Part II of the American dissenter's voice: Losing our fear, regaining our country. How and why Americans took back their country from a proto-fascist dictator, a smarmy Congress and gained a new sense of courageous optimism.
Ronald Reagan once declared, in his 1984 re-election campaign that, "Its morning again in America." During the past six years of the Bush presidency, it has been a cold, dark, and utterly protracted night in America. We were attacked not only by a rogue enemy; but attacked by our own frightened, fellow citizens and our own overly zealous government. We were labeled as un-American, un-Patriotic, and even "coddlers of terrorists" for speaking the truth and demanding answers along with accountability. Now, two days after the historic mid-term elections, which thrust Democrats into power in both chambers of Congress, America should find comfort that it is once again a new dawning of America.
America has been under a gloomy cloud of implicit and defacto tyranny since the 2000 election of George W. Bush. His presidency only came about after a suspicious, pseudo-coronation, by a litigious and divided Supreme Court decision, which gave him the keys to the executive branch. The first eight month of Bush's presidency were marked by pointless agendas and extended vacations in Texas "clearing brush." Those few quiet, serene months, synonymous to a "calm before the storm", would portend an ominous and deadly tempest that would momentarily devastate our will as a people and shock our collective conscience.
Since then, time and again, Bush used a national tragedy to subvert the Constitution, abused his Presidential power, and repeatedly broke his oath of office. Historians, and the Americans who lived through the George W. Bush presidency, will characterize him for his raw, brutal, and egregious attacks on our rule of law. Biographers will describe him as a "Machiavellian man" who undermined the idea we are a nation of laws, not men. This past Tuesday, we resoundingly reminded our president we are not a nation of one man but a nation of many as one.
Laid bare by a constant stream of incompetence, corruption, a decadent, immoral war and largesse paid to a plethora of aristocratic-only acquaintances, Americans developed an indicting dossier on Bush leading to widespread skepticism and vigilance. A once stunned nation, quivering from fear, panic, and paranoia – marching like "the Borg" to a communal submission of minds and wills – beat through all the rhetoric and hollow speeches, the lectern pounding and inculcating messages of alarm and dread. This was a new and now informed electorate that had found hope instead of fear, freedom instead of fascism, and re-born self-sufficiency that demanded democracy over autocracy.
The one-party rule of the republican "boys club" has been exposed as a dismal failure. Neoconservative politics, which stressed imperialism, blind faith, and fundamentalism, proved disastrous. Congressional pre-approval to every whim of the President was found treacherous and deemed a malignant growth of false inerrancy. Fear-mongering, as a methodology to govern a free nation by, establish itself as a monumental mistake. Fear, after the shock wore off, turned to anger; resentment and then action to repel those that would attempt to subdue and rule us through bully tactics, streaming lies and cheap demagoguery. Ideology would now be replaced by realism, facts would supplant faith, and lucidity now outshined postulation and propaganda.
America has outlasted a virulent President and an obsequious Congress that fawned all over a failed frat-boy from Texas, propped up by coldhearted corporations, his own father, and Wall Street beggars. America found that even a cold, barren winter turns to a warming spring and icy snows always melt. We learned that at the pinnacle of darkness, there is always a light on the coming horizon and the dawning of a new day brings promise of peace and prosperity. Bush may still hold office for now, but the "dead wood" talking heads, previously littering the halls of Congress, have been cleared away to usher in a new beginning of 21st century American government. Tyranny and fear never persists, but the resolve of the human spirit always triumphs in the face of malevolent and seditious men.
This week, we voted essential adversary back into the system. Democrats did not get their way on Election Day; the America people got their way. The majority spoke and they mandated the government they wanted, not the one George Bush wanted to give us. This is a historic victory not for democrats but for people-powered politics and democracy. "We the People" showed our sharp rebuke of the Bush administration's radical policies and failures in the Iraq war. This week, the people won and so did our nation. In doing so, Americans showed dissent is truly patriotic, regained our composure, and reclaimed our country.
http://www.ranellirants.blogspot.com/
Frank J. Ranelli is an opinion editorial writer, a research author and critic. He is a former senior editor and current feature writer for the popular online news website, OpEdNews.com. His erudite and chic style of writing has been lauded and extensively published in a variety of news outlets and across the Internet. These include the Naples Daily News, The Online Journal, Information Clearing House, Alternet, The Smirking Chimp, Diatribune, and the former progressive journal of thought, Wicked Philosophy. Frank is currently working on his upcoming book, Rise of the Authoritarians, and is participating as a co-author in prominent philosopher Russell Blackford's anthology, Voices of Disbelief.
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