It's taken me a long time to get my B.A. in English.  It's been a road with a lot of turns in it.  There were times when I couldn't picture myself where I am in life right now.  In my imagination I figured I would be working some job that I enjoyed, not a year away from graduating college.  But here I am, more than a year after my Grandmother died, only eight classes away from graduating.  It's something I wish my Grandmother was here to see.  Alas she is not, but I am of the belief that whatever is meant to happen will happen.  My life might not be how I pictured it, but it is how it was meant to play out.

I've spent two semesters at CSUN now, both quite different from each other.  The first semester was so great, without a bit of struggle.  I got the highest grade point average I've ever had for a semester, 3.45 GPA.  My second semester was not so grand, nor was it easy.  I took five classes totaling fifteen units, the most I've ever taken.  I also started a new job during the middle of this last semester, making those fifteen units feel more like thirty.  Somehow I made it through.  The lessons I learned this past semester are many.  One of them is that I can handle anything that's thrown at me and I will bend but not break.  I made some friendships that I know will last a long time and some that won't.  But each one of those friendships are important in their own way.

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
- Howard Zinn

"Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither."
-Benjamin Franklin

May I ask you something?  When did dissent become unpatriotic?  I ask because I feel that the Republicans have twisted logic and have turned questioning the war in Iraq, or anything else this President does for that matter, unpatriotic.  It doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand why the Neo-Con Republicans have turned to attacking those who question their motives, their actions, and their gains.  By labeling those who would disagree with them cowards and/or traders to the American cause the Neo-Cons set up a scenario in which dissent is quelled by the fear of being labeled, the shame of all shames, a liberal.  The word liberal has become a political scarlet letter.  For their part the so-called liberals have done a horrible job fighting this label and creating their own.  It is the Neo-Cons tactic to label things unfavorably in order to make them less palatable to the general masses who don't think for themselves.  It is also their tactic to label unfavorable things to make them more palatable, such as the war in Iraq, which is labeled "fighting terrorism."

But the point is, as one of the quotes I started this essay with, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.  To question those in power is a matter of vigilance.  Because history has shown us time and time again that government grows until it is corrupted by those who wish control it.  The government we have now is the most corrupt government we've ever had in this country.  And I'm not just railing against Republicans, I'm also pointing a finger at the Democrats.  Their complicity in this corruption is in allowing the corruption to happen, as well as their own faults that cause them to follow the money.  We have allowed our politicians to become leeches of corporate America.  Is it any wonder that the Democrats can't get their act together and fight the wrongs that prevail from the other side of the aisle?  It is because they are powerless to rock the boat for fear that they will fall off and drown.