by Dennis Loo
Yesterday the major party vice-presidential candidates held their “debate.” What did we hear? We got a script-reciting Christian fascist posing as a reformer and a fascist-enabler posing as a change agent. The same man who, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blocked other women from testifying who would have supported Anita Hill’s allegations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, the same man whose party warns us of the dire consequences on the Supreme Court if the GOP wins, the same man who contributed mightily to the rush to war on Iraq, the same man who has for thirty-five years done the bidding of the rich and powerful, now wants our endorsement.
On the other side we have the self-styled champion of “Joe six-pack,”
who thinks the End Days are coming in her lifetime, who thinks that the
immoral war on Iraq is God’s mission, whose odds of becoming president
after 72-year old McCain fulfills the mortality table expectations are
very high, and whose stealth agenda includes formally abolishing the
church-state divide and making the Hebrew Scriptures the law of the
land.
What manner of craziness is this? Is this the best that this country’s leadership class can produce? Is that all there is?
Ladies
and Gentlemen, step right in, the show’s underway! Step into the big
top tent. You can have either the 1980s version of the GOP or you can
have the 2008 version of the GOP! Lay your money down here, and you can
watch the two-ring circus! Come one, come all!
If you”re one of
the millions of Americans who can’t believe that things have gone so
far, if you can’t believe that torture is now being openly and widely
practiced, if you can’t believe that your government is waging wars
based on proven lies, if you can’t believe that the one realistic
choice that you have is between a candidate who votes for the telecom
amnesty bill and another candidate who also votes for the telecom
amnesty bill, if you can’t believe that your choice is between a
candidate who votes to give $700 billion to bailout Wall Street
billionaire thieves, and another candidate who votes for the $700
billion bailout, if you can’t believe that your choice is between a
candidate who threatens to use nukes on Iran and another who does the
same, if you can’t believe that your choice is between a candidate who
thinks that Pakistan’s sovereignty need not be respected and another
one who thinks the same, if you still can’t believe that your choice is
between open advocates of theocracy and those who seek to accommodate
the theocrats and accommodate the war criminals, if the rolling
disaster of deregulation and privatization, adopted by both parties,
are starker than ever, then I have a proposal for you:
Don’t buy
the hype. Don’t throw in your lot with these plunderers and frauds. Do
what is right. Do the only moral and only truly realistic thing. Do the
one thing that has ever really made a difference. Express your
sentiments publicly. Make the collective power of the actions of the
people acting independently in the public arena a reality.
While
the Bush regime has done and continues to do unbelievably horrid things
and despite the fact that their deeds and words are so extreme and so
disastrous that their popularity is the lowest ever for a White House,
the opposition party and the “watchdog” media are in cahoots with the
reactionaries in the White House. We are witnesses to one of the most dramatic and despicable abdications of responsibility in history.
How
can the extremely widespread despair and anger at the government’s
actions by millions and millions in this country be translated into a
material force given this absence of leadership that has been so
disorienting and disabling for the people?
Individuals who feel
profoundly unhappy about what’s been going on must openly show their
feelings. Those with the courage and determination to step outside the
killing confines of the electoral arena, those who realize that the
only chance of reversing this monstrous trajectory is through the
actions of the people, must shoulder the responsibility in the vacuum
left by the Democratic Party and corporate media. This is not an easy
thing to do. But there is no other way.
Stepping forward now
means being willing for the time being to be in a relatively small
minority of those who have wrenched themselves free of the
powers-that-be’s stifling embrace and the suppressive apathy of those
too timid so far to do anything and who are now going along with the
unacceptable and indefensible. The timid, the poorly or misinformed,
and the misled need you to step forward, you who feel these matters
most strongly. If you do, you create the conditions within which others
can and will step forward too. In a time when historic crimes are being
committed by our government, when the status quo grows increasingly
absurd and terrible, the brave must act.
Orange is the color of
resistance and a declaration that torture, unjust wars and irrational,
anti-rational theocrats will not carry the day. Spread the resistance.
Organize among your friends and find ways to help others come out of the closet of
complacency. The actions of a few bold people with right and truth on
their side can create repercussions far, far beyond their immediate
numbers. Join the work of World Can’t Wait. Start a chapter in your
school or community. Make signs and hold them up to traffic. Make
flyers. Go wild. Be bold. Declare it now!