I want to believe in my country again
I was talking to someone tonight about America. I am disgusted by the politics, by the continuing ignorance, and how divided our country has become. And I know that I'm part of that division, but I still desperately want something strong and dignified to part of our agenda again. There's enough fear in the world without questioning the motives my own government.

This is what Frank Rich wrote today in the New York Times:
Mr. Bush was asked at a press conference “how much of a sacrifice” ordinary Americans would “be expected to make in their daily lives, in their daily routines.” His answer: “Our hope, of course, is that they make no sacrifice whatsoever.” He, too, wanted to move on — to “see life return to normal in America,” as he put it — but toward partisan goals stealthily tailored to his political allies rather than the nearly 90 percent of the country that, according to polls, was rallying around him.

This selfish agenda was there from the very start. As we now know from many firsthand accounts, a cadre from Mr. Bush’s war cabinet was already busily hyping nonexistent links between Iraq and the Qaeda attacks. The presidential press secretary, Ari Fleischer, condemned Bill Maher’s irreverent comic response to 9/11 by reminding “all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do.” Fear itself — the fear that “paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance,” as F.D.R. had it — was already being wielded as a weapon against Americans by their own government.

Less than a month after 9/11, the president was making good on his promise of “no sacrifice whatsoever.” Speaking in Washington about how it was “the time to be wise” and “the time to act,” he declared, “We need for there to be more tax cuts.” Before long the G.O.P. would be selling 9/11 photos of the president on Air Force One to campaign donors and the White House would be featuring flag-draped remains of the 9/11 dead in political ads.

And so here we are five years later. Fearmongering remains unceasing. So do tax cuts. So does the war against a country that did not attack us on 9/11. We have moved on, but no one can argue that we have moved ahead.

Why couldn't he have asked something of us? I would want to help my country and to know that my sacrifice was making a difference. Maybe that unity could have overcome the feeling of helplessness and defeat that I now feel. I think something big is going to happen soon...the political climate is changing and people aren't going to live like this anymore, being lied to and ignored by the government. The times they are changing...I hope.