Sorry, but I've had it

Enough with the smears, the ugliness, the race-baiting, the endless cycle of outright lies from the cynical, the racist, and the terrified.

Sure, I have doubts about Barack Obama. He's a bit centrist for my liking, and I'm not overjoyed that he's not serving out his Senate term; I voted for him to be a Senator, not run for President.

But the notion of John McCain being President (and Sarah Palin being within 3,000 miles of the Presidency) not only scares me but makes me literally sick to my stomach.

What is wrong with these people? Why are they so intent on destroying everything good about this country--its diversity, its freedom of speech, its natural beauty, its middle class?

America is not a rehearsal for the end times, or for any other pseudo-Christian strategy. If God is so great, she doesn't need our help to move the end of the world along. Leave the rest of us who don't believe in the end times out of your death wish.

It is not written in stone that rich people should be bailed out by the rest of us.

America is not a Monarchy where the President gets to decide what is legal and what isn't.

It is not a police state where Americans should be scared to voice their opinions lest they be castigated as "Anti-Americans."

America does not arrest reporters and protestors without cause. America does not keep people in prisons without cause. America does not adopt the human rights policies of fascists.

Barack Obama is not a Marxist, and you all know he isn't. Lowering taxes on the working poor and raising them on the rich is NOT Marxism, and you all know it isn't. If you say it is, you're either misinformed or you're not telling the truth.

America should not use tax money from populous cities to prop up rural areas if country residents want to spend their time haranguing we city folk about our evil culture and our lost souls.

This is not a country in which those of us living in integrated areas will be lectured about race and racial matters by hypocrites who live in all-white suburbs and small towns where the only black people are on painted lawn decorations. What would you know about it?

America does not need to be "saved" by selfish, insecure God-botherers.

This is not a country where a shrill minority of ignorant, mean-spirited morons have the right to deny Constitutional rights to gay people.

America is a great country. But it's great not because of, but in spite of the people who are running it. America is a great country because of the freedoms to ALL promised in our great documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

This is not about "politics." I could give a damn about politics. This is about how you see the world.

The left wing didn't declare this culture war, but hell if I'll live in a country where I am condemned for believing in the principles set out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

You want to go back to back-alley abortions? You want further military aggression and torture? You want dead American soldiers and a growing deficit for a war enabled by a curtain of lies? More Wall Street corruption? No way. We've had enough.

This is a fight, all right. It's a fight between the optimism of the future-no matter how naïve it may be-versus the cynicism, fear, mistrust, greed, racism, class warfare, and bitter, pinched-face hatred represented by ignorant conspiracy theorists, white-power mental midgets, blowhard radio hosts, and do-nothing losers looking for someone to blame for their own self-created problems.

Now that I’ve gone through this rant, it’s time for the obvious truth: Peace is the only solution.

All of us need to find peace in our hearts. And I put myself at the top of the list. Those of us on the left who are angry at this crap need to find ways to process our anger without hurting others or ourselves. For me, one way I do this is by writing. And I feel that sharing these words is honest. Maybe it doesn’t make me look very good, but it’s real and here it is.

Most of us just want to be allowed to live our lives without someone we don’t even know lecturing us, yelling at us, cheating us, lying to us…why is that so much to ask? Why is it so much to ask that people in power play honestly, that people try to move past their greed or their racist fears, that people try to put themselves in the shoes of those less fortunate?

Decision time is coming. What kind of country do we live in?