Good article today from Mary MacElveen of newspapersonline:
BY:Mary MacElveen
xmjmac@optonline.net
December 30th, 2004
There Is Nothing to Celebrate This Inauguration Day
In past Inauguration Days we as a country celebrated who we are as a people and where we elected a president where no question surrounded as to how he was elected. That was not the case in 2000 and certainly not in 2004. There is no cause to celebrate any inauguration especially this year, when so many lives were lost by our military over in Iraq. Well over one thousand men and women gave their lives to defend the many freedoms this country has to offer and one of those freedoms is the right to vote and have every vote counted. There is no victor or cause for celebration when so much blood has been spilled and where a presidential election is questioned.
These men and women who came home to us with our American flag draped over their coffins which we are not allowed to see thanks to Pres. Bush sacrificed their lives for our very freedoms. The flag meant more to them. It was not a piece of cloth to wave for anyone’s political gains. Our men and women in the armed services also were not props to be used by Pres. Bush as he flew onto a carrier and claimed in front of a banner that stated, “Mission Accomplished” After that little stunt we saw an increase of military deaths month to month. Just last week as we celebrated Christmas a military base of ours was attacked by a suicide bomber that claimed the lives of twenty of our soldiers.
There is nothing to celebrate when an estimated 100,000 innocent Iraqis are now dead thanks to the lies put forth by Pres. Bush. Their lives must mean something to us as a civilized people. There is nothing to celebrate when included in those numbers are mothers, fathers, children living ordinary lives until our bombs rained down upon them where they became the victims of terrorism at the hands of Pres. Bush. Imagine if you will, you are a small Iraqi child doing your homework, when our bombs rain down upon your home and you see your mother killed, your father killed or you are killed. A civilized nation should never preemptively strike the safety and security of any child’s home and lie about the reason for doing so.
Now as we hear of well over 100 thousand people killed by the tsunami waves over in Asia, now is not the time to strut our stuff. Especially when so little aid is given to them by this country. The first amount pledged by this country was $15 million, then it was raised to $35 million, but clearly that is not enough. When we hear of this inauguration costing as much as $40 million, it is time to send those funds over to Asia to help these people and for Pres. Bush to privately take the oath of office without any such fan fare. No parade should be held for a man who was responsible for the taking of innocent lives in Iraq and the deaths of well over one thousand of our soldiers.
People who are planning on attending these festivities should donate whatever moneys they were planning on spending for hotel rooms, ball gowns, tuxes, air plane flights and the like to the people of Asia or any aid going to Iraq for the devastation their president caused. Will they do so? In all honesty, they will not. So, they will strut their stuff as hundreds of thousands of people perished from the face of this Earth.
As Pres. Bush takes the oath of office, there are still countless people suffering in this country and it happened under his watch. There is no cause to celebrate when so many go without health care, having to choose between taking medications and eating, being laid off of a job that was sent overseas, finding themselves homeless, sleeping on the streets and the list is endless. Many will continue to suffer as he cuts domestic spending in favor of tax breaks for to his wealthy friends, the corporations they own or to bolster military spending filled with so much pork barrel spending.
America, must never celebrate when so much death, destruction, devastation is being felt by so many and where most of what is being felt is caused by the man who will take the presidential oath of office on January 20, 2005. His name is Pres. George W. Bush.
With all that I have said, I will leave you with a quote found in Pres. Clinton’s first inaugural address where he stated, “Where there is suffering, there is duty. Americans in need are not strangers; they are citizens, not problems, but priorities. And all of us are diminished when any are hopeless.” This too can be said about those suffering around the world. They should be our priority and not our problem.
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