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Why I'm Not Proud to Be a Citizen of the American Empire

I never thought that I would live in an empire. I grew up in a democracy that fought the good fight, a democracy that stayed a democracy when its counterparts in Europe went facist and/or communist. this was a country with a government that cared for the less fortunate. Yes, you paid for that with your taxes but so what.

Something went horribly wrong, and it went wrong long before 9/11. Was it the new gilded age of the 1990's, the shredding of the social safety net at home, foreign policy of imperialism that starved Iraq with sanctinos and turned a blind eye to Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and a long history of Jim Crow within Israel itself. Was it when we refused to pay our UN dues or refused to sign the Kyoto accords to limit greenhouse gases.

As a people, we Americans became so arrogant and ignorant and isolated that we did not know where Afghanistan and Iraq were until we went to war there. We do not insist our young people learn foreign languages. We did not learn them ourselves. Of course now that the war in Afghanistan has died down to the back pages, that retched country returns to warlordism and lawlessness outside the major cities. where was the democracy that was promised? And where are Osam Bin Laden and Al Quaeda? Still alive, well, and a bit dispersed.

And do you think the latest victim of US imperialist aggression will fare any better? Iraq is already on its way to the back pages. Power is not fully restored. Sewage is not repaired. Farmers will have difficulty planting and harveting their crops -- and to what end?

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Yes we either eliminated or drove undergroudn a brutal dictator, but we just might have turned Saddam Hussein into a guerilla fighting hero. Moreover, the Shiite Moslems, some of whom are backed by Iran, stand ready and willing to enter the power vacuum our "liberation" created. I taught my daughter if she makes a mess, she needs to clean it up. How come our current regime in Washington can make the world a mess and leave it to suffer?

Even more shameful, W and company lied to us about the war in Iraq! Have we found any weapons of mass destruction or conclusive terrorist network links? As of this writing, that answer is NO!

Of ourse there are plenty of links to show that Bush, Cheney, and the companies that contributed heavily to their campagins stand to profit from US military aggression in Iraq. Hailburton stands to make money from restoring Iraq's oil industry while Brown and Root will get sweet details to maintain America's military garrisons.

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It's time for a change -- as in regime change in 2004. we need a government that cares bout the conomyy in a way that means more than regressive tax cuts for the rich. we need a government that cares about health insurance coverage for those who don't have it and adequate funding for education.

We also need a regime that thinks twice before waging imperialist wars of aggression for the sake of profit or that is willing to clean up those messes it makes abroad.

It's time for a regime change in 2004. We have a chance. Let's use it to say yes to democracy and no to empire. Click this link to learn more.

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