several things are brewing so let's get started.

i saw fahrenheit 9/11. dan wanted to talk about it so i figured i should go see it. the movie was what i expected it to be and it did little to sway my position on bush and the government, but then, like i told dan, liberals and independents are not michael moore's target audience, i don't think, because this film won't change their minds. it only serves to further frustrate and infuriarate. i agreed with ebert that this was probably the best documentary i'd seen. i laughed and cried and felt shocked and anger and embarassed. moore is a skilled movie maker who knows how to propogate his message. the parts i found most disturbing, besides the little girls with horrible open wounds, were about the connection between the bush family and saudi arabia. moore leads the viewer to an obvious conclusion, that there exists a very shady relationship between the bushes and far too many rich and important international power players in countries firmly attached to terrorism. moore stops short of saying the word conspiracy, but he directs you to that place. i don't know about conspiracy but i know it is disturbing that the american people do not know about all the ties between bush and bush-associated companies and terrorist nations and peoples. this sort of thing should be front page news and every major newspaper and magazine should report on it. instead it all gets ignored and swept away and people like savage, limbaugh, and heaney claim the media has a liberal bias. al gore is not the answer to any of these problems either.

there is a part in the movie where bush defines iraq as a terrorist nation and qualifies that definition. i feel as if america now fits that definition. the american people have been lied to, straight lied to on television again and again and again by every high ranking official in the bush administration and i can't tell if anyone bothers to notice or care. john kerry isn't the answer and ralph nader isn't either. so much harm has been done that the next president, whoever follows bush whenever he leaves, will be a lame duck. since the last election a bitter pill has been forced down the throats of americans and it only seems to get larger and more bitter and harder to swallow.

item 2:
on july 5 one hundred and forty-one years ago today the remains of the confederate army crawled across the potomac into virginia nursing its wounds from a terrible defeat at gettysburg. lee lost the conclusive battle he sought and the papers he carried accepting the surrender of the union army went unused. the war dragged on for two more years but many point to gettysburg as the decisive battle. the south had an opportunity to win and even when they gave up the high, fortified ground to the yankees they had opportunity. they attacked straight across the field into the center of the line and its weakest point with tired, ill-equiped soldiers. the rebs reached the yankee lines and forced them back a bit and the fighting became hand-to-hand combat, a dull, slow, painful process. i'm amazed at what was at stake and how uncertain the outcome was on the last day of fighting, july 3. the union should have taken out the rebs before they came close to the lines, but they didn't. if the union had fallen that day the war would have perhaps ended as the majority of both armies were there. 53,000 men died that day. some most of died horrible, painful deaths with the lack of medical knowledge available. the smell and the sound must have made it difficult to breathe or hear any orders. the south fought for their way of life and the north fought for an idea. what an amazing day! and even after such a heavy loss the war endured and the spirit of the confederates did not abate.

today i look outside my window and i see a massive confederate flag attached to a car, alongside an equally large american flag. I an admire how the rebels fought for their lifestyle, how many wanted only the ability to live free of government rule. but that lifestyle included slavery, and when they fought for their own freedom they fought against freedom for an entire race of people, so I cannot accept someone raising a confederate flag in pride or triumph, and it is a disgrace to the stars and stripes that sit opposite it on the car I see.

the american flag used to be a symbol for a high ideal in civilization. when I see it raised on battle fields as it was in 1863 it sends a powerful message of strength, of morality, of human decency and spirit. when I see it now it is almost as if i can see the tarnish exacerbated during bush's presidency. we operate, as americans, under the banner of that flag and we enjoy every principal and right afforded to us. and the same should be said of all people wherever that flag stands, for any people in any country. wherever we go and wherever we bring our nation's symbol we should carry the ideals, the strength and morality, the human deceny and spirit, the tolerance it stood for on a bloody battlefield on july 3, 1863.