Farewell, America

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can’t Happen Here…but it did.

Goodbye, America.

I know that pointing out these observations is futile, but, as an American, I must express my concerns.

I never thought I’d see my country turn into a one party system of government with its executive, legislative, and judicial branches hijacked so that hi-jinks will be virtually unchallenged.

I never thought I’d see the day the opposing party...the Democrats…the enablers…would roll over and play dead...very dead...thereby aiding and abetting the one-party system. Our government, at the moment, has NO checks OR balances.

I never thought I’d see consummate, unbridled corruption with enormous amounts of money changing hands.

Or oil companies reporting multi-billion dollar profits while the President of an oil-rich South American country offers low-cost oil so poor Americans could heat their homes.

I never thought I'd see a convicted criminal (see http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#drunk) with barely a C average…a man who was too cowardly to fight in wars himself...a man who never fought or won his own battles and who has had every advantage in his life handed to him on a silver platter...a man who lives and lets die under the grim image of skull and bones assume the highest office in our land to play the shill of the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and powerless who need the protection of government the most.

I never thought I’d see the man acting as my president lie my country into a war of choice, killing so many of my fellow Americans along with so many innocent Iraqis.

I never thought I'd witness an important Museum of Antiquities being pilfered...and I can't help wondering how Americans would feel if our Smithsonian Institution were sacked by foreign invaders to whom we were not a threat.

I never thought I'd live to see the day when my country would be reviled around the world.

I never thought I'd see the wealth of my country redistributed to the richest 1% on the backs of the poor.

I never thought I'd see our nation’s courts so horribly stacked against fellow Americans.

I never thought I'd see my government turned into a fascist theocracy.

I never thought I'd see America invade a sovereign country solely for its natural resources.

Or al Jazeera accidentally bombed three times by America.

Or my government gleefully disregard my Constitution.

Or disregard the Geneva conventions so it could be free to torture, despite irrefutable evidence that torture produces unreliable, inaccurate intelligence.

I never thought I'd see the day when voting in America would become so completely compromised that it is no better than that in any third-world country.

I never thought I'd see my country engage in wire-tapping its own citizens.

Or that I’d witness the end of the Fairness Doctrine.

And I never thought I’d see so many scandals in so short a time, culminating in the K Street scandal where only the majority party secretly planned to infiltrate our government at all levels—and they succeeded.

I never expected to become a Fonda-style political activist.

Or witness unbridled greed.

Or witness the smug complicity of the American press that engages in selective reporting to whitewash the criminals now running the country.

I never thought the day would come when Social Security would be at risk due to the greed of the rich.

I never thought I'd see the day my fellow Americans would be left on rooftops as U.S. helicopters flew over to examine the breached levees.

Or see my government utterly ignore advanced warnings of the dangerous hurricanes bearing down on my fellow Americans, thus putting their lives unnecessarily at risk.

Or my government’s failure to begin rebuilding the levees that would protect its citizens from future flood waters.

Or Americans treated as though they were less than human as they were herded into sports stadiums or convention centers or relocated for weeks, completely stripped of their dignity.

I never thought I'd hear the loud, sucking sound of corporations fleeing en masse from my country in search of cheaper labor, leaving fellow American workers to fend for themselves.

Or health insurance evaporate along with jobs.

Or FEMA rolled into Homeland Security.

Or our deficit balloon to trillions: that's with a T.

I never thought I’d live to say I’m embarrassed to be an American.

I never thought I’d see brazen CEOs rape my country of its riches before my eyes, with no press investigating these CEOs as they get away with financial murder.

And for those readers thinking America, love it or leave it!, I have this to say:

I won’t be leaving America; it’s my country, too. I’ll work for change. I’ll work hard for the principles I believe in, for values I was taught as a child.

These are some of the things I never thought I’d see. The most unbelievable is seeing so many of my fellow American citizens sitting by in silence and accepting this corrupt government.