I am repeatedly struck by the injection of strategic thinking into our discourse regarding this president and his war. We need to begin by facing the crimes being committed with our dollars and silence. Strategic thinking is an easy mask for apathy, indifference and no substitute for facing the truth about our situation. Our country is sliding rapidly towards becoming a monarchy. Our civil rights are being discarded and deemed irrelevant because fear is such an easy product to sell. Worrying about the next election will only insure more crimes committed and more indifference. We have learned to accept torture and war profiteering as part of the American way. Our newly elected congress is offering variations on an apology to the president. "We're sorry we have to do this but here's a resolution. It doesn't have any real meaning but it might shut up our constituents for a little bit". Here are some inspiring thoughts from Thoreau's, Civil Disobedience. We need to recognize our consciences and leave the strategys and indifference behind.
"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart."
Against their common sense. We all know the invasion of Iraq made no sense.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also."
We can now substitute "the war's government"...
"All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote."
Congress will only do the right thing after we the citizens have hammered it into their heads what we expect them to do. He needs to be impeached, to have charges brought against him, and then the country and the world can see that Americans still have a conscience.