By Natasha (age 13)
October 24, 2004
Remember the Reichstag
A long time ago in a country far,
far away, a rising dictator managed to use a national tragedy as an
excuse (1)
to round up thousands of suspected terrorists, imprisoning or deporting
them, (2) to push through anti-terrorism legislation, (3) to
solidify his
power and gain popularity, making dissent unpatriotic, (4) to round up
and
imprison citizens without the right of trial, (5) later, to use his
new-found
powers to go to war and invade helpless countries for false reasons and
take
their resources and (6) to kill a great many of his countries
soldiers in
these wars and a great many innocent civilians, both in his country and
around
the world.
For decades a stigma or cloud has
hung over the German people. Although Hitler is gone, the world
remembers
and still questions what kind of people could have sat still and just
let it
happen. You see Hitler did what mad, power-hungry leaders are
supposed to
do. He used every means possible to gain more power, even though
it meant
the loss of liberty and life. This was his role in life.
Although
the German people were told that they needed to stay the course for
security
because the enemy was out there, something inside of them should have
told them
it was wrong or that they needed to change leaders. Some were
simply
being patriotic or ignorant. But wasn’t there a duty on their
part to
learn the truth? Wasn’t there a duty to change the course to save
their families
and innocent people around the world? Though some blame Hitler, a great
many
more blame the German people of the thirties and forties for not doing
what was
in the interests of their immediate families, their country and their
Earthly
family.
Three of my paternal
great-grandparents were killed in the Nazi death camps. My paternal
grandparents left and became American citizens. But my
grandfather went
back as part of
Today,
What kind of leader signs an executive order raising the allowable levels of arsenic and cyanide in the drinking water? George W. Bush did just this in his early days in order to help his gold mining friends, who were responsible for the increased levels of these and other toxins. You see, before leaving office George H. W. Bush sold a U.S.-owned gold mine at below bargain basement prices to Barrick Gold Mining. After leaving office, he was (surprise, surprise) placed on the board of that company. And why should the Bush family investment have had to do its own clean-up, right? Cleaning that stuff out of kids or burying them is what doctors and morticians are for, right?
Currently in 29 states, thanks to the Bush administration’s relaxed environmental standards, the mercury levels in fish are so high that local fish is extremely dangerous to eat. That doesn’t mean the fish is safe elsewhere or anywhere in the country. A great many Americans (including expectant mothers) have horrendous levels of mercury in their body and don’t know it unless they have it checked out. Mercury is one of the side effects of the Bush administration’s stepped-down pollution enforcement standards. It is also one of the side effects of using coal as a fuel. How will the mutant children of the future feel about those who looked the other way today?
Watch out for the milk,
beef,
chicken, fish, ham and essentially everything. Many dairy farmers
are
paid by our government not to produce milk while others are allowed to
use
hormones that make the cows sick. The pus is collected along with
the
milk and winds up in that fresh morning glass that so many Americans
drink. At the time of this writing, it is believed that six more
cases of
mad cow disease have popped up in
Young chickens are fed arsenic to
protect against mites. If they are slaughtered too young, guess
who gets
the arsenic on their dinner table?
Pigs and hogs, as well as other animals, are fed all kinds of antibiotics, which causes humans to build up a resistance to life-saving antibiotics. Thanks to the Bush administration, America is set to be wiped out by a plague.
Meat is full of pesticides.
Pesticides are poisons that are designed to kill pests. These are
being
used extensively in feed. Even the fish are getting them from the
runoff.
Unless you are eating organic
food, even vegetables and fruits may have dangerous pesticides, which
can
include arsenic and lead. Then there is the danger of ground
water
contaminating the vegetables with some really nasty stuff. Some
places in
America even have radioactive ground water.
The Bush Administration wants to transport all kinds of dangerous nuclear material across country for its nuclear friends. Apparently, they want to provide target practice for the terrorists. But will the outrage be directed at terrorists or at the Bush administration if these shipments are attacked? The Bush Administration plans to store these nuclear materials in an inactive VOLCANO in Nevada, not far from the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for much of Southern California.
Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty, designed to protect against global warming. Why? The Treaty wasn’t convenient for his polluting friends. Even Tony Blair has acknowledged that the effects of global warming will happen in his lifetime. Scientists are now talking about how the effects are speeding up. It may not be long before The Day After Tomorrow becomes real life. This is something that is already frightening my generation. But do the voters care? Will their children forgive them for the ice age?
The Bush administration has made it profitable for companies to outsource their jobs or set up entire plants in other countries. While the Bush administration is interested in making sure other countries have plenty of low-wage jobs available, it has done nothing to help the job market in the United States. In preparation for the last G-8 Conference in Georgia earlier this year, Bush made sure that security was prepared to kill American job seekers protesting this out-sourcing conference. This is Bush’s definition of compassionate conservativism.
What is my generation supposed to do to earn a living? Are we supposed to stand by the roadside and beg the other jobless people for handouts? Of course, those who killed job prospects for my generation would probably just as soon my generation starved. What a loving society! What great family values!
Imagine if a CEO took a 400 billion dollar profit and turned it into a 400 billion dollar debt. How long would it take his company to fire him? Perhaps the reason the right to an education has been taken away from my generation is that the adults don’t want us to do math. Perhaps they don’t want us to know that the government has taken out a loan, using my generation’s future as security. When they default, what happens to my generation?
My parents talk about how good their health insurance used to be. At least my family is still insured. Millions are not. Families with insurance are having large out of pocket expenses because of higher deductibles and higher premiums while the insurance companies are making a fortune.
