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They are building the beast, right in front of our eyes. They are brilliant at it, absolutely brilliant, for they have thousands, if not millions, helping them, and no one to question why.
The beast is composed of many parts, small parts now, and in the minds of some unimportant. As they build it, the small parts look benign, and we once again fall in the trap. “Leave the wrists alone”, we say. “and concentrate on the arms.” As we do so, George sings “the knee bone’s connected to the ankle bone” quietly to himself, and hate radio gives the minions a lesson in Anatomy 101.
Condoleeza Rice is (among others) responsible for the deaths of almost 3000 people. By ignoring repeated warnings, and by failing to act on a briefing that almost screamed, “Bin Laden is coming”, she cost almost 3000 people their lives. By lying about it in front of a grand jury and under oath, she is rewarded by being promoted. Accordingly to some, we should be quiet.
Alberto Gonzales looked the Geneva Convention straight in the eye and told us all it didn’t matter. As we tortured and killed thousands in a manner befitting Hitler’s Germany, Al threw his conscience down a rat hole, and, seeking political considerations to be named later, told The Boy King all is well. For this, he is being promoted. Accordingly to some, we should be quiet.
The beast looks us right in the eye, and we turn away. We scream about how the other side plays dirty, and yet when our chance comes to do the wash we slink away. We watch the right attack EVERY move we make, define EVERY position we take, no matter how small, and then decide that for every 10 despicable small acts they bring forth, we will marshal our forces to stop one big one. As we pat ourselves on the back, the beast gets another part, and we watch it grow stronger. Ten small acts have become one big one, and we have no answer.
We call Rice and Gonzales small potatoes or insignificant parts of the grand scheme – not worthy of our attention, not worthy of the righteous indignation and moral backbone that every Senator wearing a (D) next to his or her name should carry with them.
We are wrong. They are the beast, and with a brazen attitude that comes from years of work the right shoves it right in front of us, daring us to fight back.
As children, most of us faced the neighborhood bully, and most of us backed down – at first. When we realized this only emboldened him, we found the courage, and, with Dad walking the fine line between advise and fear, we fought back.
Dad is here, right now, looking over our shoulders. If we are to beat this bully, his advise still holds.
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