TheWiseOldFart

I reached the age of 21 in 1967. I was excited about the general election in 1968. I began my first year in high school in 1960, the year John Fitzgerald Kennedy became our 35 th president. Like most young men and women my age, I was excited, and disappointed that I was unable to vote for him. The man I admired was murdered on November 22, 1963. I had just begun my senior year. Like nearly everyone else in America, we mourned his loss for three days. I continue to believe that our government will never allow the people to know the truth about that fateful day in Dallas, Texas. President Kennedy’s brother, Bobby, was a candidate for the presidency in 1968. This was important to me. I admired Bobby Kennedy, and although I could not vote for his brother, I would be voting for the first time and he would receive my vote. Once again tragedy struck. In June of 1968, Bobby Kennedy was murdered in Los Angeles. I was devastated, and my life would change in a small but important way. I hadn’t g...

  Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart   The George W. Bush Administration forced the passage of several policies which remain and are in direct violation of the Bill of Rights. Eager to defend the failure of “W’s” administration to protect our nation from attacks which took the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent men, women, and children, they passed the Patriot Act less than two months after the cowardly attacks on 9/11. Among the other failures by the second worst president in history, was the creation of ICE. Over my 77 years as a patriot, 67 as an American interested in our political system, I have become greatly fearful as I watched our guarantees under the Bill of Rights removed by a corrupt government. The right-wing continues to move us further to the right and away from the democratic promises of our Founding Fathers. “Fascism has arrived in America and it’s waving a flag and wearing a cross.” After the passage of the Patriot Act, illegal searches became the norm, and seizure ...