I am firmly telling myself the election in November must not be as tainted by screwy machines or hanging chads as the last two Presidential runs. I am firmly telling myself things must change for the better, because to do otherwise is to invite the Sweeney Todd wannabe in my head to start stropping the razor.

So, whilst dreaming optimistic “We can TOO have more than a paper democracy.” daydreams, and thus considering the things that have changed in the last eight years, I realized it feels a bit like going over to a departing neighbor’s garage before the moving truck arrives. You know, to get back the borrowed garden tools, the half bag of charcoal and the like?

So, yes, there are a few things I will be needing back when my country attempts to quit having “technical difficulties” with its democratic process and ideals. And shortly thereafter, I hope it will recall quaint customs like separation of Church and State and the Geneva Conventions!

First off, I would like to reclaim the word “PATRIOT” from the likes of Ann Coulter. Sorry, Ann, you don’t get to keep it to apply to red, white and blue sheep who don’t care if the country is marching off a cliff, so long as they sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” while doing so. A patriot is capable of recognizing when the beloved country is loosing its moral imperative and falling for rank imperialism. No, the basic root of the word being the same does not make them the same things.

And while I am at it, Ann ? I’d like you to turn over the word “TRAITOR” as well, because you rankly used it like an assault weapon on anyone who had the (well, yes!) patriotism to disagree with you. So, since my Oxford does not have that down as a valid usage, yeah….I will be needing that one back, too. I’m sure if I had ever succeeded in reading any of your books cover to cover, I’d have a LOT more I’d like back from you, Ann. But, alas, I never got much past the cover without looking like I might need an anti-seizure medication administered.

And you telephone people? I will be needing my reasonable expectation of PRIVACY fulfilled again, thank you. No, you may not consider me a satisfied customer if you roll over like well-trained dogs and turn over my conversations, emails and the like without so much as a by-your-leave WARRANT signed by a judge, damn it. Actually, while I am at it, I’d like ALL my CIVIL RIGHTS back.
You Homeland Security sorts? Well, I’d like your JOBS back, please. I don’t want my tax dollars paying you to screw up things like FEMA creating debacles like post-Katrina New Orleans to haunt our future as well as our past. I don’t think you make us more secure at all; I think you cost a lot of money and like a really bad whore, you don’t deliver as promised and then take the money and run. Oh, and your buddies at Blackwater and KBR? I’d like them to be fired, too. If they want to be mercenaries, let them join the Swiss Guard, get fitted for those pretty little white pleated skirty outfits and stand outside the Vatican, ok?

In fact, while on the subject of civilian contractors taking care of things governmental or military? I’d like the military to take back CARING FOR THEIR OWN NEEDS.  I’d like you profiteering slum-lord sons of bitches who are in charge of the quarters and barracks on posts and bases round the country to fall off my personal reality map, ok? I have SEEN the job you “do” for the entire dollar amount of the BAQ payments that you scarf into your bloated bank accounts. In buildings that would be condemned by any city code in the country, you take anything from tiny BAQ for a PFC all the way to what a Master Sergeant makes as your “take” for maintenance. There is no appeal for those begging you to make the fan work, the toilet stop leaking, the heater heat, or get the mold out of the walls in the baby’s room……you are answerable to none and you keep all the money. You don’t deserve the trust granted you by a thoughtless government and helpless people. What I want more than need back from you is a pile of your heads such as Genghis Khan might have had as tribute, and don’t splash blood on my carpet, either! Slum lords by any other name deserve to be fed to the rats!

I’d also like back SUPPORT FOR THE TROOPS. I’d love all those yellow magnets to be shoved up Dick Cheney’s ass. I’d like real support—caring what hellhole we send them to, for instance. Caring WHY and if it is really necessary, for instance. I’d like the VA better funded, I’d like educational benefits that enables vets to compete successfully in the civilian world. I’d like it to stop being lip service only. And yes, this didn’t happen only in the last eight years, but it happened to a degree that seriously makes my mind rock, and while lies of the most blatant sorts are told to the contrary.  I’d like our NEXT President to not whine about wanting to veto things like Senator Webb’s idea for a new GI Bill “cause it costs too much”.  If you can’t afford to educate your veterans, you can’t afford the war, ok?   I’d like health care that cares about their minds AND bodies; I’d like their families really supported while they are gone at war instead of them being given stupid little pep talks. I’d like the backdoor draft that is the “stop loss” program to die a painful and unnatural a death as possible for a ‘policy’ to die.

