My gosh, is the day finally here? I can hardly believe it sometimes — after 8 long years of sheer hell, counting down the hours till relief has arrived, it’s almost surreal to think this is the last day that I — or any of us — have to live under this malaise of terrible guidance and misplaced leadership. More than once I’ve felt like crying; not because I’m disillusioned about the new administration, which is no more or less human than the rest of us and will have good days and bad days, but because this incredibly heavy weight of tension, worry, depression, and oppression is being lifted from my and many others chests and my soul simply doesn’t know where else to go. If I tear up, you’ll have to forgive me; I am overflowing with relief after being scarred for so long.

But, let me first give you a proper send-off before we bid you a final, “adieu!”; after all, I’ve been waiting a long time to do this.

Get out. Get out of the government that you have not used to better Americans and the rest of humanity, but which you have used as a plaything, a tool to further you and your cronies’ better interests, to pay homage to your buddies and your daddy’s friends, disregarding anyone and any principles you had to trample and grind under your heel to make it happen. It was never yours to use in the first place, and why we let you have it, I’ll never know, but know this — no more.

Get out. Get out of our foreign relations where you have made us either the laughingstock of the entire world or the biggest bully, threatening and tossing temper tantrums and poking our nose where it doesn’t belong and without permission. You have embarrassed us to our allies and incensed our enemies. Travelers are afraid to say they are from the United States lest they reap scorn and derision from the places they visit where we used to be welcomed gladly. Our foreign friends look at us in disbelief, saying, “Why?” I am tired of apologizing for my country’s actions. World, we are so very sorry. Please forgive us. But we will not forgive you, Mr. Bush, for ruining our noble place in the world and making us look like fools and children.

Get out. Get out of our economy that you have squandered and dashed across the face of businesses and workers with wild abandon, ignoring problems and regulation in favor of making a quicker buck for your special interests and investments. You stood by and did nothing while greedy investors and businesses took everything their grubby hands to get ahold of and used it against the country for their own gain, and when they did start to fail, you handed them bags of money. I hope they take good care of you in your retirement, because you won’t be getting a cent out of me.

Get out. Get out of our religions and our beliefs, which you have used not as a moral compass for your actions or a mirror for your judgements, but as a terrible, bloody axe that has hacked down empathy, slashed at compassion, and beheaded love. Along with the bastions of the religious right, you have established a new policy that any belief is ok in the USA as long as it is Bushian. You have tainted policy and procedure with so-called, “faith-based initiatives”, which are nothing more than barricades erected to shield the exclusive and discriminatory hate speech and actions of the religious conservatives and further the spread of their ensnaring, evil message, all in the name of being, ‘holy’. You are certainly not that, Mr. Bush.

Get out. Get out of our military where you have taken the good, noble graces of the men and women who would willingly die (or have died) for their country and used them as throwaway soldiers for your own unjustified wars. These are wonderful people, Mr. Bush, and you’re killing them. It’s high time they all come home to live and work and be among us again; we love them, we miss them, and you’re done screwing with them and their lives for your own stupid wars. We are done trying to “fix” the difficult countries of the world in the name of oil, revenge, and made-up terrorist and weapon threats. Our soldiers deserve more respect than that.

Get out. Get out of our historical town and the mansion steeped in tradition and meaning. Washington D.C. is tired of you and your tripe, and I cannot imagine the frustration everyone living near you has felt in having you so close, yet not close enough to wring your neck. Take with you all your cohorts, the slimy, stinking masses that covered up your idiotic blunders with rhetoric and used you and your power to further their own nefarious means — not that you were innocent, of course, because you enabled them, Rummy and Cheney and Rice and all the others, to keep an exclusive, “old boys club”, going where the public was patted patronizingly on the head and told to run along, all the while being cut from behind with your rapiers for your own giggles.

Get out. Get out of our lives, our present, and our futures. We have spoken, Mr. Bush, and we have made a new covenant. The errors of the past have been learned; there is a new era coming and it doesn’t involve you nor those that see the sun rising from your pants. The religious freaks, the close-minded, the fat executives, the racist, hate-spewing, discriminatory masses — you have all been expired. Your time is up. We are the new generation, one that sees beyond the color of skin, the difference in sex, the rigidness of class. We have seen a new future where our children will not even think of these things as factors; where the world communicates at the blink of an eye and we have friends of all walks of life. Where people are judged by how hard they work, how much they care for their world, and how much they love one another. We will not separate by types of people, types of love, or types of belief, because we know that the goal is goodness, compassion, empathy, and love, and they come in many forms and creeds. All that follow these principles are welcome with open arms.

You are not welcome.

Get out.

Get. Out.

Get the FUCK out, George Bush. The new dawn is here and we are taking our country back. You don’t belong.

Get Out — AND STAY OUT.