Vote

With two days left to go until the election, there is nothing left to be said.

Well, maybe a little.

We have seen how the Bush Administration's inner circle keeps President Bush isolated from the real world, to keep him blissfully ignorant in a bubble of sycophancy.

We have seen how the Bush Administration constructs an alternate reality of Orwellian proportions to avoid facing the real world, to deny or explain away any inconsistency, any failure, any setback.

We have seen how the Bush Administration ignored its own counter-terrorism czar's pre-9/11 pleads for action to be taken against al Qaeda, and even ignored an intelligence briefing barely a month before the attacks, warning of al Qaeda's plans. Afterwards, the Administration politically milked the attack for all it was worth, fought an independent investigation of the attacks every step of the away, and even stonewalled the victims' families in an attempt to cover up their own incompetence.

We have seen how the Bush Administration came into power itching for the opportunity to invade Iraq and "get" Saddam Hussein, then used the 9/11 attacks to play to our fears. We were shamelessly and callously manipulated with lies and distortions about Saddam's phantom weapons arsenal, about his nonexistent role in 9/11 and his barely-there connection with al Qaeda, which those in power still parrot (albeit slightly modified) even today.

We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed aside anything which countered the official ideology. Military officers who said we needed more troops, intelligence analysts who said there was no real evidence of Iraqi WMDs, professional diplomats who warned of the harsh realities of occupying Iraq -- all were ignored and sometimes retaliated against by a neoconservative cadre who listened only to people who agreed with them.

We have seen how the Bush Administration exploited our post-9/11 fears to ram the Patriot Act through Congress, to draft a truly draconian Patriot Act II and to make a good college try at stamping all dissent into the ground.

We have seen how the Bush Administration deliberately lied to Congress and the public about the cost of the Medicare bill, putting forward knowingly false numbers and keeping the true price secret until after it was safely enacted into law.

We have seen how the Bush Administration took the first federal budget surplus in decades and exploded it in an orgy of tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of which went to the wealthiest Americans while giving chump change to most everyone else. We now have half-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, flushing anything even resembling fiscal responsibility down the toilet.

We have seen how the Bush Administration went out of its way to offend, bully and push around everyone else in the world in the drive to attack Iraq, vaporizing all our post-9/11 goodwill and setting back the cause of good international relations by years if not decades.

We have seen how the Bush Administration hides everything behind an obsessive wall of secrecy, fighting to keep anything and everything hidden from the public even after everyone knows what is being concealed. For exhibit A, one need look no further than Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, which everyone knows allowed energy industry lobbyists literally to write energy policy.

We have seen how the Bush Administration directs no-bid secret sweetheart deals to politically connected companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel.

We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed its "No Child Left Behind" law through Congress, then simply and repeatedly refused to spend the money to make the law a going concern.

We have seen how the Bush Administration relentlessly demonizes gay and lesbian Americans, weaving ghost stories of homosexual hordes somehow "destroying" marriage for the rest of us and backing a Constitutional amendment relegating them to second-class citizenship.

We have seen how the Bush Administration insists loudly and without fail that black is white, that up is down, that the ongoing disaster in Iraq is a great triumph, and that we have al Qaeda on the run when the terrorist network is gaining new recruits every day, and that it's all the media's fault for pointing out their lies.

We have seen how the Bush Administration uses terrorism alerts for political means, to keep the American public good and scared, and thus susceptible to official propaganda.

We have seen how the Bush Administration cuts domestic spending to the bone and beyond to pay for the continuing adventure in Iraq. Homeland security, education, health care, even military pay and veterans' medical benefits are sacrificed.

I could go on and on and on with reasons why we should vote the Bush Administration out of office on Tuesday. (For a fuller list, see One Thousand Reasons and 525 Reasons to Dump Bush. But now it's all up to you.

On Tuesday, get out and vote.

If you believe that George W. Bush is the savior of Christian civilization and will beat back any threat to America, whether or not it's actually real, vote.

If you believe that John Kerry will do a better job at protecting America and at repairing the frayed fabric of our nation, vote.

If you believe that both Bush and Kerry are tools of the same power interests and a real outsider is needed, vote.

Whether you vote Democratic, Republican, Independent, Green, Communist, Socialist, American Tradition, United Fascist Union, United Christian, Prohibition -- heck, even if you vote for the National Barking Spider Resurgence Party, get out and vote.

Remember, if you don't vote, someone else will vote for you. And their interests may not be the same as yours.

Vote!