Right-wingers love to drone on and on about the “angry left.” They complain about all of the vitriol and invective being heaped, unfairly they say, on the Bush administration. They call us hysterical reactionaries who are more concerned with a political agenda than with the state of the nation. They do this as a way of minimizing and marginalizing us. They do this because they think we’re afraid of being tagged with the “angry left” label and being written off, not to be taken seriously. They do this as a way of trying to shame us into silence.

And you know what? It works. Rush, O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter… all of the usual suspects… put forth this drivel about the “angry left” and the corporate media runs with it. We are painted as a bunch of knee-jerk, hysterical, wild-eyed freaks and then dismissed. It’s happened time and time and time again. Every time the left is up in arms about the issues that matter… the war, the economy, the FISA bill, to name but a few… out comes the “angry left” meme and the next thing you know, it gets so quiet that you can hear a pin drop. Some of our “leaders” in Washington, (Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid come to mind) instead of leading the charge against an out of control and lawless administration, cower in the corner, fearing for their political lives instead of standing up and speaking out forcefully, passionately and yes, angrily.

I’m beyond angry. I’m furious. I’m absolutely and unashamedly pissed off. And I don’t believe it’s hyperbole in the least to say that these past eight years have been among the darkest in our nation’s history. I’m sure the right-wingers out there would call that statement inflammatory and hyperbolic. They’d call it typical of the “angry left.” Of course they would. But these people are incapable of stepping outside of their little partisan bubbles and looking at things openly, rationally, logically or most of all, honestly. If they could, I just don't see how they could see all that’s happened over these last eight years and be anything but enraged.

Consider:

- Seven years ago, more than three-thousand Americans were killed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Despite vowing before the American public that he would bring in Osama bin Laden “dead or alive,” Bush later admits that he “doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about him.” The mastermind behind the deadliest attacks on US soil continues to run free despite the fact that Bush, according to the CIA, has had a couple of opportunities to take him out.

- In response to 9/11, Bush initiates a war in Iraq based on nothing but lies, distortions and fabrications. He insisted that Saddam Hussein was a “grave” threat, going so far as to evoke the image of a nuclear weapon being detonated in a US city to stoke the fear among the American public. Bush insisted on this war despite the fact that the UN weapons inspectors told him repeatedly that there is no threat and that there are no WMD’s in Iraq. The lack of any supporting evidence for the administration’s case for war led then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to lie in his presentation before the UN Security Council. In his State of the Union speech, Bush then repeated talking points he knows not to be true in making his case for war before the people. Those would be the infamous “sixteen words” that former Ambassador Joe Wilson wrote about. The war in Iraq is costing the US between $10 and $12 billion a month, has cost more than four-thousand American lives as well as tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. And Bush’s response was to make a video in which he was filmed looking for the WMD’s under his desk and behind the curtains in the Oval Office.

- We all watched in horror when Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, nearly wiping the city off the map. And what was Bush doing the day she hit the Gulf Coast? He was eating cake and sharing a photo-op with John McCain in Arizona on the Senator’s birthday. In fact, it took Bush three days before he did anything in response to one of the worst natural disasters in the history of this country and then it was only to fly over New Orleans, making sure photographers got a picture of him looking out of the window of the plane, trying to look very concerned. The then-head of FEMA, Michael Brown, a man with absolutely no expertise or experience in disaster management, was worried more about how he looked on television than saving the people in the Gulf Coast. Despite the fact that we knew for a week that Katrina was coming and that she was bringing devastation with her, the administration and the hack cronies put in charge of vital government agencies did nothing while nearly two-thousand Americans died in New Orleans, while their bodies floated through the streets of the devastated city. And Bush’s response was “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie.”

- We have now become a nation that tortures people in the name of our own “national security.” We’ve violated federal as well as international law by subjecting people to some of the most cruel, humiliating, sadistic and inhumane treatment imaginable. And oh yeah, we’ve murdered a few of them too. We’ve outsourced the torture of our captives to third countries that employ even more draconian measures than we do and we’ve held people, men, women and even children, in our military prisons for years without charges or hope of release. We’ve become nearly indistinguishable from the man who supposedly posed such a grave threat to us that we invaded and currently occupy his country.

- We’ve seen economic policies that put the ultra-wealthy and the corporations ahead of the people who need the most help. Thousands upon thousands of people are losing their homes, countless millions more are wondering whether to pay their insurance or electricity bill this month and many millions more don’t know where their next meal is coming from. The price of everything from gas to groceries is skyrocketing and more and more people are finding that their dollars don’t stretch nearly as far and that they can’t afford the basic necessities of life. And yet despite that, the big oil companies post record profits quarter after quarter after quarter. And the corporations that find themselves in trouble, the Bear-Stearns, the Lehman Brothers, the AIG’s of the world… well, no problem, the government will bail you out… using the tax dollars of the citizens. The massive corporate welfare program is going to cost we the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and yet we the people are forced to live a hand to mouth existence.

- We’ve seen the men and women of our Armed Forces and the sacrifices they make dishonored at every turn. They were thrown into Iraq without a coherent plan and without adequate supplies. Many had to buy their own body armor among other items. We’ve seen the wounded return to a system that doesn’t adequately provide for their physical or mental recovery. The conditions at hospitals like Walter Reed and other military hospitals are abysmal and many have had to pay for basic services like... meals… out of their own pockets. The administration… John McCain among them… argued bitterly against the new GI Bill that provides returning soldiers benefits like the chance to get an education or affordable housing saying that it will make it “too attractive” for soldiers to re-enlist when their tours were up. And yet the Bush administration… John McCain among them… continue using the troops as props in their staged photo-ops, claiming that they “support the troops.”

- We’ve seen eight years of the Bush administration breaking the very laws they swore to uphold and violate the very Constitution they swore to defend. They eavesdrop on our phone calls, they read our mail, they read our emails, access our medical, financial and even our library records. They do this all under the guise of “keeping America safe” and in the interest of our national security. And yet, they don’t do the basic things that would keep this country safe like screening cargo at the ports, screening baggage put into the holds in airplanes or securing our nuclear facilities. They violate our Constitutional rights at will and yet they haven’t made this country one iota safer.


And this is just a small sampling, just what I came up with off the top of my head, of all of the outrageous acts committed by this administration. How anybody look objectively at all of this and not be angry is beyond me. The Bush administration has trampled our rights, undermined the Constitution, has brought the economy to the brink of collapse and is running this country into the ground and the right-wing thinks we’re nuts to be so angry about it all? These people need to stop thinking like “Republicans” and start thinking like “Americans,” thinking about what’s best for the country and not just their party.

They’re right… I and so many others are angry. And I say it’s well past time we own that anger. We can’t be afraid to be called “angry.” We need our “leaders” to stop running and hiding when somebody calls them angry. Especially when that anger is justified and righteous. As much as I admire him, John Kerry shouldn’t have backed down in 2004. He should have gotten angry, he should have stood and fought tooth and nail.

If we are going to take this country back from these warmongers, these crooks, thieves, liars and war-profiteers, we’re going to have to be loud and we’re going to have to be angry. We can’t afford to shy away from the stupid, petty little labels the right likes to stick on us.

Am I angry? You're damn right I am. And I say the next time some right-winger calls you part of the “angry left,” you consider it a badge of honor. The next time somebody calls you a reactionary, you tell them you’re angry because you care about our nation, that you put country before party and that you’re actually paying attention.