Perhaps like other progressive Dems, I've been taking a more passive approach of late to day-to-day developments as we sadly dig ourselves more deeply into the violent chasm we've created in Iraq and the larger Middle East. I had expended so much emotional energy in the past few years and particularly in the lead-up to the midterms that I felt I needed to take a break and reconnect with family and friends whose passion for politics does not match mine. It looks as though it's time now to reengage.
If one thing has become abundantly clear to me over the last few weeks, it's that no one has the slightest clue on how to extricate ourselves from this tragic mess short of just picking up and leaving. Many have espoused ideas and offered plans, but few have expressed real confidence that any of them will work.
As we turn the page on this year, we should rightfully be pleased with the accomplishments our community - particularly with respect to the mid-term elections and their overwhelming rejection of the present policies of the Oval Office and the former rubber stamp Republican-dominated Congress. Or as it was so insightfully characterized by the president the day after the electoral bloodbath, "Yesterday, the people went to the polls and they cast their vote for a new direction in the House of Representatives". It's unclear what it would take for the president to awaken from the delusional coma he bumbles around in, but it is clear that the thrashing his party took on election night didn't do it.
The people did indeed cast their vote for a new direction, but the house they most want to see make a change in direction is the big white one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That he's failed to recognize or acknowledge that does not bode well for change in the next two years. It's become clear that the primal scream of the American people on that November day is not the sound that strongly resonates in the vacant skull of George W. Bush.
The president will soon make an announcement of a "major policy change" regarding the catastrophic situation he's created in Iraq. Unfortunately all signs point to another monumental blunder as he's expected to call for a sharp increase in the # of troops currently in Baghdad. That has failed before and will likely fail again - unless you measure success by the escalation of violence, destruction and death.
As surely as George Bush does not heed the overwhelming voice of the people, he's also tone deaf to the tenets of the faith to which he so often and so publicly show's reverence. As this is a time that many people around the world stop for at least a minute or two to reflect on and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and the message of peace and tolerance for which he died, I feel it's appropriate to impart a passage from the Bible that George W. Bush would do well to contemplate as he sinks ever deeper into the moral morass of his own making.
Isaiah 2:4: And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Be well and happy this holiday season. Love and peace to all.