Court joined in treachery

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, December 20, 2000

We were given the world’s model democracy by the luck of birth. We were fortunate enough to be born in a country with so much wealth and abundance that we waste almost as much food as we eat. However, as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision shows, we’ve become so complacent that the right wing has rendered our democracy a virtual sham. Whatever became of a government by the people, for the people, and of the people?

I am disgusted that a president can be appointed by a conservative cabal in the Supreme Court – or a rogue Republican state legislature – when thousands of votes remain uncounted. Americans must now fight for electoral reform and open, honest government at every level. We can make a difference, but there is much work to do.

We must not accept the fate that the conservative establishment wishes to force upon all of us. The Republican leadership does not care about unity or bipartisanship. Indeed, they are salivating at the opportunity to ram their regressive agenda down the people’s throats, as Congressman Tom DeLay and Sen. Trent Lott proudly boast. Caving in to them is not an option.

I served eight honorable years in the military, and I did not enlist to be a pawn for family dynasties, right-wing hypocrites or Wall Street. I did not serve so that people like Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, Katherine Harris and Jim Baker could short-circuit the law, trample the Constitution, cynically lie out of both sides of their mouths and rewrite history before the ink is even dry.

The GOP fought a count of all the Florida ballots for the same reason a drug smuggler refuses to let police officers search his car. Five Supreme Court justices aided that endeavor. As a result, I can think of no reason why we should accept Bush’s appointment – other than to be accomplices to injustice, hypocrisy, the Big Lie, partisan treachery and voter disenfranchisement.

Everett