Even worse, doctors and hospitals
are getting away with providing substandard care for patients because
of low
malpractice limits. For the elderly, finding a doctor who will
care
enough to do a competent job is a real trick. The damages from
killing an
elderly patient are extremely low and often doctors will have no qualms
about
saying that they are giving sub-standard care to an elderly patient or
even
unnecessarily causing an elderly patient to die. What’s the
family to
do? They aren’t likely to collect anything from a lawsuit and the
doctors
and hospitals know this. My great aunt died of intentional sub-standard
care
after she contracted one of those hospital viruses. They were even
encouraging
the family to give them permission to kill her, explaining that she had
had a
long life and that the quality of life would be better if she were
dead. The family said “no” but couldn’t talk them into
giving her
the kind of quality care they would have given to a younger
patient. She had insurance in addition to Medicare.
She had
gone in for something minor and would be alive today if she had never
gone into
the hospital. The seniors are voting for better health
care. If the
adults in the intermediate generation don’t, who will my generation
blame for
the consequences? We like our grandparents and want them to
live.
Bush wants to pass legislation making it more cost-effective for
hospitals to
get away killing patients of all ages. Attorneys are your last
defense
and Bush wants to eliminate their ability to save your life.
Too many children have conditions which could be cured with this research. A great many of our heroes have conditions that require this research. Thanks to videos, Chris Reeve is Superman to individuals in all generations who can afford to watch one. Those who didn’t stand up to Bush’s cruel stem cell research policies need to tell my generation why they let him die when, under a Gore administration, he would probably be alive and walking. How many more will die if Bush is re-selected? How many war heroes will have to remain paralyzed because of the Bush regime?
When the Supreme Court stopped the counting of ballots on December 12, 2000, they effectively told Americans that this was no longer a country where our leaders were chosen by the people. It became a nation where our leaders were chosen for us. With Republican corporations putting voting machines (in which the rigging code has already been found) into voting booths, it will take a miracle for the people’s voice to be heard in 2004. If America learns of Kerry’s victory, we will all owe a lot of thanks to God.
With the mass detentions following
9/11 and the permanent detention (without trial) of American citizens,
such as
Padilla, the Constitutional right of habeas corpus seems to be
dead.
Provisions of proposed additions to the Patriot Act would allow the
government
to strip natural born citizens of their citizenship and allow for
executions
without trials. FEMA created 600 detention camps under Reagan.
How many
does it have now? Will all potential protestors be the next
victims of
death camps? Will these be followed by people who were dumb
enough to
vote for the guy who will put them there?
Bush took us to war based on lies. Billions that Congress intended for the troops were given by Bush to private contractors (mostly Cheney’s Halliburton). Republican contractors and hirees misplaced other billions.
The Bush administration is giving
more pay and protection to contractors for Halliburton than to our
servicemen,
who are often sent on suicide missions without the proper
protection.
Over 1,l00 troops have died.
Thousands have been mutilated. There is a back door draft of
individuals
who do not want to go to war but are being forced to do so.
Civilians,
including babies and children, have been blown up in their beds.
Bush’s
contempt for the people who serve in the military has been made obvious
by his
cuts in their benefits and by the sub-human housing Bush expects the
military
families to live in. The housing in some places is making
military
children sick. (Check out http://www.byronforcongress.org.)
Servicemen who survive the war are
still not out of danger. A great many are contaminated with
depleted
uranium poisoning (Gulf War Syndrome), and too often their children are
born
deformed or die as a result of the radiation poisoning the fathers
received. What kind of person would vote for Bush after what Bush
has
done to American people and children and to people and children of the
world?
Bush’s Rush to All-Out Nuclear War.
Instead of getting the world to dismantle nuclear weapons, Bush has started a new arms race with new nuclear weapons he appears to be ready to use. In defense, other nations are joining the arms race. Bush is the REASON North Korea and Iran are building nuclear weapons. The end result of the Bush nuclear arms race could be all out nuclear war. If that occurs, the deaths of all who will be killed in that war will be the responsibility of everyone who fails to vote against Bush.
The world already views us as Americans viewed Nazi Germany. My generation will be the ones who will have to apologize for the failure of the adults to stand up and stop the corporate imperialism in which our government is engaged.
9/11
This writer doesn’t even need to
go into the fact that the reported hijackers were Saudis, not Afghanis
or
Iraqis. This writer doesn’t need to go into the fact that, with
knowledge
of a supposedly impending terrorist attack in our country by bin Laden,
the CIA
met with bin Laden in the American hospital in Dubai in July, 2001 and
then let
him leave. This writer will not go into how the Bush
administration
confiscated videos and evidence of what happened on 9/11 and suppressed
the
evidence from the public. However, why did the Bush
administration do its
best to stop hearings on 9/11? Why have they blocked the release
of the
CIA report on 9/11 until after the November 2nd election? That’s
something the reader will have to check out for himself or
herself.
But this does lend itself to the question, “Why?” If you want to
do more
research into the issue, you might check out the following sites:
http://www.geocities.com/killtown/
Conclusion
In church, I have learned that
forgiveness is not for the benefit of the forgiven but rather for the
benefit
of the forgiver. However, most children in
A great many children are awake
now. Kerry is winning polls among children, such as the one held
by
Nickelodeon. Children cut classes to protest in the street
against the
It took a superior power to bring
down
Copyright ©2004 by Natasha H. All rights reserved.
[Originally posted on DebateUSA.com.]