By Dennis Loo
“There is no longer any doubt as to
whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only
question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the
use of torture will be held to account.” — Major General Antonio
Taguba (Ret.)
In the wake of Fourth of July celebrations,
I”d like to ask a nettlesome question of those who have been festooning
themselves and their surroundings with red, white and blue, flying Old
Glory from their pickup trucks and lawns, and proudly singing about
living in the “home of the brave:” WHY BOTHER?
What liberties that July 4th
is supposed to represent have all too few Americans stood up to defend
over the last nearly eight years?
Which freedoms have not been undermined
or outright eliminated with nary a fuss in this “land of the free?”
What bravery in this “home of the brave” have all too few Americans
demonstrated to date?
Why celebrate the American Revolution
with empty rituals when in 2008 the grounds for a revolutionary change
are far greater than they were in 1776?
We have, after all, a president and vice-president
who declare that they stand above the law, whose loyal and fawning retinue
of law professors, lawyers, advisers and Supreme Court Justices tell them that they can do absolutely anything
if it’s wrapped in the foil of the “national security,” including
overriding and ignoring Congressional law, Constitutional provisions,
the ongoing torture of even – gasp – youngsters, endless detention
without charges even being brought, and spying on hundreds of millions
of Americans.
We have, after all, a White House that
committed the gravest war crime of all by launching wars on countries
that did not threaten us and had not attacked us, doing so on the basis
of literally hundreds of lies that they were caught red-handed purveying,
resulting in the unjust and immoral deaths of well over a million people
to date.
We have, after all, a White House that
daily conceals its ill intentions and ill deeds from the American people
and has turned governance into nothing more than sheer deception, exercised
with unprecedented and unalloyed cynicism.
We have, after all, a White House that
readily commits treason to punish its political opponents, then turns
around and has the nerve to accuse its critics of treason, while its
apologists in the media and think tanks scream betrayal and sedition
hourly of anyone who retains a shred of sense and humanity.
We have, after all, a White House and
Congress that has abrogated the Fourth Amendment and habeas corpus,
items specifically cited in the American Revolution’s grievances against
King George.
We have, after all, a White House that
is preparing to launch another illegal and unjust war, using the same
playbook they used on Iraq, and a Congress and major presidential candidates
that have green-lighted this newest crime.
We have, after all, a White House that
criminally and recklessly left New York City and New Orleans open to
disasters, despite repeated, explicit, and credible warnings for years
preceding, failing further to come to victims” aid in a timely fashion,
the equivalent of abandoning wounded soldiers on the battlefield.
We have, after all, a government whose
enablers and apologists in the Democratic Party and the mass media mock
the First Amendment, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the “home
of the free” by their failure to stand up to – and their collusion
with – these moral monsters and anti-rationalists in the White House.
We have, after all, two candidates for
president who both refuse to hold these war criminals and tyrants accountable
through impeachment and who promise us “change” while having done
nothing substantive to change the government that they themselves have
been important members of all of these years.
We find, after all, ourselves, and this
country, at an historic crossroads.
Yet nearly every single one of our august
political leaders and sage opinion-leaders continue to claim, against
all sense, legal precedent, and propriety, that holding our own homegrown,
world-class criminals accountable for their perverse crimes is unthinkable.
* * *
What is unthinkable is that we
should allow these daily outrages and atrocities to continue in our
names as Americans.
Anyone paying even partial attention
to what has been going on should feel deep shame over what our country
has done – and is doing – in the world and real anger about what we,
and our fellow citizens, have been and are allowing.
Those who say that they want change and
are content at this point to support Obama’s candidacy should ask themselves this question: how can
righting the terrible wrongs of this White House and this Congress be
so easy and so simple as going into a voting booth for a few minutes
once every few years and pushing a few buttons?
How can infamous and grave injustices
such as these (thirty seconds of looking at the pictures from Abu Ghraib
is enough for anyone who still has a conscience), which grow like Topsy
every minute, be rectified by so little done and measures taken so late
as voting?
