This afternoon as I was getting home from work I received a text message asking me to call my senators at 202-224-3121 and ask them to support the Reed-Levin amendment to bring our troops home from Iraq. Lately I’ve been deleting mail from Quakers and other groups who have asked me to speak out against the war because its obviously going to continue no matter what I or the majority of Americans want. We don’t run the country, we only pay our taxes. Our job is not governance, our job is to pay the freight.
I don’t know why I did decide to call today, but I did. I reached the capitol switchboard and asked to be connected to Senator Schumer’s and Senator Clinton’s offices. I first got through to Senator Schumer’s office and left my name, address and zip code as requested and asked the senator to vote for the amendment. Then I asked to be transferred Senator Clinton’s office. The receptionist graciously performed the transfer. I was greeted first by a recorded male voice and then I was greeted by a gracious lady who took my first and last name, my street address and then my zip code. As I asked her to ask Senator Clinton to vote for the amendment my voice began to crack. I began to weep and I don’t know if she could hear me, but I had to repeat again what I said because I became so emotional. After I hung up I had to sit down of the front steps of my home and I began to sob. I thought, “who gives a damn what I think?”
After watching part of the President’s White House briefing room statement I was moved to write this post. Mr. Bush has the temerity to attack MoveOn.org and their recent advertisement about the Petraeus Report. He talks of democracy in Iraq and condemns free speech at home. He has wantonly disregarded the voices of the majority of Americans and labels that majority as a the far left. Followers of Jesus Christ who sincerely believe in peace are labeled as far left by Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush’s own United Methodist Church has condemned the war. The Pope recently refused a meeting with the Secretary of State lest it be spun into an endorsement for the endless killing in Iraq. The Iraq War and our policies toward the people of Iraq for the twelve years leading up to the hostilities have killed more people than Saddam Hussein ever did.
Today in the United States Senate our money was wasted for political opportunism as 75 senators voted to condemn MoveOn’s ad. I don’t even support Moveon, but the fact that these useless lawmakers wasted part of the business day debating whether to scold free speech is a enough to make me vomit. Men and women both American and Iraqi were getting killed and wounded today while these cretins were debating the censure of Moveon.
What the hell is wrong with these clowns? Do taxpayers a favor and resign. You have not the balls to really stand for the troops and instead you attack free speech. You have no idea what the U.S. Constitution represents. You are a disgrace. It is you, not Moveon who has let the troops down. Please resign. Quit hiding behind your spin machines.
It just astounds me that these politicians would waste their time on a stupid ad. Don’t we have more important things to worry about? Off hand, I can think of at least a thousand. I might not have gone quite as far as MoveOn did, but lost in this whole discussion is the fact that Patreaus did turn out to be a patsy for the administration.