I’d like the media…print, radio, and television, not to all be owned by just a few old rich right wing guys. I’d like REAL investigative reporting back. I need Dan Rather back, thank you very much! I need REAL NEWS, not what some tween rock star did in the stupidism of the day contest, thank you. I need news, not a contest in ball-busting idiocy from “pundits”, thank you.

Oh, and I’d like my ECONOMY  back to looking more like it did when Clinton was President….can I have THAT back, and money in the government bank account? I’m seriously needing somebody to slap the shit out of bankers contributing to the housing mess with tricky loans that make me wonder if they thought it through. I mean, did they WANT to repossess one out of every ten homes? Or did they think that anyone of those poor fools who bought the sales-talk really could suddenly come up with house payments that increased by 50% in some cases? Gee, and here I thought that “magical thinking” was a stage for four year olds, not for adults. Wow. And I need whoever said it was ok to make “interest only” loans (where the premium is never paid and the home owner struggles to maintain what a renter would have a landlord to manage because this is as close as they can get to the “American dream”) to be given to me as a sex-slave. Wait, no sex will be involved, unless THEY get off on being severely beaten about the head and shoulders while being verbally abused as well. So, does that make them just an ordinary slave? Or does it make me a dominatrix? (Can I get leather with that?) Either way, I need some SANITY IN LENDING back so the whole damned world doesn’t need to tremble when the house of cards falls down.

I need the 9-11 birthed FEARS STUFFED back into their anxiety closet. I need immigration cops to stop acting all Gestapo in my country so the Statue of Liberty can stop weeping and wishing she could slash her wrists. I need legal aliens to stop being jailed and deported for silly assed minor reasons (sometimes discovered when they apply for citizenship) because everyone is acting a bit xenophobic about foreigners. I need to NEVER have to see an immigration cop ride a bike up onto a lawn, where he lets himself into a fenced yard as if it was his personal property, because by gawds, those ‘wetbacks’ might be terrorists, too, so we get to act all kinds of intolerably asinine.

I need the police departments of the country to BE POLICEMEN, NOT PARAMILITARY goons. I need back cops in a blue suits who might get a free donut, but would NEVER taser a woman for asking him why he was using a baton on a man already down flat on the street or dump a man in a wheelchair out onto the sidewalk to “search” him. So, yes, I really, really need those back, or I will never enter a major urban center in America again.

I need back the doctors who WORK FOR PATIENTS, not for insurance companies or pharmaceutical companies. I need them to care if their treatment works for me; I need it to be affordable. I need to not be trying to advise friends on herbal remedies for their sick kids because they have no insurance and can’t afford medical care. Somebody must give back to me the assurance that medical care is a right, not a privilege!

I need the EPA to be run by science-minded folks who give a damn about the state of the environment, both in America and in the world.  I need BACK some protection for the environment, not for rich corporations.  I need someone in charge who understands that starting things the “green” way actually makes MORE sense and more CENTS in the long run—-doing things the stupid un-environmentally correct way is a short run loot-the-environment method that is just 21st century robber baron behavior.  I need the EPA to be given its teeth back, what few it had, because it can’t gum those bastards into submission!

But the biggest item on the list? I need PEACE. I need real diplomacy instead of military adventuring. I need the war over and the men and women of the military that I adore back home with their families. I need to not be worrying about going to war with Iran. I need a government interested in forward looking energy policies that don’t kiss oil company or car factory ass, so we don’t need to be so damned dependent on oil as to have to start wars over it. I need to know that my great-grandchildren won’t still be trying to pay off the war that Geo. Bush started for entirely wrong reasons and with no good plan of how to win and end it all.  I need people who know talking is not weakness—it is the profoundest strength out there; only the weak and fearful really prefer the shoot first method.

Soon as everyone is ready to deliver, let me know, I will clear the way and send the shipping address for all of the above.