I read one of the Diaries today and I'm sorry to say I cannot remember who the diarist was. It has since scrolled off the list.
It was about a bill called the Academic Freedom Act that a Rep. Dennis Baxley of Ocala, Florida is trying to pass so that students will have the right to sue universities if they do not feel like the professor is respecting their views.
More below the break.
I wish to hell I could remember the diarist and link to his or her diary so that you could read it. Anyway, it was yet one more action taken by a Republican government that had me banging my head against the wall.
After the election in November, I knew that the next four years would be hard. I knew that conservatives would try to pass a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. I knew that they would pass more laws trashing the environment. I knew they would try to rid themselves of that political burden called Social Security. I knew they would swagger their way through diplomatic issues and further alienate the US from its international neighbors. I knew that we would have to fight the ultra-conservative judicial nominations of a run-a-way administration intent on placing their own activist judges on the bench. I even knew that we would be in for a fight in regards to passing legislation to require a paper trail in elections, something that seems to me to be common sense to any freedom-loving American in favor of the democratic process.
Yeah, I knew the next four years would be incredibly difficult. And I thought I was prepared. But it's things like this that make me realize that I wasn't prepared at all. Watching the systematic destruction of the laws and beliefs that have shaped my country is a gut-wrenching ordeal. I wake up every morning and turn my dial to C-Span Radio where I listen to the Washington Journal and I wonder what is in store for my country today? What right has the Bush administration decided to stomp on? What crack-pot bill has some Republican legislature in some heartland state decided to push on its people, no doubt veiling their real intentions beneath a facade of religion and patriotic zeal? And which Democrats will help their cause by either, God forbid, voting with them or not fighting them at all?
How is it that the Republican party can make one blunder after the next? How many times can they get away with outright lies and (legal) misleading news propaganda? How many Schaivo cases will there be? How many people besides Valerie Plame have to lose their careers? How many times can they stomp on our rights and send our children and husbands and wives off to die in a war they lied about? How many jobs can we lose overseas and how many states have to have budgets in the red? How many teachers have to tell us that "Leave No Child Behind" is a joke? How many times does Tom Delay have to openly break House ethics rules and perhaps even the law? How many hypocrisys can one administration possibly get away with before this country will wake up?
The question begs an answer, but is it an answer I want to hear? I doubt it. After all, I've been banging my head against the wall since Bush withdrew from Kyoto. I've been begging my fellow Americans to wake up since post 9/11, when the administration began using our security and a national tragedy as a political stepping stone.
As if this isn't reason enough to despair, add to this our ragged band of brothers... our battle-weary Democrats who's ranks are being whittled away by the Tom Delays of the Republican party through whatever means necessary. Our lack of a message and our party's seeming inability to reign in its wayward fellow Congressmen even in such horrible legislation as the bankruptcy bill...
Well.
It's all just a little too much for this blue-blooded Democrat from deep in the heart of Texas. I moved from Texas to Maryland not only to find a job, but to live, for once in my life, in a blue state where every bumper sticker I saw didn't read Bush/Cheney or W '04 and when I wrote to my Congressmen and women they just might agree with me. It's cold comfort these days.
In moments like this, when I feel myself sliding into a helpless rage, I think to myself, "Fine. Let them do what they will. Maybe people will wake up when they no longer have rights, no longer have a retirement fund, no longer have a job and can no longer afford the essentials in life like gas and food. Maybe they'll remember American glory when the dollar has fallen so low that it no longer inspires confidence and when countries all over the world scoff at us when we make a legitimate plea for cooperation. Maybe then they'll regret voting for Bush... or not bothering to vote at all. Maybe then they'll regret following their leader like a lamb to the slaughter."
Yeah, sure. Maybe then. But "maybe then" might be too late.
Does anyone have any good news to help a fellow liberal claw her way out the Pit of Doom? :-\