies’ pockets? Whatever it is our government has become, it’s not America.

As a little girl, I once visited the Sequoia National Forest. I remember standing at the base of one of these incredible trees as I tried to grasp the significance of how old they were. One of them, I read, nicknamed “General Sherman”, was already a few hundred years old when Jesus walked the earth.

I vividly recall listening to the woods creak and groan in the gentle breeze as I looked around, and for the first time I truly believed I stood in the presence of something sacred. I was amazed that anything living could last this long – untouched and unbent. Nature became something magical and mysterious to me, and it has been ever since. The Bush Administration wants to log it.

I have not been happy with the way things have been going in this country for a few years now. While I didn’t vote for him, I supported Bush after 9-11. I thought he could do a lot of good for this country, if he meant what he said. It turns out, he didn’t.

The more I learn, the more horrified I become. I keep waiting for the day when the rest of my fellow citizens raise their own eyes to see the truth as it stands before them, but it hasn’t happened.

I’m waiting for you, dear reader. Please, stop listening to the lies and take a good look around you. Believe your eyes. It’s as bad as it looks, and these are dark times indeed. We need all of your voices, raised in concert, to remind this government that it isn’t about money - it’s about people. It’s about the poor, the sick, the jobless and our children. It’s about caring for something other than the almighty dollar. There’s more to life than that. There’s more to America than that.