What have Americans, who say they prize
being Americans, been doing to protect dissenters” right to dissent,
scientists” right and need to tell inconvenient truth to power, women’s
and homosexuals” right to choice, the planet’s very ability to survive,
Muslims and undocumented workers” right to equal protection under
the law, Afghani, Iraqi and Iranian women, children, boys and men’s
right to live and right not to be killed and/or tortured by American
military forces, crushed under the heel of Pax Americana?
Why aren’t there more Americans engaging
in the necessary and valorous acts of civil resistance in the face of
barbarities being committed every single day?
Why have too many Americans been willing
to listen so far to the hypnotic and Houdini-like promises of “change”
from the very individuals who have been co-conspirators in these unspeakable
acts and predatory policies?
Why has
“going along” with the status quo been so powerful a pull upon people
who know in their hearts that others are being killed and tortured in
our names?
1930s and 1940s Germany forewarned us
of this. In the Germans” case, at least, nothing like the rise of
fascism had ever happened before in a country such as that.
This lack of knowledge and warning, unfortunately,
cannot be said of Americans, circa 2008.
There are those who acutely realize these
things. The problem they and we face is that the forces arrayed against
us have extraordinary resources and hold the levers of power, even though
they are small in number and supremely unpopular – Bush and Cheney are
only able to venture out before hand-picked crowds because an unfiltered
gathering would like to tar and feather them. But the fact remains that
Bush and Cheney are in power and the party of “opposition,” well, isn’t the party of opposition. Wishing them to be
what they aren’t won’t do.
We also confront the fact that the broad
masses of people of this country, as much as they in their large majority
dislike or even despise Bush and Cheney, and are disgusted by the Democrats”
craven complicity, have not yet done much more than tell pollsters this
fact and voted against the GOP in recent elections. They continue to
be held in thrall to business as usual, while terrible deeds are being
carried out in the shadows at home and in plain sight abroad.
Many gnash their teeth at the preceding.
Many blame the masses for their quiescence.
But social change has never been accomplished
through the masses of people rising as one to do the right thing. Social
change has never really been secured merely or mainly through the ballot
box. Social change has always started with small, determined numbers
who then succeed in mobilizing a fraction of the population whose actions
and stand come to represent the sentiment of the majority or near majority.
The question then is how can such a minority
– as I”ve written, the 1% – be mobilized?
We don’t need to move the entire population
to act. The inaction of the majority is nothing new. Their inaction
isn’t the principle reason why things continue to go so atrociously.
We do need to – and must – move a fraction
of the populace to act and thereby through their stepping forward provide
the necessary leadership to represent the sentiments of the majority
and move on behalf of that majority to drastically alter the direction
of this country.
The 1% of the people is our proverbial
Archimedes fulcrum.
Parading before us, as in a July Farce
parade, is our naked emperor. Following him are the pretenders to the throne,
who are still clothed, but as they march along, they are visibly shedding their clothes, one by one. Speech before AIPAC,
threatening to attack Iran, there goes the jacket. Support for the telecom
amnesty bill, off goes the pants. Opposition to the Supreme Court’s
decision overturning execution of convictions of child rape, the shirt’s
fluttering to the ground.
We the people have to break the spell
and turn the stands and the street into a festival of the oppressed.
Some – you – have to start it. And others will be emboldened by the
actions of the truly brave.
Here is something that everyone can and
should do: don orange, the color of resistance. Wear it everyday –
a ribbon, an armband, a button. Spread it to others. Support and/or join those planning to demonstrate at
the DNC in August in Denver. Help to get war criminal John Yoo fired
as a law professor and tried as a war criminal. Stop the recruiters
from fueling the war machine with fresh young bodies. Stand up and be counted!
Dennis Loo is an awards winning sociologist,
co-editor of Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney,
Cal Poly Pomona Associate Professor of Sociology, WCW National Steering
Committee Member, Declare It Now originator.