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© Copyright 2004, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.

"If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences."
-- Ecclesiastes 10:4

Letter to George Bush from a Mother and Artist

By
Susan Johann
Artist, Mother, Citizen of New York City

Mr. Bush,

To many Americans you are neither "dear" Mr. President nor even Mr. President. The latest count in my city of NY is that only 24% of us voted for you.

So, many of us did not vote to have Social Security gutted nor our civil liberties destroyed. We should remind you that the vigor and wealth generated in the great cites of America are solidly against the regime that you lead and the policies that you encourage. The neighborhoods are dense with the foes of the neo-conservative agenda.

From the rappers of Harlem to the Latinos in LA, artists and activist vocal opponents will make themselves heard and seen. Beethoven did not disappear as the Napoleonic wars raged; instead he wrote the "Ode to Joy." We will find the ways in soft and whispered conversations to keep liberty alive; real liberty, not the fear based driven drivel that would take from our neighbors the right to live with whom they would and love whom they love. You wish to make adults into criminals if they have a love affair and commitment to another of the same sex. While you rant about the rights of the unborn child you send the born ones off to war and lie to them about the safety of the depleted uranium that is poisoning them and their unborn.

The heartbreak for us is the continual use of the tragedy which happened in our city on 9/11/2001 to wage a war that clearly is unlawful. The heartbreak is that the lies told by you and your Secretary of State at the UN will kill so many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and many thousand Americans who serve in our armed forces.

So, Mr. Bush, you are the President of the United States by another questionable election, with so many unverifiable votes that the people know - in their hearts, they know: that it is now a place where war drums are your beat of preference and heart beats are nullified.

Prayer and activism and art will not disappear. Even the Nazis and the Stalinists were not able to completely eradicate either. And neither will the elitists who speak with forked tongues essaying truth but telling lies, spreading fear while crying safety first, they will not completely destroy the idea that "all men are created equal and that we are endowed by our Creator certain unalienable rights." Great ideas cannot be killed so easily.

Our passion will be vocal and deep, sometimes very clear and sometimes cloaked in metaphor. But it will be there, and it will endure. We will not let you destroy it. We watched the towers as they were demolished and have huge questions still about how those murders took place, and we are unafraid and want no more lies. We will not let you destroy the truth. So be on notice, endurance is our great strength and the truth, as God is our witness, will be revealed.

Susan Johann Artist, Mother, Citizen of New York City
http://www.susanjohann.com

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