I recently wrote to John Edwards ’08 and in my post on his blog I stated that he should start talking about the civil liberties that we have lost in this nation. If anyone knows my writing, for almost four years I have been decrying the liberties that we citizen’s have lost under this Bush/Cheney Neo-Con government. I received a response on John Edwards’s site that basically told me that John will be talking about the loss of our civil liberties when he is through with the caucuses. I was told that he doesn’t want to “confuse” the voters before the primaries.

Well, this is typical of the politicians in America. It seems like even John Edward’s just doesn’t “get it”. What people are calling the unrest and the disillusionment with the American political system is “The Great Awakening”. People are seeing through the duopoly of the two-party system and demanding better. They are tires of the “same old, same old” and they want someone that will actually do something to restore the rights of the people, to cut waste and spending by the Federal Government that is pushing the economy to the limit, and they want more than anything, to stop our hundreds of foreign involvements especially in Iraq and Afghanistan where we are borrowing over 2 Billion per day from China and Japan.

When John Edwards tells me that he will begin talking about civil liberties after the caucuses, he is basically saying either that it isn’t a priority, or that the American people are just too stupid to understand more than three things at once. He is fighting against the corporacracy (and I believe I was one of the first people to coin that word over five years ago), he is fighting for health-care for Americans, and that’s just about it. I have not heard him say that he will abolish the Military Commissions Act of 2006, nor have I heard him say that he will try to abolish the revamped Insurrection Act. I have not heard him state that he will follow the Constitution and restore equal power to the three branches of our government, or completely leave Iraq and stop construction of the giant bases they are building there now.

While it may be politically expedient not to mention these things for fear of turning off voters that are inclined to vote for a Democratic hard-liner such as Hillary Clinton, he is not giving the American people much credit for being able to think on their feet with intelligence or integrity. John Edwards is just behaving like every other politician that is running save two, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. It’s not Kuchinich that have attracted the people, its Paul. The truth is that during this “Great Awakening” the people of this country have heard, and are listening to him. He is speaking truth to power, and for a myriad of reasons, he is catching on like no other candidate I have ever seen in my lifetime, that includes John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Americans are aching to get the powerful, well-connected politicians out of power. They are demanding radical change and don’t want to hear the same old rhetoric from the same old faces.

John Edwards may think that he knows just what he is doing, but I believe he misunderstands what the American people are demanding. The ability to raise $18,000,000.00 + off of the internet by Ron Paul in a little over two days from private individuals speaks volumes. This “Great Awakening” is a result of being lied to by our government, giving tax breaks to the wealthy that keep offshore tax havens, by the death and destruction we have wrought on innocent people, by bankrupting forces that threaten our very existence by borrowing to prolong this war, by the inaccurate and suspect investigations of 9/11, and most of all by the insidious way this President has maneuvered to gain personal power. It doesn’t stop there, the “tasering” of protesters, the First Amendment Areas for protesters away from public view, the “No-Fly” lists for dissidents’, the requirement for passports to go anywhere, a “National ID” that will be required by May 2008 to prove that you are an American and have a right to be wherever you are, all these things look and smell like fascism. I have always lived by these words; “If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck”. In this case, I see a duck, so does everyone else.

I have been censored on other websites for my views. I am an American Veteran that has spent over 20 years in this country’s military. I am not a “fringe radical” yet my views are sometimes called radical. I was actively against the war in Vietnam and suffered in the Army because of my views, never the less I was vindicated when what we predicted turned to become reality. We were lied to then, and we are being lied to now. Kuchinich and Paul are the only ones that are speaking “Truth to Power”. For some odd reason, Ron Paul has managed to “capture” the people’s hearts and minds. Is this truly “The Great Awakening”? I believe it is, and it’s about time!

That’s the way I see it.