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itself, for which so many have fought and died, and so many have suffered in efforts to perfect it--those who fought slavery, those who fought and died for labor rights, for women's rights, for black civil rights, those who fought and defeated the robber barons of the Great Depression, and those who fought and defeated Nazism, and created the United Nations in the hope of never seeing world war again.
I just read a recent history book called "1776," about George Washington's worst year as the general of the ragtag revolutionary army. Really, it's a surprise that Washington didn't commit suicide by the end of that year, he was such a failure.
But he didn't.
Whatever you think of our revolutionary founders--who lived with the hypocrisy of slavery--and the democracy they constructed, absolutely unique at the time, but full of flaws that favored the rich, they were bold and brave in what they did, and they were driven not by greed, nor by the desire for power, not by mean and petty goals, but were truly visionary, and laid themselves on the line, with everything to lose, for an IDEAL of human organization, that permitted change, and growth, and progress, and ultimately included the rights and dignity of all Americans. They went up against the most powerful nation on earth, at the time, and could easily have lost. "1776" tells how easily they could have lost, and how quickly their heads would have rolled, if they had lost. And they fought for an idea--the idea that we would still be here, two centuries later, still believing in democracy, and still fighting for it, no matter the odds.
I think the problem of despair among leftists and democrats with a small d, in the U.S. right now, is a problem of having incorrectly analyzed our situation, and having underestimated the fascist/corporate forces that are determined to loot us further, and to destroy our Constitution and our sovereign power as a people. How we exercise our sovereignty--our right to control our government--is through voting. And when you look at the what has been done to our vote counting system, you begin to understand how they have managed to rob us of our power as a people, and how and why most of our representatives are deaf to us--and even to a whopping 70% majority of the people, who oppose the war on Iraq and want it ended.
To put it most simply, beginning in October 2002, with the passage of the so-called "Help America Vote Act"--in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution, and closely related to it--our voting system was quickly converted to electronic voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations. Virtually all of the Democrats in the U.S. voted FOR this fascist coup in our voting system.
If someone, ten years ago, had told me that such a thing could happen--that our own party leaders would support such a thing, and could betray us so profoundly--I would have laughed at them, and maybe called them "conspiracy theorists." But that is exactly what happened.
So, it has been no surprise to me at all what this so-called Democratic Congress has done, by way of further betrayals. Almost none of them can prove that they were actually elected, and I believe that many of them were not. No one who has been placed in power by these extremely insecure and insider riggable voting machines can claim legitimate power. Some of the Democrats would have been elected anyway. Most of the Republicans would not have been. And the middle group--which includes the "Blue Dog" Democrats (who want to cut everything in the budget except war spending)--who are the deciders, gained power by a combination of corrupt, war profiteer money, and rigged voting machines. Thus a Congress was designed, to have a "D" in front of its name, and to thwart the will of the American people at every turn, and to give Bush and Cheney billions MORE of our tax dollars, to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights, and to continue shredding the Constitution, and to prevent all reform, including reform of the election system.
If you have looked closely at our vote counting system, and understand what has happened, you are not so vulnerable to despair and demoralization. You know what to expect. And you know what some of the highest priorities should be, for turning things around. First among them, is to restore transparent vote counting--vote counting that everyone can see and understand. This is still possible at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence. It's not glamorous work on a national stage, but it is the key to the future of our country. Without transparent vote counting, we cannot even begin to address other problems. We MUST restore our ability to send REAL representatives of the people to Congress, and into other offices including president.
We need to develop patience and persistence, and learn to look beyond the next election. The fascists who have taken over our country have us on a wild roll-coaster ride, where we can only see up the next hill. They also have control of the news media, and inflict us with ceaseless propaganda, not aimed at convincing anyone, but aimed at making the great, peace-minded, justice-minded, progressive American majority feel like we are the minority. Their goal is to demoralize and disempower us. If we yield to despair, we are serving their most important aim--to shut us up, to make us accept their rule and their lies and their stolen elections; to make us give up.
I'm glad George Washington didn't give up--and all the great heroes, in our country, and in other countries, who have since fought for those principles of democracy--the equality of each individual, human rights, civil rights, the consent of the people, justice for all, and world peace. We owe them. And we owe the future. And we must never give up, no matter how hard it gets.
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