Gangs don't turn on each other, neither do elected Republicans who follow "Reagan's 11th commandment".
(SALEM, Ore.) - Only time will tell what the United States will do with the desires of George Bush and his ambitions to spread beleaguered American war fighters into new, illegal and unnecessary wars in the Mid-East.
The tables have turned all the way around for many who were once die hard Republicans. Many say that the reputation of the party itself has been soiled by Bush and Cheney and their gang of moral misfits who parade behind Christianity.
As the Bush Crusade lingers on, suicide rates among veterans are spiraling out of control. The nation's hard earned tax dollars are not going to the right places, and all of the Pentagon press releases in the world do not change the fact that Bush led his country into a horrible and deadly war that nobody and no systems were truly prepared for.
So we shovel billions and billions into the teeth of the Republican war machine and for what? So that we can later watch the GOP fight hard to prevent an extra $40 billion dollars from going to help the American people. For the details on that, see: Stimulus Plan Approved With Improvements from Democrats.
We drop tens of billions into the war effort without pause. While it is impossible to talk about this without mentioning the GOP, the matter goes far beyond politics. So does the GOP these days.
You have heard of how police "stick together" sometimes and cover for each other, especially in the nation's more corrupt law enforcement agencies?
Gang members that I grew up around in LA do the same thing; if you cross one of their members you deal with all of them. There are no exceptions, right, wrong or indifferent, if you take on one you take them all on. Another good example of a group with a fierce dedication to its membership is a patch wearing motorcycle club like the Hell's Angels, or another group, the elected members of the nation's Republican party.
You see, you can ask most of them because they don't hide it; they call it Reagan's 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." Their point is that regardless of whether another person is right or wrong, good or evil, you stick up for them because they are a member of the GOP. For more visit: RonaldReagan.com/campaign.
Even if you aren't talking about gang mentality, it amounts to the same thing. Any person or group of people that will come right out and tell you that the only thing that matters is towing the party line, or wearing the clubs colors, might as well be wearing a sign. In the realm of politics, there is no room for rational thought if a person refuses to take and evaluate each situation as it comes based on its merits.
I think the Republican party has many bruises that it will need to recover from in the coming years and the radical aspect of the Bush Presidency will bring an equally radical backlash in national policy as the next President takes office. We can only hope that the changes are embraced by Americans, because they are sure to come.
Reagan's 11th commandment is to never contradict another republican, on the virtue of being, well, a republican. Any reasonable thinker is going to cry foul over this approach and it wouldn't matter what party was adhering to this mentality and these "virtues" and "principals".
It is time that we take a hard look at the world we live in and try to remember what things were like before September 11th, 2001.
Let's go back and revisit that investigation and get the real details on what led up to the first domestic terrorist attack on U.S. soil that left thousands of innocent people dead.
Let's find out why the government spent more money pursuing Bill Clinton's oral sex case with an interen than they did investigating our most painful national tragedy.
Let's stop trying to show our muscle to the world and let's try diplomacy. To do otherwise is wrong. We are taught as children to try to resolve conflicts. Heck, kids get in trouble for being in a fist fight these days in a public school.
So they graduate from high school and go to Iraq? Our youth has been terribly exploited by George W. Bush and whether directly or indirectly, by his supporters.
I think we owe the people of Iraq the fairest and most logical plan we can come up with to fix what we have broken. I don't think attacking another Muslim nation is the answer, and we can only hope that Bush is unable to move his obvious plans to strike another country forward.
People in the Mid East are scared of Americans. Our news media paints these people as something they are not, all too often. Any country that is occupied is going to have resistance.
I would like to see an example of a group of people who allowed foreign invaders to set up shop without a fight. As much as we are fighting what some call religious wars, they have a lot to do with who is on who's turf, just like gang wars in our country's inner cities.
If we are indeed a Christian nation, then we should understand that our goal is to live, not take lives from others simply because they "may" be a threat to us.
We need to have courage and seek redemption for the mistakes of our misguided President, while caring for our wounded and looking after all of our heroes by putting a halt to the bloodshed and violence they continually endure.
Somehow we need to keep the people of Iraq who cooperated with our government from being slaughtered by the thousand if and when we leave.
As a world, we need to recognize how Palestinian people feel, and Israel needs to relent with more concessions than it has offered in the past. Like the United States, these countries are all full of families who love their children and work hard to make it from day to day. We owe it to humanity to put our best, most honorable foot forward.
This planet has a real chance if we can lose the war mentality of George W, Bush and save out honorable heroes for conflicts that we really have to fight.
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Tim King in 2008, covering the Iraq WarTim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer
Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.
Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from The Associated Press the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs, Electronic Media Association and The Red Cross In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005.
Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 20+ countries and regions.
Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide with an emphasis on Palestine and Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. Marines. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)
View articles written by Tim King
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Do Republican Politicians Have a Gang-Like Mentality?
Salem-News.com