Over the past four years under President George W. Bush's administration, we've seen rollbacks of environmental standards, erosion of civil liberties, record deficits, a debt in the trillions and militarization of foreign policy.

It's astounding that most of my fellow Americans still believe that Bush's policies have made us safer from terrorism. This belief seems to reflect denial, because it doesn't follow the facts. Even by the estimations of the CIA, Pentagon and the Iraqi interim government, Iraq has unquestionably become a breeding ground for anti-American militants. This is not surprising, since the U.S.-led war has killed over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, according to a study published in the esteemed medical journal The Lancet.

In his second term, Bush will surely continue to implement policies that might lead us down a path of financial, environmental and diplomatic ruin. The good news is that the path is unsustainable and therefore constrained, but the bad news is that there might be irreparable damage in the meantime. Given the right-wing Congress and likely right-wing Supreme Court appointments, there will probably be few checks and balances on the Executive branch, and the burden of resistance falls on us. More than ever, we must do everything we can to prevent our government from turning into a fascist regime.