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"Where Is Our War On Infrastructure?"

One out of four working cranes are located in China, helping to build China's infrastructure - with a multi-trillion dollar trade surplus they have sufficient bucks to invest in themselves. We on the other hand are rapidly becoming a debtor nation, thanks to the adventurism and misplaced priorities of the Bush Administration. The seeds of our destruction are being sown daily as we continue to step into the abyss. Aiding the President in his missteps, are his Republican Party loyalists, who march to the same drumbeat and talking points. Perhaps it is unfair to label all Republicans thusly, some are beginning to speak out.

Let me therefore, narrow my focus on Conservatives who have made prudence a curse word and the desire to stop a war that should never have been, cowardice and treason. They are the ones who suggest that universal health care is little more than socialized medicine, as if there were something wrong with socialized medicine. Most of us are one serious illness away from poverty. We were once and to some degree still are considered the wealthiest nation on earth. Shouldn't we take care of our own? What is wrong with the federal government providing American citizens with the basics. Housing and medical care should be provided as a bare minimum. Conservatives are masters of semantics and branding. To advocate what I just have is to be a Socialist. To oppose the war is to advocate cut and run. To stay the course, is to support our troops who are dying on a daily basis. To say that they are dying in vain is to dishonor their sacrifice. Given this, allow me to put it this way, nothing will be gained and a whole lot has been lost by our intervention in Iraq.

Freedom from oppression must be won, it can't be given. What have we gained from going to war with Iraq? We removed a heartless dictator from their midst. but was it really our duty to do so? Iraq under Saddam Hussein, posed no threat to us. The fact that he might have posed a threat to his countrymen should have been of little concern to us. What should be of far greater concern to us is our own country. The American infrastructure was once the envy of the world. Now our infrastructure is in dire need of repair as we concern ourselves with nation building, something candidate George Bush said he would never do. As they used to say in the old westerns, he speaks with fork tongue. Our infrastructure should be of national concern. It is not just a local issue as the Bushites suggest. When the 49 year-old Interstate 35W eight lane highway bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, it was a wake up call for the nation, or should have been. To witness a bridge like that collapse is terror. If Mr. Bush truly wants to fight a war on terror, he needs to focus internally.

We need to fix our own infrastructure, instead of pouring money into Iraq's or Afghanistan. Unfortunately, like Rome before it and the British Empire, America is on the decline. If we desire to be great again, we will rid ourselves of the conservative agenda that for far too long has dominated the American mindset and adopt a more liberal perspective. Yes I said the L word. I mean liberal in the sense that we take care of our own people. To do so wouldn't make the rich any less rich. It might make the poorer less poor. It would also insure that we would once again be the envy of the world. There is no logical reason why countries with far less than us offer more in terms of their society's social needs. There are over 118,000 bridges and highways that are in need of repair. This is where our focus should be, which leads me to my original question, where is our war on our infrastructure?

Learn more about this author, Cedric Mcclester.
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