On the recommended diary list and throughout every comment thread on DailyKos, and all over the liberal blogoshpere today, the toll taken by this nation's giant steps down the road to tyranny is palpable to all of us. I'll be the last person in the world to tell people that any of their wide range of feelings - from anguish, to shock, to raging angst and vitriol - is in any way misplaced. Fact is, our Congress as a whole acted like a bunch of pathetic Banana Republicans who quiver under the thumb of a heavy-handed authoritarian leader, and that's pitiful at best, despicable at worst. I understand why so many people are down today, I really do.
But the thing is, no matter how much I think about what happened yesterday, I just can't bring myself to feel any sort of despair. This nation has faced many dark hours in its past. Some, we have collectively faced with great bravery and determination to uphold the very best that America can be. In far too many others, we have succumbed to the very worst of our human nature. Yesterday was one of those days, but it certainly wasn't the first in the last 2 centuries.
The United States got off to a pretty damned good start there after the passage of the Bill of Rights, but it wasn't long before President Adams went off half-cocked with his patently anti-democratic
Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, but true patriots like Thomas Jefferson - the first Democrat in my opinion - stood up for the First Amendment the and rights in the face of the right-wing Federalists, and his Democratic-Republicans spanked their bitch-asses in the next elections, and that despicable piece of legislation was sent to it's proper place in America's dust bin of despicable acts.
Although history has given him a fairly easy-pass due to the circumstances of the civil war, even the venerable Abraham Lincoln seized a level of anti-civil liberties authoritarianism not seen up to the that point in our Democracy, including the suspension of habeas corpus. I think it's fair to say that most liberals understand that despite the national crisis that our civil war presented, the best way to uphold the values of the union would have been constitutionalism at all costs, and that difficulty is no excuse for deviating from the rule of law that protects our very liberties. George Bush would like to have it the other way, even as a man facing not even half the difficulty that Lincoln faced. In any circumstance, the suspension of habeas corpus was wrong, but we got through both the war used to justify that act, and the suspension of liberties that resulted from it.
President Wilson tried his hand at reducing our great free-speaking nation into an authoritarian dust bin with the Sedition Act of 1918 (you think we would have learned that lesson the first time). Under this shamefully fascist legislation, the Federal Government persecuted thousands of freedom-loving patriots, including the famously incarcerated Eugene Debs. Meanwhile, the mainstream media caved under the fear of the heavy hand of the administration, and actually championed the very acts that undermined their very role as the fourth pillar of democracy. That sounds incredibly familiar. These were dark days, but they too came to pass. Even thought he US Supreme Court failed in its duties to uphold the Constitution (also sounds familiar), this stain on American history was repealed in 1921, when sanity and democracy again won out in the end.
Our incredibly respectable and courageous President Franklin D. Roosevelt even tried his hand at a number of authoritarian actions during World War II, one of the most despicable being the internment of Japanese-descended Americans with Executive Order 9066. And not too long after him, a self-serving, anti-patriotic Republican named Joseph McCarthy went on the witch hunt to end all witch hunts with his nationalized campaign against "communists." Under the rest of the Congressman who caught the McCarthyism bug, things weren't going much better for freedom and Democracy under the House Un-American Activities Committee's persecution of free-speaking Americans. These things too, came to pass.
We live in incredibly dark times, to be sure. And while the fact that the disgrace thrust upon this nation this week is not unique in our American history is no comfort in a time where the foundations of our sacred democracy have been utterly abandoned by our leaders is no excuse for the fact that we also should know much better by now, I take some comfort in the fact that we have battled these specters in the past, and I have enough faith in my fellow Americans to battle them again today. In fact, we've already begun to do so.
It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be resolved quickly. The uglier depths of the human soul always seem to find the logistical upper hand to the better parts, but those better parts have more stamina, in my opinion.
Yes, many of our Democrats failed us this week. But there were many more that stood proud in defense of our values just like Jefferson did back when this constitutional democracy was still in its double digits in age (the adolescent years). How many Republicans stood up for what was right compared to our party? They pale in comparison. And how many of those puny numbers of Republicans only did the right thing after caving to pressure from the liberal constituents that flooded their inboxs and phone lines?
Meanwhile, we had leaders who didn't even have to think twice about doing the right thing. We are still the party of those who are on the right side of history on this matter. Russ Feingold and his pals may have nothing on Jefferson, but they are still the people we need leading the country into the future, standing side by side with the grassroots left to ensure that never again in the future of this great nation will we have to suffer under the disgraces of those who would abandon all that matter, and all that is sacred for fascist power and absolute control. Those people are the real enemies of freedom, and we have met them on the political battle field, and they've beat us in many recent battles, but we will defeat them in this war.
I will not despair. I will work twice as hard to elect the Democratic party into leadership in America so they can repeal this shit stain of right-wing authoritarianism from our books, and when they fail to stand as tall as they should, I will proudly scream and shout to hold them to account as long as I have to because as fucked up as this country is, it'll always be worth fighting for. And the Democratic Party too, no matter how fucked up it may become, is worth fighting for. It's the only home we have for the real patriots of American Freedom, and however small of a corner of this tent we may occupy right now, taking it over is the only shot we have at putting this country back on track as the world leader in freedom for all that it must be.
Yesterday was a bitch, but I don't despair. I find motivation in these dark hours to make even more of a difference than I already have, because that's what being a progressive is about. It's about my rights, and your rights, and even more importantly, it's about knowing that we have no rights until everyone else on this planet does as well, because it's really about us.
There are those who want power to weild power, and those who want power to protect our liberties from what that power is capable of being used for.
We've still got a lot of work to do to overcome the specter of our past, and even more importantly, the challenges we face today. So let's go kick some worthless right-wing ass. We are going to win this fight.