In Damn Right We're Angry, Paul Waldman lets loose with a long list of
why progressives are justifiably angry with what's happened to the US over
the last few years:
We’re angry because of what has happened to our country, because of how
we’ve been treated, and because of the innumerable crimes the
conservatives have committed. We’re angry at the president, we’re angry
at the Congress, we’re angry at the news media. And we have every right
to be.
Yes, we’re angry at George W. Bush. We’re not angry at him because of
who he sleeps with, and we’re not angry at him because we think he
represents some socio-cultural movement we didn’t like 40 years ago, or
because he hung out with a different crowd than we did in high school.
We’re angry at him because of what he’s done.
...
Yes, we’re angry about Iraq, and we may be for the rest of our lives. ...
We’re angry that when we talk about ending this monstrous war, the
soulless hypocrites who are glad to send more and more men and women to
be scarred and maimed and killed in Iraq have the gall to accuse us of
not “supporting the troops.” We’re angry that people whose actions
exhibit nothing but contempt for freedom and liberty and justice, who
wouldn’t know real patriotism if it came up and smacked them across the
face, pin a little flag on their lapel and say that we’re the ones who
hate America.
...
We’re angry that America may now be the only country in the world in
which torture is an officially sanctioned policy, proclaimed proudly in
public. ...
And we’re angry that Bush has made our nation so hated around the
world. We’re angry that the next time a Democrat gets elected, most of
their time will be spent cleaning up the god-awful mess Bush has made
of everything.
We’re angry that we and our children and our grandchildren will have to
keep paying off the nation’s debt, which now stands at nearly $9
trillion. We’re angry because every other industrialized country in the
world has a single-payer health care system that works, and we pay more
for ours than any of them, yet we have 45 million people with no health
insurance. We’re angry that the insurance companies have convinced
their obedient servants in Congress that the Rube Goldberg perpetual
paperwork machine we have now is somehow “the best health care in the
world” and preferable to a system in which you go to your doctor, get
treated and go home, without having to fill out 10 forms and get down
on your knees before the gods of the HMO bureaucracy to get a partial
repayment minus your deductible and your co-pay.
We’re angry that the federal government is brimming with people
fundamentally opposed to the mission of the agencies over which they
preside, the anti-environmentalists who run the Interior department,
the mining company lobbyists in charge of mine safety and the
union-busters in charge of worker safety.
Read it for yourself.