On Buying a New Car/President

The car that we’re in right now –
the Bush and Cheney mobile – is a death trap.  

Many people are checking out the new
models, hoping they can trade in Bush and Cheney for a better car: the
Obama, the McCain or the Clinton. They’re kicking the tires, checking
out the interior, looking under the hood. The car lot is full of balloons
and banners, promising all kinds of things.  

The problem is: these new models are
also not subject to being steered but every four years.  

At least, that is, if you believe the
version of politics that many people do in which the people’s political
role is exercised exclusively in the electoral arena and via the ballot
box specifically.  

As an impeachment activist put it recently: 

“This period before the election is
when our power to cause accountability via impeachment is at its strongest. 
Our power will diminish nearly to zero after the election.  The individual
Congressmen will after the election have no reason to fear us.”

What kind of “democracy” is it where
the people have no power after Election Day and where they
only have power in the months leading up to the next Election Day?  

If this is the case, what kind
of political system do we have, really?  

This isn’t power “of, by and for
the people.” 

This is “offend, buy off and force
the people.”  

Contrary to popular belief, public officials
do not mainly worry about their constituents’ votes. They do, of course,
want to gain and hold onto office, but they know that the constituency
they must please first and foremost is a) their party’s leadership
and b) the mass media. If they don’t please their party’s leadership
and the mass media, then it doesn’t matter how popular they are among
their constituents, their political career is over.  

When impeachment activists lobbied Congress
this past fall and winter, senatorial and house staff told them that
their legislators already knew that the people wanted impeachment,
but the Congressmen/women weren’t supporting impeachment because they “were listening to their party’s leadership.”

Hearing from more and more of their constituents
within the framework of lobbying isn’t changing politicians’ minds.
These “representatives” continue to tell us transparently false
things such as that impeachment is “reserved for extraordinary circumstances”
and “I haven’t seen any impeachable offenses.” 

If these august leaders can’t see that
Bush and Cheney have committed towering crimes that far exceed the standards
for impeachment and actually constitute crimes deserving of trials at
the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, then why would
these same perspicacious and sage leaders be woken up by constituents’
entreaties? If torture of innocents isn’t sufficient grounds for these
public officials, these leaders of the people, to be stirred into action,
if illegal, immoral, and unjust wars – based on lies – that have killed
1.2 million Iraqis and thousands of Americans to date aren’t enough,
if the intensifying threats and obvious moves to the launch of yet another
war, this time on Iran, based again on lies, aren’t enough, if the
debacle of Katrina and the sight of Americans bodies floating face down
in the flood waters and a legendary city in ruins isn’t enough, if
the express and felonious violation of FISA with warrantless spying
on ALL of us seven months before 9/11 isn’t enough, if the
White House’s refusal to even accept Congress’ subpoenas for White
House staff and Vice-President Cheney to testify before Congress isn’t
enough, then what pray tell, would be enough?   

When Vichy Nancy Pelosi declared that “impeachment is off the table,” she was giving the Bush regime the
green light to do whatever they pleased because she was telling them
that the one Constitutional remedy for holding the White House accountable
would not under any circumstances be used.  

This is like going into a fight with
another boxer and saying ahead of time, “I will not use my best punch
against you. I will not try to knock you out. Now let’s fight and
see who ends up winning!” Which fighter would you put your money on?  

When the people confine themselves to
lobbying and threatening to not vote for someone as their sole bargaining
chip, they are likewise saying that they will not do the one thing
that public officials do actually fear and will actually respond to:
going beyond politics (and business) as usual, unapologetically embracing
and gladly expressing the people’s independent power to create a political
atmosphere and dynamic in the society where their sentiments and demands
are something to be reckoned with! 

As long as the relationship between public
officials and the people remains one in which the people restrict their
actions to that of appealing to public officials, the people
will be relinquishing the heart and soul of their real power.  

In Michael Moore’s film “Sicko,”
an expatriate American living in Paris, trying to explain why social
programs and job benefits are so superior in France to that of the U.S.,
says: “In Europe, the governments fear the people. In America the
people fear the government.” 

Governments in Europe fear the people
because the people are willing, seemingly at the drop of a hat, especially
in France, to take to the streets and demonstrate.  

The people of this country will forever
be held in the thrall of the powers-that-be unless and until we free
ourselves of the mistaken belief that our only role is to be able vote
every four to six years for our representatives. As our earlier quoted
impeachment activist put is, the people’s power “drops to zero”
after an election.  

In response to World Can’t Wait’s
statement that demonstrating in Denver at the August 2008 Democratic
National Convention would not principally be to “pressure Congress,”
this same impeachment activist said: “If our purpose is not to be ‘pressuring
congress,’ what on earth could it be? Demonstrating for the sake of
demonstrating?” 

Demonstrating isn’t merely an expressive
exercise – although what would be wrong with that? What could be wrong
with the people showing how they feel and voicing their minds? How could
that be a waste of time? Isn’t this the people’s right?  

The people acting as an independent political
force on the scene, the popular will being exercised and expressed in
material and symbolic form – these are extraordinarily powerful events.
In the 1960s, the ubiquitous peace symbol, long hair and protest music
were signs of a society-wide repudiation of the policies and practices
of those in power.  

When President Nixon finally pulled U.S.
troops out of Vietnam in the 1975 with the fall of Saigon, he didn’t
do it because he wanted to – precisely the opposite. He wanted desperately
to continue to prosecute that war. He had, in fact, plans to use nukes
in Vietnam and/or China, plans which he squashed when he saw from the
White House window the size of the anti-war demonstrations.  

