By Dennis Loo, 8/14/07
On August 8, in “Turns Out
We Are Mad as Hell,” Cindy Sheehan at After Downing Street excerpted comments
from someone whose sentiments were typical of those that Cindy received about
her original posting (“I’m Perturbed as Heck”).
I think that this person’s
comments are really helpful and indicative of the struggle going on among very
many people right now:
“I’m just another lame
American afraid to change my whole life…I shouldn’t have to. But that’s
hardly the point, I know. It seems pretty late in the game to still be looking
for alternatives to armed revolution. But I am sooo non-violent. I’m still just
asking for someone else to do it.”
For dramatic social change
to occur – which is exactly what is called for at this juncture, as increasing
numbers of people are realizing – some people
do have to change their whole life (as Cindy Sheehan did).
Along with that a much, much
larger number of people need to do things that are out of the ordinary. They
must do things that contribute to major social change. They don’t have to turn
their whole lives upside down, but they DO have to step out and take a stand.
In other words, both the Cindy’s of the world must emerge – a lot more of them
– AND millions of less known people must step forward in smaller, but real
ways.
If you aren’t going to
change your whole life, then the contradiction that “we the people are
literally being ignored” (as the person who wrote to Cindy also stated)
still has to be
addressed by literally millions. The time for asking someone else to do it must
be brought to a decisive end.
As I’ve written at ADS and elsewhere, for
instance, here, the majority sentiment for impeachment and,
probably at this point, for criminal trials,
needs to be made visible. THE PEOPLE have to stop confining themselves to
pleading with our elected representatives to do the right thing. The Democratic
Party leadership isn’t going to do the right thing. They have made this crystal
clear. In fact, they are spectacularly doing many of the most inexcusable
things one could imagine.
THE PEOPLE must show
themselves and assert their power. Nothing else will do. With this we have a
chance to drive out the Bush Regime and without this we will not. The
suffocating, frustrating, infuriating feelings that so very many people have
must find a release and a vehicle for expression.
This is what the Declare
It Now: Wear Orange campaign is designed to do. It’s about
making the invisible mass sentiment manifest and it’s about declaring yourself
– publicly – against the immoral, inhumane, murderous, criminal, irrationalist
cabal who are ruling this country and wreaking havoc upon – and gravely
endangering – the planet.
If just 2% of the 58%+ who
want to see Bush and Cheney gone were to wear orange in their daily lives
(ribbons, armbands, t-shirts, etc.) then we would have a sea of millions of
people wearing orange and the unmistakable signs of a major cultural shift.
Does anyone think that
anything less than this will suffice in these times of terrible danger and
peril? Has the Democratic Party and the mass media done anything to disprove
this proposition? Are they not everyday reinforcing in graphic ways the truth
that the people must take things into our own hands?
The people in charge now are
determined to prevent genuine democratic action from breaking out. They hope to
confine people’s activities to those actions that will not jeopardize the
existing order and the existing – and expanding – extraordinary disparities of
wealth and power. They are hoping to lull us into putting all of our hopes into
the 2008 elections.
The Bush regime is one
pretextual incident away from declaring martial law. They stole the last two
presidential elections. The Democratic Party presidential hopefuls deemed by
the mass media as legitimate – Clinton, Obama and Edwards – have all signed
onto the White House’s threats on Iran and the essentials of the rest
of the Bush program. As stupid as Bush is, do you think that he and the rest of
his cabal who believe that they are on a mission from God and who believe that
they talk directly to God, are dumb and fair-minded enough to allow themselves
and their vicious agenda to be simply voted out of power?
The people in charge are
counting on being able to carry out their despicable program through their
command and control over the major organs of political power and in the mass
media. They continue to shield these despicable tyrants in the White House like
Frankenstein’s creator sought to protect his monster from the outraged
villagers. The time for pitchforks and blazing torches and marching on the
house on the hill is here.
The enablers and apologists
for this criminal White House continue to insist that impeachment is “off
the table.” What
is this table that the Democratic Party thinks impeachment cannot be on,
but talk of a nuclear strike on Iran,
can be on? What kind of system
treats impeachment as verboten and treats war crimes and torture as legitimate?
What kind of fools would we be to be sucked in by this criminal craziness?
We have to find a way to
mobilize the people of this country directly and in ways that do not depend
upon favorable media and public official attention.
This way – this path –
exists. It involves the people refusing to any longer forsake their power and
to undertake collective, independent actions as THE PEOPLE. We either take this
path – and soon – or we will be forced to accept more and more horrors under
this regime and its enablers. 2008 is too late. Now is the time.
Dennis Loo is co-editor of Impeach
the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, a
member of the National Steering Committee of the World Can’t Wait: Drive Out
the Bush Regime and blogging at http://dennisloo.blogspot.com.