Look closely at George W. Bush's neck the next time you see a photo of him or a speech on television. Is it my imagination or are there bolts sticking out of his neck? They're there even if his publicity department and make up artists have hidden them well. Bush is a monster and quickly becoming the most notorious America has ever produced in fiction and in fact. I won't say he's the most evil man in the world. I'm sure there are worse. But he is the most dangerous by far. He is an unintelligent, ignorant, self righteous spoiled brat with his hands on the most lethal weapon mankind has ever known. And he is our creation, our Frankenstein. We made him, the American public. Let there be no mistake about it. We did it.

George W. Bush is the product of our arrogance, our ignorance, our avarice, our unabated gluttony, our lack of integrity, and our refusal to take responsibility for our own actions. We assembled him piece by piece, decade after decade. We all did it. None of us are truly innocent in this. Every one of us had a part. Every employee who put in their eight hours doing a half assed, half completed job with little regard to the outcome and left promptly at 5:00, a chip on their shoulder and the attitude that their employer owed them, inserted a bolt. Each time one of us cheated a bit on the rules for our own gain we tightened a screw. Every citizen who complains about gas prices but drives a Suburban to work helped dig up the corpse. Every Little League Dad who teaches his kid winning is everything and then encourages him to rub defeat in the face of his opponent inserted an organ. All of us who live to buy more and more toys and play hard were the ones who snuck into the lab to steal the brain. Every parent who voted against, or not voted at all, to support school bond elections and then proceeded to complain about the poor grades of their darlings, hooked up the electrodes. And let's not forget the voters and people who should have voted but didn't in every past Presidential election. How many of them made their decision, and such an important one, on appearances, on what they saw on the television news which we all readily admit is a manipulative biased infotainment media rather than a credible source? How many constituents simply didn't bother to vote because it got in the way of their play time? How many simply don't bother to even register? We have all worked so hard together to assemble this heinous monster. And finally as a society we threw the switch bringing life to it.

Let's stand back and take a good look at what we've created. Our Commander in Chief is a dense, spoiled rich kid who's been given the biggest and most dangerous toy in the world. He has average intelligence at best. The extent of his experience in foreign affairs is a vacation trip to Mexico. He has never held the type of character building job we all have. He's never worked in a gas station, fast food restaurant or retail store. I doubt his first car was a beat up old Ford or crumbling Volkswagen beetle. Clearly, from his speeches he is not well educated or cultured regardless of whatever degree Daddy bought him. His family connections took advantage of the system and bought his way out of service in the National Guard. Daddy bought him oil wells, a baseball team and a Governorship. And how can we ignore the fact that Daddy's appointed Justices and Florida Brother Jeb connived to weasel him into the Oval Office? I would not want this man as a dinner guest or someone to share a beer with or principal of my son's school let alone President. And now he's lying, cheating, stamping his feet, throwing tantrums to get what he wants. The cost to our society and country without a war is already horrendous. With it, it will be unimaginable. None of us will live long enough to see the mess cleaned up even if it ever is.

However, this is our way. This is the American way. This is how we do things. We are a society of spoiled children. If not George W. Bush it would have been somebody else. He was inevitable. He is the current link in the chain. Clinton had his part. So did George Senior, Reagan, Nixon. Even the immortalized John Kennedy was a link. Is it any wonder we're so vilified world wide we inspire men with families to fly jumbo jets into skyscrapers? For years we've allowed our leaders to apply a hypocritical foreign policy based on doing whatever they want so long as we get what we want, SUVs, wide screen TVs, High tech electronic gadgets, mobil homes, jet skis, oil, oil and more oil. Our international athletes as ambassadors of our culture are an undignified embarrassment. Recall numerous incidents at various Olympics held around the world. When we win we're bad winners. When we lose we're even worse and again, spoiled children throwing tantrums. Looks at the US Olympic hockey team in Nagano trashing their hotel rooms. Look at speed skater Anton Ohno, a spoiled brat if ever there was one, who was directly involved in controversy after controversy. How about our basketball Dream Teams? This is fair play? We should be proud when they humiliate Portugal 134 - 52 and then gloat because they kicked ass?!

The concept that our form of democracy is the only one which protects human rights, the only one other nations should adopt, the ONLY one is absurd and arrogant as hell. These are different cultures with different values, different religions and different societies with different ways of thinking. They're entitled to their own different form of government right or wrong. Who are we to impose our ways by force on the rest of the world? And yet, we all seem to have the false belief our way is the only way. Having lived abroad for only three years I can testify, it's not. It might work for us, although right now it isn't, but it's not going to work for everyone.

The current Bush administration and the corner we've allowed it to paint us into is all our fault. We have a beautiful and special country here and a great Constitution. However, the time has come to put away childish things, to grow up and take a long hard and painful look at ourselves as a society. We must examine ourselves honestly for the faults in ourselves that have led to what, if left unchecked, will certainly be our downfall.

-Phester Swollen