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Every tyranny needs the cosmetics of danger and opposition to justify its treachery. Hitler had the Jews. Stalin had the Counter-revolutionaries and Enemies of the People. Bushco has Terrorism and the Peace Movement.
Transmuted by the alchemy of treachery, the opposition to evil and the victims become the evil. We are unpatriotic, unamerican, we do not support the troops, we endanger the Homeland (a new coinage to the American vernacular, re-minted from 1930's Nazi Germany where it served similar purpose).
What do good citizens do in a democracy when the government misbehaves? We vote for different representation. But the voting is rigged, and even when not, our Congress is thwarted by the "signing statements" of the "unitary executive" (a cosmetic improvement over "the decider") or the powers that be simply lie, and when caught in their lies suffer no consequences, the putative political opposition (i.e. the Democrats) apparently placing some bizarre political strategy above their responsibility to oppose bad governance. May one suppose that these Democrats -- thinking to assume power in 2009 -- desire that the bridge of treachery remain intact for their turn at the tiller of the ship of state?
Regardless of one's lifelong partisan persuasion, it may in fact make no difference if we pull the lever on the left or that on the right if each side is intent upon maintaining the structure of the tyranny established across the past several years, unless perhaps one has an obsession for the process of changing the names on the doors or will personally gain some advantage or profit under, say the Democrat marquee as opposed to the Republican. Either way it appears that the guilty will remain not only unpunished but will have established the precedent for future abuses of power, the Bill of Rights permanently buried, the slaughter continuing, and the torture, and the people progressively (interesting use of that word!) screwed.
But I digress -- back to the cosmetics -- Recently hitting the WEB is the story of the retired college professor who WALKED from Boston to our newly installed Madam Speaker Pelosi's office in DC to submit his petition for impeachment by the putative opposition Democrats. Briefly, he was simply refused audience with Her Eminence. This fine man who walked from Boston to the home office of once the world's oldest democracy had the door slammed in his face by the leader of the party most of us voted for as recently as 2006! Regardless of the outcome of our votes, votes that installed a majority opposition in both houses of Congress -- it simply has made no difference! How can we expect a different result in 2008?
And with regard to my activist compadres, I sincerely intend no derogation, but I will submit that beyond our endeavor to parade our conscience, we have accomplished very little except perhaps to give Bushco the cosmetics of repelling "unamericans" right here in the "homeland." The professor from Boston had the right idea in carrying his petition to the seat of power, but he suffered the disadvantage of insufficient force. He, an army of one, regardless of his noble cause and personal fortitude and courage, in lacking the power of numbers, lacked the only power that Bushco comprehends, they simply being incapable of dealing with opposition in any other context, and apparently now the same is true of our Madam Speaker and her obedient apparatchniks.
On one occasion, several years ago, I went to DC with 400,000 (a number the complicit media took too long to admit to) but even that force was insufficient. It would take a million, perhaps more,
perhaps two or three, and those millions would need to steel themselves with the resolve not to retreat until the cause for a re-birth of America was won.
Goodness, does that suggest the "R" word? Well, so be it. After all, that is how the first America was born.
................Discouraged but not yet beaten down, Rafe Pilgrim
