When They Ask Me To Be A Good Citizen, I Shall Repeat this...

How do i feel? Are you ready?
I stood with Gore all the way....from the early summer til election day.
I was out there in protests, marches, and other events. I heard the speeches, clapped my hands raw, shouted out til I didn't have a voice left in the broiling heat of summer and the cold, depressing nights of early winter. We were pushed, we were shoved, we were shouted down by the freepers and we took everything in stride. And then there was the vote...and the recount. And I knew we had it after the Florida Supreme Court stood up... And then there was Baker, and Jeb, and the Supreme Court... and I was literally numb. I couldn't feel, I couldn't think, I couldn't believe that this was happening in 20th Century America. That the legitimate winners were being put down...That the Supreme Court, sullied and no longer credible could hold sway was astounding...that the CBC were the only ones to stand up and there was no Senator--not one--who would stand by Al Gore and protest the most crooked election of all time shattered it for me. I didn't know how I felt. I just felt tired. I wanted to lie down. I wanted to forget that this ever happened. I wanted to believe that this was just a bad dream. But it wasn't. After that, we were adversaries and that gap will never be closed as long as I live. It represented everything coming to a head. In the blink of an eye we discovered who our friends were and who our enemies were and there would be no turning back. It was war....overt war perhaps but war nevertheless. I don't know who else feels that way or went through that kind of conversion but I did and I have never sat through and watched the enemies perform and I never will. Ask me why I feel the way that I do and I will give you chapter and verse. We have been lied to; we have been treated without dignity and respect; our laws and our constitution have been tossed and we have been made a laughing mockery. It cured me, converted me if you will and made me more of an activist than I could ever believe possible. My kids think I am mad; my wife thinks I have gone too far; but they do not know the details as I do; they do not know how I feel as a disenfranchised veteran who bleeds for every unnecessary dead American who lost his or her life in a fraudulent war declared by cowards who didn't even have the courage to serve their country, who have tossed our democracy aside like so much kindling and they want me to be rational, be mature. Cowards who never missed a photo op to remind those who disagreed with their self-serving view of the world were the real heroes, many of us who like myself went to Korea and volunteered for Nam. I have only one word for my republican friends, go screw yourself in spades; you have cheated, lied and worst of all destroyed my dream and I will not stop my attacks on you as long as I have air in my lungs. And even when I die I will come back to haunt you for all you have done to ruin my country and our future and the lives of my grandchildren and their grandchildren.

Les Aaron