A SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE?

Remember the time when we used to believe that a politician was a "servant of the people"? Remember when we believed the evident fallacy that a politician is supposed to go to Washington to look after the needs of those who elected him, that he is our voice, our leader, our employee?

Whatever happened to that theory? When did politicians, elected to national office, become the autonomous, dictatorial masters of everything that happens, everything that concerns the public? When did they become our masters? When did they become the parent, treating the public like ignorant children, doing as they please, despite the will of the people?

Did it happen during Viet Nam, when police with hoses, gas and guns tried to stem the protests over that long and lengthy war? Back then, I can remember a huge division between the young and the old. The older people, complacent, willing to sit back and be led, either approved of the war in Viet Nam, or ignored it. But the young were a collection of wild-haired, strangely-dressed rebels. They stormed and paraded and protested, smoking a little pot along the way, and enlisting disgruntled and weary veterans to help them!

They were treated badly, these young folks, because American parents have always believed that children should follow the rules of their elders. We knew of no way to stem this tide of rebellion, as our children wept over forced haircuts, worshipped a strange bunch of young singers from England, and deplored the war. How could we handle them, with their headbands and long, peasant skirts, the male coiffure as ragged, long and unkempt as the female?

It took a while, but eventually the parents realized that, in this case, the young had more sense than their elders. They had every right to rebel. It was their generation wading through that jungle, fighting the enemy, lost in alien territory, spilling their blood in a morass of atrocities!

It is never the older people that go to war. They just sit back and concoct them. It is the younger generation that must carry the torch. It is the younger generation that dies premature deaths, whose hopes and dreams lie beneath little white crosses, a mere flicker of a memory, the subjects of a parade on national holidays, as those soldiers more fortunate squeeze into aging uniforms and march down almost every main street.

At the moment, we have given a committee of wise men, a Study Group, the task of figuring out what to do about the Iraq conflict. At the same time, we have a president who doesn't seem to listen to the public he serves. Like a tyrannical parent looming over his children, he claims he will do as he pleases. This may be fine in his opinion, but it doesn't help that soldier bleeding into the sand, or that parent wailing over the loss of a son or daughter.

Evidently, even if Laura, his wife, and Barney, his dog, are the only two supporters left to him, he will continue the fight in Iraq!

This, my friends, is the "Servant of the People," the man elected to serve the American public, not his wife, not his dog....the American people!

This president bears the burden of being "the leader of the free world," even though at times it has been hard to believe that our world remains free. With our jobs disappearing, manufacturing a thing of the past, and pensions fading into the breeze, our lifestyles have become more desperate with each passing day.

Yet, while a majority of the American people struggle to make ends meet, a small percentage thrive...and are delighted with their tax cuts, their bounty. The War in Iraq rages on, with thousands and thousands of people dying or being wounded, and our American lives are filled with economic necessities, worry over the rent or joy in a tax cut, depending upon which side of the spectrum they are on. This War, the missiles, the car bombs, the explosive devices, the kidnappings, the torture, the hatred....just doesn't affect us all that much.

Health care is unaffordable for millions of Americans, yet this president goes on his daily path....Iraq!...Iraq!...Iraq! And the newly elected Democratic Congress vows to be civil. Civil? What price civility? When does civility surpass reality? It's nice to be reasonable, but does one remain reasonable when dealing with the unreasonable? Besides ignoring the wishes of the people, our politicians hide truth behind a constant barrier of "civility." Did you ever listen to them in their historic halls? They talk on and on, offering every kind of courtesy to one another, putting truth in such courteous mumbo-jumbo one can hardly recognize what they are talking about.

Then once in a while, as John Murpha did, or as Jim Webb did, one of them blurts out the truth! Of course, this causes all kinds of headshaking and disapproval. The truth is something many people do not like to face....and some people approve this war.

Anyone approving of this War in Iraq should go fight it, and encourage their children to fight it! They should be lined up to fight the battles, not hiding behind this ragtag volunteer group that has been there through month after bloody month! During World War II, our young lined up to join the military. Today, they seem to need lies and promises and big money! What kind of a war is this, that only a fraction of our people approve and our young ignore?

During this last election, the American people spoke. They took the Republicans out of office because of the War in Iraq. If President Bush has a brain in his head, he must realize this fact. The American people disapprove of this war, the chaos and tumult and agony it has caused....and most of them want it to end.

When one attends a party, there is a time to arrive and a time to depart. War is much the same. However humiliating it might be to President Bush to leave that country and its oilwells behind, this is what the American people want. They will fight terrorism on their own soil, tightening the borders, staying alert. But invading other countries, pouring untold billions into what is so glaringly, obviously, a losing battle, is pure stupidity.

We need to get out of Iraq. We should not be offering our American lives as martyrs to a Civil War we do not even understand, composed of religious differences between two warring tribes and enhanced by the presence of invaders. Some say that, if we leave, it will cause chaos. I don't know how much more chaotic this country could get, but I do remember that the same prediction was made about Viet Nam. Now Viet Nam is a flourishing country with diplomatic relations with the United States. There is some indication Iraq might be the same.

I believe we should get out of Iraq. I believe George Bush is digging his own political grave and taking the Republican Party with him. If this is Conservative, spare us! If this is politics, get rid of it! If this is the America we know and love, help it out!

Our politicians need to forget their worries about civility and realize the truth. It is time to get the hell out of Iraq!