An Independence Day Wish

It's been hard to enjoy this Fourth, all things considered.

No, I'm not referring so much to my personal situation, although that sucks, too. Instead, I mean the country and the world, and how much independence and freedom we've lost since 2000 and 2001. Everyday with Bush and Company in office literally gets worse.

As somebody whose family - on both sides - was here from the start and who boasts a signer of those important documents that created our nation separate from Mother Britain, I'm horrified that a patriot in Bush's America is someone who wears blinders and a muzzle, who spouts the "wisdom" that a great American is one willing to give up the Constitutional and every shred of personal liberty to a president who acts far more like a dictator than the King George of colonial America, who waves the flag as an empty symbol of what we'd like to believe America is rather than the ugly reality of what we've become, who won't ask questions or demand answers, and is easily lulled into the soporific safety of this week's ball game over struggling with independent though about the dirt that's going down.

We and the world deserve far better than Mr. Bush and every elected member of Congress (Reprehensibles and Slutenators, GOP or Dem, man or woman) is willing to let us have.

The time has come not to just hope what we deserve is finally tendered, but to seize it back. It is time for civil disobedience, for courage, and for difficult tasks like thinking, listening, and doing.