"But wow! This goofy child president we have on our hands now. He is demonstrably a fool and a failure, and this is only the summer of '03. The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse. . . The Bush family must be very proud of themselves today, but I am not. Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it."
~ Hunter S. Thompson
Bad things are happening in America. We’ve lost all control over our government and it has turned against us. The Big Darkness is coming.
There is a long-standing tradition in Democratic politics. It is an ugly, brutal fact. Inside the beltway they don't really much care about Democratic volunteers and activists.
We are utterly taken for granted.
From the point of view of the majority of long-standing Democratic politicians we are seen as nameless, faceless, trouble-making, easily replaceable, meddlesome busybodies and...not much more.
Everybody in politics who has made a career of it has come up dealing with blow hards and ne'er do wells at city council meetings, hearings and during campaign events. To many career DC types that is all we ever are or conceivably could be: people to stand around and talk awkwardly to occasionally. We couldn't possibly have sincere and relevant insights about, say, the war in Iraq.
That is an impolitic truth, and it's important to understand that truth as a way to understand this moment in American political history.
they don't care about us and never did by kid oakland
They have reduced ‘freedom of the press’ to ‘embedded’ reporters and corporate-owned shills who do what they’re told. They have reduced free speech to ‘free speech zones’ and even that pathetic nod to our glorious past (constitutionally speaking) is apparently not long for this world.
The Bush Administration appears to be escalating assaults on anti-war free speech in advance of the coming antiwar protest on 9/15/07.
We know the First Amendment has been under siege since he slithered into office but this is almost like a new level.
Cops Shut Down Anti-War Press Conference in DC 9.6.2007 by xxdr zombiexx
This is a disgrace! This is supposedly ‘still’ a free country. We still ‘supposedly’ have constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and freedom of assembly. They haven’t ‘officially’ taken them away – yet.
This is NOT a reason not to come to Washington DC on September 15th – this is a reason TO come to Washington DC on September 15th. We need you to be with us in solidarity against the sinister forces intent on taking away our freedom. Your country needs you!
If big darkness is coming anyway, we might as well face it head on. We have nothing to lose but our freedom – and if we don’t fight back we are going to lose that any way.
Forgive me for quoting extensively from myself but it seems pertinent and I have permission from the author. :-)
We hear a lot of talk about the Constitution, and rightly so, what with it being under direct attack and all. But we haven’t been hearing much about another historic document that has even more bearing on the present time, the Declaration of Independence. The subject is being avoided by the establishment (which, perversely, these days means not only the government, but also the press, the courts, the political establishment, all of Corporate America, the media in general, and the punditocracy in particular). Yes, the Declaration of Independence is being ignored en masse; none in the halls of power dare breath its name. It is the document that frightens our current so-called government the most. The mighty neo-con-infested, knuckle-dragging, chest-thumping, chicken-hawks-on-testosterone, swaggering Neanderthal, bully-boy government afraid of a document? The gang led by the guy who said the US Constitution was nothing but a goddamned piece of paper scared of an ink-scrawled piece of parchment? Yes. And here’s why:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
This 1st paragraph of the DOI suggests that a ‘people’ have the right to ‘dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another,’ and that people have a right to a ‘separate and equal station’ provided by the ‘laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.’ So already, there’s trouble here for the powers that be.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Uh oh! This is big trouble! All men are created equal? Are you kidding me (I can hear the neo-cons crying now)? You mean black people and brown people, gay and straight, rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless, men and women, the insiders and the outsiders - all equal? How can that be? You’d have to be some kind of fucking commie to believe that!
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...
Now this is nothing but pure dynamite. Governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed? Since when? (Well, since about July 4, 1776.)
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Now this is pure sedition (or so would say the repubs - and most of the democrats these days). The ‘people’ have the right to ‘alter or abolish’ their government and start a new one based on what makes them happy and safe? I can hear our fat cat, corporate-funds-sated, so-called political leaders screaming that it’s their government and the people have a right to precisely diddly squat. That’s what they tell us every time they refuse to raise the minimum wage (for 10 fucking years in a row). That’s what they tell us every time they give themselves a big fat pay raise (basically every year). That’s what they tell us every time they deny us the kind of insurance that they all enjoy (best in the world). That’s what they tell us every time they give tax breaks to billionaires while cutting funds to important programs like education, Medicare, and veterans benefits. That’s what they tell us every time they allow corporate lobbyists to write the legislation that is meant to regulate their industries. That’s what they tell us every time they spit in our faces over minimum wage, the war, gun control, medical marijuana, universal health insurance, fair taxation, putting a halt to the outsourcing of American jobs, guaranteeing free and fair elections, backing stem cell research, curbing pollution - ALL backed by the majority of the American people.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
The last thing in the world the neocons want is for the rest of us to be reminded by our founding fathers that we are wimps for being ‘more disposed to suffer’ than to ‘abolish the forms’ to which we are accustomed. So not only does the DOI say we have the absolute right to throw off the chains of oppression, but they (the founding fathers) actually chide us for failing to do so. There are no ‘light and transient causes’ involved here.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Revolution - the 800-pound gorilla in the room
Do not be discouraged. We have long known what the opposition is made of and it is imperative that we continue to oppose them. In fact we need to dramatically ramp up our efforts if we are going to preserve liberty and democracy for our children and grandchildren.
Information about the march, transportation, room and board, kossacks meet-up plans and more is available at Road2DC.
My son and I will be there. We are prepared to run any risk, to make any sacrifice, to suffer any consequence for the future of our nation.
If you can possibly make it to Washington please don’t sit at home and dial it in – that’s fine if you have to, but otherwise we need you to come march with us for all the things that matter.
Freedom itself is under attack.
~ George W. Bush
No shit Sherlock.
~ OPOL
Peace out!
OPOL