By Charles Springer
It seems that our elected officials are not doing their jobs.
They do not listen to the U.S. people who ARE the REAL power in this country, state, county and city. Here in Santa Monica the impact of this war will be felt by ALL who do business.
With this war, in time, you will see the city become a virtual ghost town. People will be afraid to leave their houses to come out and shop. People will be afraid to travel. People who once had respect for our country will not come here. People know what will eventually happen, they have seen it happening in Israel for decades now and it has ALREADY happened here with devastating consequences.
We have not forgotten Sept. 11 nor should we. We have a maniac of a “leader” running this country into the ground and making enemies of our allies, all for oil and “daddy’s” honor. We shouldn’t be spending money on war instead of our children’s education. Our country’s leaders need to focus on our health care and helping solve the homeless problem so we can get off the streets.
And cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of a country in deficit makes no sense. Now our country, which is in very hard economic times, will be worse off than it was before this war. And everyone will feel the pinch eventually in some way shape or form. Whether it be economic, being involved in an attack on our soil again, or having a loved one come home either in a body bag or with some mental or physical trauma that war has a habit of causing, we will ALL feel the pain of it.
The homeless will suffer most of all. We have no type of protection from any kind of attack. And there is a chance that we could become weapons ourselves. All one of these maniacs has to do is infect one of us who travels with a slow incubating, highly contagious virus and he or she will carry it to his or her destination — spreading it all along the way.
And I, for one, am not so arrogant to think that these people have not been here for at least a decade planning and studying for such an occasion as this. Sept. 11 is all I need to know to tell me this is true.
So now that all you in Santa Monica who support this war got your wish, you can’t complain when anything terrible happens in this country. If you own a business you will be affected. If you have children of drafting age, you will be affected. If you own property, you will be affected. If you play the stock market you will be affected.
And you can’t blame the homeless for this because you backed this person who put OUR nation in this trick bag. And, in time, you will see through the “smoke and mirrors” to see how much of a fool he is making out of this great nation. (Charles Springer is a freelance writer and artist living on the streets of Santa Monica.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 24, 2003. Read the original PDF.