THE AMERICAN PEOPLE CAN DO IT
What's to be done? It's clear that Bushism rules inside Congress and within the D.C. beltway, with the exception of many high-level officers in the military. But, and this may be our saving grace, Bushism does not rule out in the country, where most citizens live.
Virtually every poll taken in recent months indicates a deep and growing antagonism toward Bush programs and policies -- especially by traditional conservatives appalled at the extremists who hijacked their party. The anxieties of these voters tend to focus on the phony way the country was conned into the war, the thoroughgoing bungling and corruption of America's occupation of Iraq that is resulting in so many Americans and innocent Iraqis being killed and maimed, the stagnant economy and its horrific effects on the put-upon middle class, and the organized corporate looting and personal immorality in the GOP era of government.
Even though the Republicans won't initiate honest investigations into the culture of corruption that lies at the heart of its rule in Washington -- with Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley and the NIEs being just the visible parts of the immoral icebergs floating in the Potomac -- more and more Americans have wised up and know what must be done. There must be a clean-sweep change of direction and personnel.
If it's impossible right now to get rid of the villains at the top, since the Republicans will not introduce resolutions of impeachment against Cheney and Bush, the only other available option is to begin cleaning out the mess via the ballot on November 7. First order of business: to clean up the corrupted mess that is the voting process/vote-tabulation. Corporations that own the voting and vote-counting machines and the software that controls them must no longer have free, unsuperised opportunities to manipulate the results.
THE ORDER OF PRIORITIES
Does this mean that total moral purity will prevail if the voters turn out the Republicans and install Democrats in control of the House and/or the Senate? Of course not; there always are bad apples in any bunch, though the Republicans seem to have harvested nothing but in their orchard for the past five year. But political purity is not the point. The point is that in order to even begin to restore America's checks-and-balances democracy, adherence to the Constitution, reality-based foreign policy, and so on, a sea change has to be made.
Here's how I view the order of priorities for us all in the weeks remaining before the midterm election: act to ensure honest voting processes and especially honest vote-counting (which may necessitate sueing local election officials for not taking care to ensure the rights of voters); remove the rubber-stamp Republicans from control of Congress; begin investigations into what went wrong and why, and try to ensure those abuses of power can't happen again; refashion America's foreign/military policy to regain our rightful authority and respect in the world; start working for the 2008 election to weed out Democrats who act like Republicans.
A number of disenchanted Democrats are eager to start that last-named weeding-out process right now, today. If incumbent Democrats or candidates for House and Senate don't agree with all points of the progressive agenda, these disenchanted liberal voters are willing to sit on their hands next month or vote for someone other than a Democrat. The result of such narrow-minded focus might well be to hand victory to the Republicans on November 7 and leave them in control of all three branches of government for at least the next two years.
No, once again in some cases, we will have to hold our noses while voting for certain Democrats (Note: no need to face that dilemma in Connecticut; Joe Lieberman is not the Democratic candidate) because we understand the true goal at this moment in history: To break the momentum of the extremists in control of our government. The only way to do that right now is to defeat the Republicans in the House and/or Senate. After we achieve that victory, then we can work on purging the Democratic party of its turncoats and wimps. But not now, not when a defeat of the thugocracy is within our grasp on November 7 if we all work together with that common goal in mind.
November 8 should belong to those who, probably for the first time in their lives, are suspicious and afraid of their own reckless, incompetent government. That's a majority of the American people. Let's you and I join that majority to celebate the beginnings of a return to a government of which we can feel proud again.#
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in Washington and California, worked as a writer-editor with the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@hotmail.com .
First published by The Crisis Papers10/3/06.
www.crisispapers.org/essays6w/escape.htm
Copyright 2006 by Bernard Weiner.
What's to be done? It's clear that Bushism rules inside Congress and within the D.C. beltway, with the exception of many high-level officers in the military. But, and this may be our saving grace, Bushism does not rule out in the country, where most citizens live.
Virtually every poll taken in recent months indicates a deep and growing antagonism toward Bush programs and policies -- especially by traditional conservatives appalled at the extremists who hijacked their party. The anxieties of these voters tend to focus on the phony way the country was conned into the war, the thoroughgoing bungling and corruption of America's occupation of Iraq that is resulting in so many Americans and innocent Iraqis being killed and maimed, the stagnant economy and its horrific effects on the put-upon middle class, and the organized corporate looting and personal immorality in the GOP era of government.
Even though the Republicans won't initiate honest investigations into the culture of corruption that lies at the heart of its rule in Washington -- with Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley and the NIEs being just the visible parts of the immoral icebergs floating in the Potomac -- more and more Americans have wised up and know what must be done. There must be a clean-sweep change of direction and personnel.
THE ORDER OF PRIORITIES
Does this mean that total moral purity will prevail if the voters turn out the Republicans and install Democrats in control of the House and/or the Senate? Of course not; there always are bad apples in any bunch, though the Republicans seem to have harvested nothing but in their orchard for the past five year. But political purity is not the point. The point is that in order to even begin to restore America's checks-and-balances democracy, adherence to the Constitution, reality-based foreign policy, and so on, a sea change has to be made.
Here's how I view the order of priorities for us all in the weeks remaining before the midterm election: act to ensure honest voting processes and especially honest vote-counting (which may necessitate sueing local election officials for not taking care to ensure the rights of voters); remove the rubber-stamp Republicans from control of Congress; begin investigations into what went wrong and why, and try to ensure those abuses of power can't happen again; refashion America's foreign/military policy to regain our rightful authority and respect in the world; start working for the 2008 election to weed out Democrats who act like Republicans.
A number of disenchanted Democrats are eager to start that last-named weeding-out process right now, today. If incumbent Democrats or candidates for House and Senate don't agree with all points of the progressive agenda, these disenchanted liberal voters are willing to sit on their hands next month or vote for someone other than a Democrat. The result of such narrow-minded focus might well be to hand victory to the Republicans on November 7 and leave them in control of all three branches of government for at least the next two years.
No, once again in some cases, we will have to hold our noses while voting for certain Democrats (Note: no need to face that dilemma in Connecticut; Joe Lieberman is not the Democratic candidate) because we understand the true goal at this moment in history: To break the momentum of the extremists in control of our government. The only way to do that right now is to defeat the Republicans in the House and/or Senate. After we achieve that victory, then we can work on purging the Democratic party of its turncoats and wimps. But not now, not when a defeat of the thugocracy is within our grasp on November 7 if we all work together with that common goal in mind.
November 8 should belong to those who, probably for the first time in their lives, are suspicious and afraid of their own reckless, incompetent government. That's a majority of the American people. Let's you and I join that majority to celebate the beginnings of a return to a government of which we can feel proud again.#
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in Washington and California, worked as a writer-editor with the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@hotmail.com .
First published by The Crisis Papers10/3/06.
www.crisispapers.org/essays6w/escape.htm
Copyright 2006 by Bernard Weiner.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
