My Country: In Memorandom

Today we celebrate the lives of those we have lost. I'd like to add one name to the list that deserves remembrance: The United States of America (RIP 1776-2000). Oh sure, our country may still be clanking it's oppressive shackles that George Bush chains us to, like some ghost of democracy past, but rest assured, the US died the day Al Gore conceded the Presidency in 2000.

It is actually quite remarkable, that such a powerful nation could be brought to it's knees, and indeed succumb to the utter foolishness and incompetence of one single Presidential administration. Honestly, if the US was going to fall based on one administration, the smart money probably would have been on Garfield. Alas, no one could have seen Bush the second coming. The United States has survived all sorts of shots that have killed off nations in the past; Civil War, racial tensions run amok, a depression so dire that men were forced to beg for scraps to feed their children, political corruption and ill advised military campaigns. All of these took their respective toll on our proud nation, but we withstood, we persevered because, after all, that is one of the definitions of Americanism.

Corruption, greed, and incompetence were the poisons that spiked our proverbially Kool Aid that Bush forced down our throats. His administration has single handily plunged us into a war that we had no business fighting and a recession that appears more and more likely to be tail spinning into, quite possibly, a depression. Rising gas prices, homes left unsold or being foreclosed on, the price of eggs and milk, while these may be what is hurting Americans directly in the pocket book they are but a symptom of a much greater problem. Bush has left our country weak, both figuratively and in reality. Both physically and economically.

Whoever moves into the White House next January will have a daunting task ahead of them. They must cleanse this country of the cancerous cronyism that has suffocated the life from us the past 8 years. I have faith that the people of this country, however, will work hard to resuscitate America. My family, friends, colleagues, everybody is ready to undergo a major transformation. We will be back, and we will be stronger. I have hope.