Warblogging.com: Anger

Warblogging has an absolutely incredible piece on why he's angry at our government. It was originally posted about a month ago, but I just discovered it tonight, and I cannot recommend this piece highly enough. Below are a few excerpts, but you simply must read the whole thing. It'll remind you of what you're angry about, too - and that's a good thing, because we simply cannot afford to forget.

I can't imagine a country where the Director of Homeland Security (I'm sorry, but what kind of countries call themselves a "Homeland"? I remember the "Fatherland" and "Motherland"...) says that "Liberty is the most precious gift we offer to our citizens". Come on, Mr. Ridge, the government does not "give" us Liberty! We give ourselves Liberty! We hold these rights to be "self evident", Mr. Ridge! To say that you "give" us the right implies that you can also take it away! You are doing so, but I am here to tell you that I will not stand idly by as you do so!

[...]

I've been ranting for quite a while now. I'm angry. I'm very angry. Perhaps most of all I'm angry that President Bush plans to exploit the memory of September 11 by spending the month of September traveling between campaign events and memorial services for people who died on that fateful day. He's been exploiting that tragedy for all it's worth since it happened, and it doesn't just make me angry — it makes me cry.

I was in New York City when the World Trade Center was hit. I woke up to a friend telling me that one tower had collapsed, that the Pentagon was on fire and that there was a car bomb at the State Department. I woke up and smelled the stench of death. I inhaled people's ashes. I inhaled the ground up concrete and steel for weeks. I hacked up phlegm impregnated with the cremated remains of people I would never know for weeks upon weeks. I watched the second tower fall from a New York City roof. I spent weeks in Union Square mourning with my fellow New Yorkers. I spent months upon months upon months walking by photographs of the missing.

President Bush is exploiting our national grief. He is using our grief to oppress Americans in the worst way since Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act. He is using our grief to convince us to become "conquer monkeys" as Garry Trudaeu put it. Now he plans to exploit September 11 to get himself reelected. And I think it will work.