In response to a lot of stories in the last few months I wrote this but then decied not to publish it; I couldn’t work out if I was being too extreme or not. Then I was reminded of the Maher Arar affair by The North Carolina Experiment, and realised that sometimes you just have to let fly – it’s getting a bit late for polite restraint. If you’re offended by this don’t be – it’s meant with the best of intentions in a spirit of constructive criticism – write me instead.

Letter to America.

During the cold war the Soviet Union accused America of being all kinds of bad, bad things : War mongering, manipulative, fascistic, interfering, greedy, corrupt politically, corrupt economically, racially divided, intent on creating an underclass of the economically marginalized, driven by increasing rewards for the fabulously wealthy at the expense of the ridiculously poor, lacking health care for the poor, the elderly, the disadvantaged, incapable of providing a free and equitable education system for all, rewarding avarice, belittling redistribution, drowning in crime while locking up more and more of it’s own people, internationally blinkered, bigoted, politically bankrupt and pork-barrel overrun, environmentally blinded, rampantly religious and incapable of making logical ethical decisions; basically a society running onto the rocks and acting increasingly insane.

People heard what the Soviets said, looked at America and, by and large, laughed, because the difference between what was said and the reality that presented itself was so clear and so wide.

But now, when the Soviet Union is long gone and the new right have all had a jolly good laugh at how they buried those commies . . . it’s all starting to sound, well, not as funny as it once did. Maybe it seems improbable but I honestly don’t see how America can survive another Bush term intact. Another 4 years of this demagogue and his cronies and God knows what will happen. Economies can be rebuilt, reputations can be repaired, friendships can be patched up but the basic fabric of a country – the social contract that allows individuals to act together as one nation – when that goes it takes more than a couple of years of deficit taxation and eating some humble pie at the UN to put right. If Bush gets another 4 years with a compliant Congress there could well be nothing left where America once was except a sizzling hole full of corruption, greed, hatred, God & guns.

I’m not kidding – get rid of this monkey and his crooked troupe while you still can – you’ll be helping yourselves and you’ll be helping the world as well. This isn’t an attack on America or on traditional American values – this is fear about what lies at the end of the path down which President Bush, the Neo-Cons and PNAC is leading the American people. It’s only because America has such a notable tradition of helping the poor and the outcast, of supporting democracy and rewarding fairness, of helping the disadvantaged whilst encouraging intellectual, entrepreneurial and financial rigour at home and abroad that I’m saying this. The higher you climb, the greater the potential fall, so don’t fall!.

If I didn’t like America, if I didn’t care about what happens to America and the American people, I wouldn’t be writing all this – after all, we don’t care what befalls our enemies, just our friends. I’ve been to America at least 10 times in the last 5 years and Americans aren’t greedy, they aren’t corrupt, they aren’t idiots and they aren’t bullies. What they are is being systematically misled by their government whose lies and misrepresentations are endorsed and corroborated by a lazy, scaremongering and blinkered media. Wake up dudes!

But, America, if you must stick with Bush, and it really is your decision guys, just try not to take the rest of us with you when you go, OK.