Why We Fight

George W. Bush was sworn in today for his second term as the President of the United States. While the rich supporters gorge themselves on food and drink, while the controlled media fawn over the inaugural spectacle like awe struck schoolgirls, while the cronies of the administration regale themselves in ill-gotten power, soldiers die in the streets of Baghdad, brothers and sisters mourn, mothers weep, good, honest American citizens cringe in fear and disbelief.

George W. Bush and his ilk has brought strife, division and war to our nation and to the nations of the world. We need no reminder of the lies and treachery that resulted in his appointment by the Supreme Court to his first term as chief executive in the year 2000, nor the massive fraud perpetrated across this nation in the elections of 2004. Every day, his smirk, his empty talk of bringing democracy to the Middle East - by gunpoint diplomacy - reminds us that this man is not our president, not our leader, and is deserving neither of our support nor of the civility normally afforded a rightfully elected leader. This man is an impostor, a fraud, a duplicitous liar, a two-faced dictator with an agenda for war, torture and slavery. This is why we fight.

George W. Bush and his gang of neo-conservative bullies have consistently used the tragedy of 9/11 (the cause and perpetrators of which have still not been adequately explained) to terrorize the people of the United State again and again. The horrific sight of our magnificent twin towers reduced to rubble and the thousands who died in their collapse is an image which the president and his public relations propagandists generously used over and over to garner support for their illicit military actions, routine torture, denial of rights and abuse of power.

It is sickening to watch the orgy of power and the phalanx of greed which surround this faux inauguration. Those of us who have paid attention to the facts and ignored the hate-mongering and ridicule from the contrived media machine and the neo-con propagandists know the truth, know that swearing this man into office once again is a slap in the face of our once proud democracy. We know that George W. Bush is not a man anywhere near the stature of his predecessors; that the stature of Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln, Truman, Roosevelt and Kennedy is besmirched by this rogue, this thief, this abjectly sad and disturbing spectacle.

It is not only worth defending our democracy against the evil perpetrators now in power, it is a duty of all honest Americans to thwart their every move, to oppose every proposal, to fight them tooth and nail on every issue and eventually to expose these criminals, remove them from office and bring them to justice. Only this way will we and the rest of the world be safe from tyranny and the ravishes of war. This is why we fight.

This is why we fight the good fight, without remorse, without negotiation, and with the courage of our convictions. We must not allow the impostors to paint us as anything less than the true patriots we are. We are fighting for the safe and just continuance of our nation. While they drape themselves in the trappings of power - the gun, tank and missile are their symbols - our weapons are the pen, the mind, the truth.

In our day, we must be vigilant to the cause of democracy and the value of life. We cannot shrink from our duty to keep the flame of justice and righteousness burning. This is not a fight we can allow others to carry. We all must carry the day, in each our own way, through resistance, refusal, demonstration, communication and opposition. This is not the day for peaceful vigils and candlelight sermons. This is not the day that we acknowledge defeat. This is the day that we begin to take back our nation, undo the wrongs of this administration and make right to the world.

We are the majority, we are on the side of right, of democracy, justice, honesty, morality, peace and civility. We will not allow our rights to be trampled under by the jackboot of tyranny or be made afraid by the bogeymen and false images they present us. We will not be oppressed by the few that oppose us. Now is the time to fight. Today is our day to take the fight to them.

Rick Gagliano

The author is publisher of Downtown Magazine, and the writer of the petition which calls for a Congressional investigation into the election irregularities of 2004.

The petition was started on November 7, 2004 and can be signed online at http://www.petitiononline.com/uselect/petition.html

Downtown Magazine is a general interest website, with a current focus on elections, politics and the war in Iraq. It is available 24/7/365 on the web at http://www.dtmagazine.com