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TVNL RINGS IN
AN ILL-FATED NEW YEAR! 2005 New Year
Until now, the mistakes of yesterday would be the lessons for tomorrow
It’s not a New Year like any other in memory. It’s not a New Year of renewed optimism and good cheer. It’s not a New Year with the usual and dreams and promises. It’s not a New Year to welcome with anticipation and joy. After all, it’s the year 2005 in George Bush’s America.
Until now, the New Year always promised something better. Until now, the mistakes of yesterday would be the lessons for tomorrow. Until now, the New Year was about retrospection and resolution and renewal. A new year was a fresh chance to get it right, and another try for the golden ring. But all that has changed, because it’s the year 2005 in George Bush’s America.
Through all the years, making predictions about the New Year was the standard. No one knew what was to come, but everyone had an opinion. Predictions were expressions of hope and concern, of fantasy and reality. They spoke to the flexibility of the human condition and the arbitrary path of politics. Through all the years, predictions were guesswork and wish-fulfillment – but that time has passed. There’s no longer the need to predict, for we already know what will happen in the year 2005 in George Bush’s America.
We know despite what we’ve been told by the corporate media. We know despite the concerted efforts of American television news networks to tell us only what the Bush White House wants us to know. We know what will happen, despite everything they want us to believe, because we have other sources of information that tell it the way it is. We know what will happen, and it isn’t pretty, because it will happen in George Bush’s America.
In the year 2005 in George Bush’s America:
The war in Iraq will escalate, the country will become more and more chaotic, and untold numbers of innocent people will continue to die with horrendous regularity. American military men and women will continue to be killed and maimed and sacrificed for nothing, but will be heralded by the White House as heroes who died for our freedom. More and more military personnel will openly express dissent over the war. If elections are held in Iraq, the Bush administration will declare them a huge success, despite widespread lack of support from many Iraqis. John Negroponte will try to control the formation of any Iraqi Constitution. Donald Rumsfeld will find inane excuses for whatever goes terribly wrong in Iraq. More and more coalition nations will withdraw their troops from Iraq. Terrorist organizations will thrive as new recruits and funding result from the Bush policy of domination in the Middle East. Saber rattling will remain the primary tool of Bush’s foreign policy. Newly appointed Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice will alienate nations around the globe whose leaders have no confidence in her ability as an honest broker. People around the world will protest loudly whenever and wherever George Bush makes an official appearance. World opinion of the US will continue to spiral downward. Right wing, anti choice judges will be appointed to federal benches and to any vacancies that occur in the Supreme Court. Antonin Scalia will be named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Morality will be the byword of the year, and will refer to sexual preferences, abortion, foul language and church attendance. War will remain moral. Meaningful prescription drug benefits will not be available for seniors. Americans will have more job insecurity and greater personal expenses. Health coverage will not reach the 45 million Americans who have none. Gay rights and a woman’s right to choose will be virulently attacked as payback by the White House to right wing supporters. Media consolidation will even more seriously curtail freedom of information and all but eliminate criticism of the administration. Death and injury numbers for Iraqi civilians and military personnel will be totally muted. No one in the Bush administration will be held accountable for the tortures at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. No one will be held accountable for outing Valerie Plame. * The Bush White House will continue to be most secretive in history, with no criticism from the media.
And then some….
This list is fairly much a no-brainer. To those who knew what was going on in 2004, the year 2005 is clearly predictable. To those who relied on the corporate media for their news, the list will make no sense at all. The list is less of a year‘s end prediction than it is an exercise in simple logic. George Bush’s America, 2004, was a disaster. George Bush’s America, 2005, is far more transparent than he knows.
Finally, there has to be a ray of light, somewhere. It cannot be all gloom and doom, because in the end we are the people, and the power and the patriots. We will not despair. We will not give up. We will not sit back and allow the list to grow without resistance. No doubt, much that is negative will happen under the inadequate and misguided leadership of George Bush and crew. But also without doubt, much that is positive can be ours to pursue and accomplish.
The key is truth; and our strongest weapon is information. Get the facts, learn the truth. Share your sources with those who have no clue they are being manipulated and managed by the corporate media. Let that be the New Year’s Resolution of those who want to see things change for the better, and of those who want to reclaim a nation in distress.
Let this be the year in which the television networks have the least influence on the American public in their history. Maybe then we can truly have a Happy New Year, even in the year 2005 in George Bush’s America.
Get your ribbon of resistance here!
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