I'll get flamed for this, TR'd, whatever.
But the fundamental problem with our country is that for decades we have come to believe that democracy is something that requires only that we vote.
Some of us don't even do that.
But this country was founded by people who knew they did so upon threat of death; the signatories of the Declaration of Independence knew it was their death warrant were they to be caught by British troops, hanged until dead, their families equally at risk for the flourish of their quill pen upon parchment.
Thankfully, they did not run away. They stood their tenuous, embattled ground.
Democracy is a contact sport, and it's non-stop; it's Rollerball, wall-to-wall, generation after generation handing off the baton of democracy to those who would defend it. It's bruising, battering, and at times bloody, as the bodies of presidents and activists and innocent bystanders over the decades prove.
Those of us on the front edge have and will suffer burn-out. We will be casualties in the war for our democracy. But we must regather ourselves and forge on, because there is no other real recourse.
Simply put, there are lives on the line whether it is the activists who fight, or the ill-informed, poorly educated, impoverished, disenfranchised people of this country who were never given a fighting chance, who continued to live in the Potemkin village that our democracy has become for our lack of engagement over the last 40-plus years.
Real, sustained democracy requires constant vigilance. I am also reminded of the Marines' motto, "Semper fidelis," because democracy also requires eternal faithfulness, a deep and abiding commitment in order to thrive. During my lifetime we have stopped watching, we have strayed from the path...
And now some of our best and brightest are simply going to throw in the towel and walk away, as if the battle for democracy will not follow them wherever they go.
Is Canada really any less on the precipice than we were a handful of years ago?
Is Britain, having been Bush's poodle too easily during this administration?
Germany? Look at the deep, dark heart exposed this past week in Austria, in the example of yet another man who locked up an entire family, threatening to gas them...
France? Sarkozy is Bush with an accent and a trophy wife.
Italy? Berlusconi is a full-on fascist, and Italy actually reelected the monster.
Perhaps Australia has taken a step back from the brink with the election of Ruud, but how long will it be before we can be convinced they will not backslide in backlash against progressivism?
There is no place to run; there is only another place to stand and fight, and perhaps with less resources and less experience than this country has had with fighting for its own democracy.
Believe me, it's been tempting to bail out on this 232-year-old experiment in democracy. The shock and horror of November 2004, the wretched days immediately following Kerry's acquiescence, the utter and complete frustration with hearing after hearing and trials in which it became obvious we have been outgamed...all of them eating at one's soul. I have also looked around for an escape route; I'd be a liar to say I haven't indulged in long exchanges with friends who lived in or "escaped" to Canada, but as I said already, there really is no escape, only the temporary illusion of escape.
I participated in the weekly forums at Extreme Democracy this past summer, 12 weeks of discussion about the nature of what appears to be a new phase in American democracy. At the end the dialog, it came down to one simple fact, manifest by the forum's participation itself:
Democracy, whether that of our past, or that of our internet-mediated future, requires participation.
It doesn't matter where you are, in any of the other known or emergent democracies; the success or failure of democracy is utterly dependent upon participation of its citizenry. (The forum's participants gradually fell away, lured away by other things in their life. At what point will we believe that democracy takes first place in our lives, enough that we are committed to participation?)
We have allowed corporations to tell us that we participate when we buy things. Our purchasing power becomes pablum, a crappy substitute, a tool they can use to buy our attention. It becomes an addiction, through which they can continue to control us. They do so through our own airwaves -- publicly-owned airwaves -- that we've allowed to be licensed to corporations who pollute the air with their agenda while failing to serve ours. They've persuaded us through their relentless pressure on our educational system, through the complete subjugation of business education in particular, that the Chicago School of Economics and its inherent "disaster capitalism" is the optimum model for creating and maintaining democracy.
We've been lulled by bread-and-circuses, comfortable toooo long, the average Joe more aware of the ups-and-downs of American Idol contestants than of the names of their local elected officials or the positions on issues of any elected or appointed official that impacts their life every day. I, too, was entirely disengaged from the process of democracy for most of my life, only becoming an activist a handful of years ago. Like most of my friends, I wrapped myself up in the illusion of corporate-droneship each day and hypnotic grasp of television each night, mistaking this hustle and bustle for democracy.
Spoiled, rotten American, among many equally spoiled, rotten American.
Sure, you might actually know who your officials are and what their stances are on issues. You are a self-selecting above-average member of this democracy by virtue of reading content at this site. The real norm is entirely different. A certain corporate division president that I know very well actually called me one day to ask who the Congressional representative was for the district in which their plant was located.
Surprise!
Imagine it: the corporations by and to which you've allowed yourself to be enslaved in this fluffy bubble of numbness are actually less aware than you are in many ways. The people that run these organizations are well-versed in corporate law, but completely ignorant of what democracy is and how it's supposed to work.
Running away will not change this fact; only education will, only constancy and commitment and frequent contact with other participants in this democracy will change things. And sometimes it will be heated, ugly contact; believe me, I've unloaded my mind on that corporate division president a few times for their ignorance of democracy. It's taken all of the last 7+ years to begin to make a dent in their dismal lack of knowledge, along with the persistent effort of other friends who are also like-minded progressives.
But corporations have global reach; they are everywhere and more that the internet exists. Fortunately, you are everywhere the internet exists, too, at a minimum.
It comes down to participation. And it comes down to fight-or-flight.
If there really is no place to which one can flee, then dammitall, I have no choice but to stand and fight, and I might as well start right here at home, the home of a somewhat less spoiled, rotten American.