Nixon was forced to withdraw by the fact
that the Vietnamese people were winning the war, U.S. troops were increasingly
refusing to fight and even killing their own officers, the anti-war
movement in the U.S. and abroad was determined, powerful and massive,
and the credibility of the government was perilously low, with people
more likely to believe the anti-war movement than their own government.
(At one point in the Sixties, a national survey of college students
found 80% thought some kind of revolution was needed.)  

Civil rights for blacks were not won
through the election of compassionate and liberal politicians. Civil
rights was won through the powerful grassroots struggle of blacks and
their allies in the streets, at the lunch counters, in the buses, in
the schools and everywhere, demanding change and refusing to accept
anything less. It was won in the songs of the Arial, the attitudes of
people in everyday life, and the courageous actions of those who risked
their lives – and some losing their lives – to fight for change. It
was won in spite of those in the White House and Congress who didn’t
want to make concessions, but were forced to do so lest much greater
upheaval and even revolution ensued instead.  

Greater equality for women was won not
through saviors on high in the Democratic or Republican Parties. It
was won through the mass struggle of women and their male allies who
refused to allow the oppression of women to continue on the level of
everyday life and due to their willingness and daring to breach conventions
and insist on radical change.   

Unions and work safety laws weren’t
secured through the sympathy of liberal politicians. They were secured
through the determined and heroic struggle of workers and their allies
striking, picketing, sitting in, a willingness to stand up in the face
of intimidation, beatings and even murder, demanding recognition, the
right to organize, and the right to a safe working place.  

Social security, welfare, unemployment
compensation and other New Deal measures didn’t come into being because
FDR was such a generous fellow. (Indeed, he did what he did because
the very system of capitalism was in danger of being toppled: “I wish that capitalists would
see that what I am advocating is ” really in the interest of property,
for it will save it from revolution.” (The American presidency by Alan Brinkley, Davis Dyer,
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994 at p. 277).)  

The New Deal came into being because
the people in the thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions pitched
tents in protest on lawns, marched in the streets, spoke out and sat
in, refusing to accept the status quo and the faint promises and threats
from on high. And because there were supporters for this internationally
and there was a rival, genuinely socialist country in the world at the
time that the U.S. imperialists had to compete with and deal with.  

We need to be clear on what the situation
is that we confront.  

The Democratic Party and especially its
leadership are not colluding with the Bush regime because they are unaware
of what the White House is doing and what it is planning. If they were
that credulous and stupid, then they shouldn’t be in office in the
first place! Nancy Pelosi knew in 2002 that the Bush White House was
waterboarding and torturing prisoners. She knew that they were carrying
out warrantless wiretaps on all Americans. She said nothing then and
since ascending to the Speakership, has done nothing about these egregious
activities.  

The Democratic Party is complicit in
these towering crimes because they are playing the same murderous and
cynical game that the GOP is playing: profits over justice, empire above
the people and at all costs.  

Legislators are privy to more grisly
details about what the Bush regime is doing than the rest of the country.
Yet they are steadfastly refusing to act against the moral monsters
in the White House. Their failure to act now will go down in history
in infamy.  

Senators Obama and Clinton know – and
knew for years – that torture was and is going on and they know 
– and knew – that innocents are being indefinitely detained and murdered,
but they have not and will not call out these practices and act to end
them. This has been their responsibility, legally and morally – and
within their power – as members of Congress. When Bush admitted to ABC
News on April 11, 2008 that he approved of torture, the candidates for
president did not call for Bush and Cheney’s immediate resignations.
Instead, they continued to carry out a sleight of hand trick in which
they hope to fool the people into thinking that “change” will come
about when one of them takes office in 2009. These same pretenders to
the throne could have and should have stopped the torture and illegal,
immoral wars, through, if necessary, filibuster, for the last seven
years. For those of you who might say: “But if they had done so then
their political careers would be over,” I have a question: So what?
Is this the measure of a leader, someone who dodges doing the unmistakably
moral, legal and right thing? If they did these things as senators,
what do you think any of them will do as president when they have the
whole empire to defend?  

Torture is the most grotesque, barbaric
and immoral act that any person can do to another human being. It is,
in some ways, even worse than killing someone. Yet this is what this
government is doing and defending.  

How can anyone of conscience know that
this is happening and not do everything in their power to stop it immediately?  

How dare the Democratic candidates for
president tell Iraqis, Afghanis and Americans that we must wait another
eight months to see any of this brought to a halt!  

What kind of world do we now live in
where torture is an accepted and openly practiced policy? What kind
of world is it when one of the major candidates for president – Hillary
Clinton – threatens to “obliterate” a country – Iran – that does
not pose a threat to us and is not immediately condemned as a warmonger?  

What kind of world is it when the most
liberal candidate left in the race – Barack Obama – threatens
to bomb Iran and Pakistan and who refuses to hold torturers to account
NOW?  

Look beneath the pretty paint job on
these cars and see them in their essence. If we are to wrench a different
future from the hands of these criminals and co-conspirators with criminals,
then the people must act and declare it now that we will not go down
their road to hell.  

The DNC in August 2008 in Denver is where
the Democrats will try to convince the American people that they are
the one and true way ahead in the face of the monstrosities of the Bush
regime.  

This is a lie. It must be exposed as
a lie. As we said in the World Can’t Wait’s Call – “That which
you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn – or be forced
– to accept.” 

What will YOU accept? Will you accept
it that torture may go on for at least the next eight months? Will you
accept it that a war on Iran will be permitted over the next six months?
Will you accept the pittance, misdirection, lies and commission of crimes
against humanity that the Democratic Party and the GOP are purveying?  

The whole world is watching. What will
it see? What will YOU do? What kind of world will you live in?  

Declare it now. Spread the Resistance.
Wear Orange Daily.  

Fly the NO TORTURE banners at your places
of worship.  

Shut down the military recruiters in
your town.   

Be in Denver in August 08 to demonstrate
for another world and another way.