Wow. Just got back from the last opera of the season (not that we have seasons here in Miami, because we don't), La Boheme. This is something that will stick with me forever. it was some of the most beautiful singing and music I have ever heard. The story itself was, as its reputation has echoed, infantile, but some of the lyrics were very beautiful. It was very moving, pure passion. Just didn't have an actual plot to speak of. But there were moments when I was so moved that I don't think I breathed for minutes at a time. this was the first opera I ever attended where I didn't fall asleep midway. 

Just finished watching the special nightline edition called backlash which exposed the growing hatred and demonstrations against America in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. Wow. A quote: “and even those who were once admirers of American values now find themselves filled with rage.” I would tend to agree. What exactly are “American values now that we have shown that we don't have those values? The men who invaded America by stealing our presidency are showing the entire world that they do not have the same American values that most of us here do have.

A journalist there said that “now we have seen the real America, the ugly face of America that we have feared. People now are referring to America as the new Rome, bush the new Caesar and everyone is now supposed to be frightened of him, as his obedient servants...”

it showed how Egypt who receives more than two-billion dollars a year from America in aid/payoff money, second only to Israel in the region, their streets have been filled with hundreds of thousands of very intense anti-American demonstrations over the last six months. They are protesting because they don't want their president to take the money from Bush anymore. They hate America and what it represents now. This wasn't always the case. But lest we forget this is not America. This is George Bush and the war-mongers that talked him into this. America still has somewhere underneath all the lies and bs a good heart and good values. But the rest of the world is now judging us on our government’s actions. The American people, although they took to the streets more than any other time in our history to defend these values, were not successful in stopping these atrocities and the perpetuation of this government’s deceptive war and profit machine. 

Another quote, from Egyptian leading scholar Dr. Kamul Abul Maght. “The good United States that we used to know and like has been suddenly hijacked, by a highly organized minority, launching a war that is not Americas war. But very few here understand this.”     

Millions of people all over the Middle East did not see the same images and news stories that we saw here in America on their news. Instead they saw thousands of civilian casualties, children with their legs blown off and people running through the streets covered in blood. Very different indeed from what we saw here. This helps explain why people here do not understand why the rest of the world is so against us now. what is the most worrisome to us here now in the states, the few of us who dare to speak up, is that the damage has been done and how long will it take us to rebuild our once good reputation in the world number one, and two, how many years or decades will we be on high alert and fear for our safety because of more terrorist and retaliation attacks for this despot government’s heinous acts in our great name?

Another quote from Egypt: “if this was really for the liberation of Iraq when are they going to go liberate Palestine? And “the silly excuse of weapons of mass destruction we know was false, our whole country knows this. The only weapons of mass destruction in our whole region are in Israel.”

Nightline has been the only honest and semi-level-headed non-governmentally biased news we have been able to see in America. This is a record of our time. Our government has been taken over by a very small group of powerful men. They are proud to call themselves Republicans. Thinking people do not label themselves. I immediately go on “high alert” when I encounter someone who is quick to label themselves anything. So I've been studying these strange aliens since they first took over. These strange ones who call themselves Republicans are the polar opposite of what are known as “early adaptors”—the innovators or trend setters of our society. They are slow to change, hold on very tightly to old ways, usually closed minded and intolerant of others who feel differently than they do. Their political agenda appears like it is something out of the eighteen-hundreds, as frighteningly limited in its perspective as it is contradictory in its values. They claim to stand up for something they refer to as ‘family values’ but they don't believe that we should honor or acknowledge gay marriages. If you ask them why, they will usually resort to quoting the bible or talking about how they think “God” wants it that way. Scary stuff. 

Some of them in other states still have what they call ‘sodomy laws’ where they have actual laws on their books about what couples can and cannot do sexually in the privacy of their own homes. They also don't think women should choose for themselves in the privacy of their own homes what they do if they get pregnant—that it should be mandated by the government somehow, but it also means that they usually believe in something they call ‘capital punishment,’ meaning that it is alright to kill, but only sometimes. That ‘sometimes’ means when they decide its alright. These are old-world thinking people. They are usually very religious and believe that their religion and god is the right one, or the real one. Just like the Muslims do in fact. So it is very difficult to have rational conversation with them because of this. they will claim that they are just trying to defend America and our sacred constitution and that's why they supported the carnal invasion of Iraq, but when their favorite country singing group the Dixie chicks spoke their mind about the president, they immediately started running to the stores to burn their Cds and banning them on all their radio stations. Like I said, contradictions abound. they say they want to decrease government spending and in fact already we are hearing that Florida might lose our beloved National Public Radio and our Public Broadcasting due to our republican government here cutting spending on for the arts. Hey who needs art when you're from Texas right? But they have no problem spending millions on their political campaigns or the bill ions on an invasion of a small almost defenseless country, that didn't even last for three weeks. We are told they need to spend these the bill ions of dollars that will come out of our pockets rebuilding this country that is halfway around the world and has nothing to do with us, but that we do not have enough money as a people here in America to do anything about our failing public education systems or our teachers, fire men, or police officers being so poorly paid. We are also told that we don't have enough money as a country to give food or shelter to our homeless population, so instead we as a people are forced to take money out of our own pockets in the form of donations to private organizations to try to help, but still every city has these zombies wandering around begging for money and talking to themselves because usually they are crazy. We are told the reason for this is because they let them out of mental institutions due to lack of money. The republicans are an odd sort. They are always the first to speak up about values but usually the last to be seen taking any actions remotely resembling anything of value except monetarily. It is a little known fact that W. Bush demands all the sex scenes be edited out of any Hollywood movies they play on Air Force One, which is the plane he flies around in as president. SCARY. They all seem to equate a real safe “normal” puritanical view on sexuality with a moral code—pretending to themselves that it somehow gives them some kind of morality or sense of value, perhaps to compensate for their overtly amoral political and social agendas one assumes.    

These men that occupy our white house are quickly ruining our good name and disgracing our heritage as a country, faster than anyone could have ever imagined. But most Americans do not seem to notice yet. They are too hypnotized by the constant flag waving on their televisions. Images of soldiers marching in front of beautiful sunsets. 

The question is, if America no longer stands for the values that it once did of freedom and democracy as evidenced by Secretary Rumsfeld’s comments today that “we will not allow the Iraqi people to set up the kind of government that they want in their country...” then what values does America stand for? And if America no longer stands for the value of truth as evidenced in its almost blind and cowardly acceptance of the constant and blatant lies told by this new dictatorship since it first stole the presidency in 2000, then what values does America stand for now? To be patriotic is one thing. But what are we actually standing up for now? It is an insubstantial and blind patriotism, the worst kind. The kind that turns democracy into despotism. 

America is still a great country. Smart and beautiful women, the best restaurants, great movies. Rock and roll. MTV, HBO, NPR. Starbucks, slurpees, and Dunkin Donuts? Can I get an amen? New York, Miami, Los Angeles, las vegas the list goes on and on. America has it all and more. Mountains and valleys and streams and beautiful oceans, technology is our middle name, and we can make more money here than anywhere else. We have great entertainment and sometimes even great art. The most forward thinking and free people in the whole world. And not only that, we’re funny. Comedy is our middle name. Have you ever seen a funny comic from Russia? O.k. so America is still beautiful. But I do not know what kind of country America will be when I have children old enough to read these letters if these strange Republicans are left in power for too long.