March 29, 2007
Patriotism reconsidered
Rebecca Solnit asked a very important question which I think we should all consider. "Was I a Good American in the Time of George W.Bush?"
Was I a good American? How good an American was I? Did I do what I could to resist the takeover of my country and the brutalisation of my fellow human beings? How much further could I have gone? Were the crimes of the Bush administration those that demand you give up your life and everyday commitments to throw yourself into maximum resistance? If not, then what were we waiting for? The questions have troubled me regularly these last five years, because I was one of the millions of American citizens who did not shut down Guantánamo Bay and stop the other atrocities of the administration.......Before the current administration, it had always been easy to condemn the "good Germans" who did nothing while Jews, Gypsies and others were rounded up for extermination. One likes to believe that one will be different, will harbour Anne Frank in one's secret annex, smuggle people across the border, defy the authorities who do evil. Those we scornfully call good Germans merely did little while the mouth of hell opened up.....
And she concludes:
There is resistance. But if it were enough, the crimes would have stopped, the war would have ended. When it does and they do, some will have been heroes. Some will have been honourable but moderate, in times that did not call for moderation. And some will have consented, through inaction, to crimes against humanity.
Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City's mayor is speaking out.
We are here to say 'no more.' No more war in Iraq. No more movement toward war in Iran. No more justification of killing and torture by God-is-on-our-side religious nonsense. No more wars of aggression. No more violations of the United Nations Charter. No more violations of human rights treaties. No more torture. No more kidnapping and disappearing of people. No more trampling upon our Constitution. No more warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. No more lies to Congress and the American people. No more conveying of government propaganda by the complicit corporate media. No more destruction of the rule of law. No more timidity by Congress. No more Dick Cheney or George Bush in the White House. No more silence by the American people.As we say 'no' to the international and domestic outlaws in the White House, we say 'yes' to the pursuit of peace, to the rule of law, to our Constitution, to accountability and to communicating to the rest of the world -- by impeachment -- that we are not the kind of nation that tolerates the violations of treaties, wars of aggression and human rights abuses perpetrated by our vice president and president.
We will continue to raise our voices and demand of Congress:
Stop the abuse of our nation and of its people.
Stop the damage done to our standing around the world.
Stop the atrocities.
Stop this insane, illegal, destructive war.
And stop, without further delay, this president and vice president.
Don't believe them when they say that no crimes have been committed. This is not a political fight, it is a criminal takeover of a democratic government.
Neoconservative Republicans are a political party in name only. This group of people are systematically taking apart a democracy and a Constitution. They have almost succeeded. If they are allowed to continue we will surely live in their police state.
Each time they are confronted with their egregious criminal behavior, they joke and minimize or behave with imperial distain-- and the American people yawn or lose interest.
They are counting on our disinterest while they put their "people" in place. Incompetents and/or criminals now lead the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, FEMA, the Department of the Interior, the Center for Disease Control, the FDA,the Smithsonian and assuredly many more federal agencies. Halliburton, Blackwater and Wackenhut offer private armies, private prisons renditions, torture and equipment at a premium to our burgeoning despots.
Groups like Code Pink are protesting, but are not as effective as they once were, since the mainstream media has been co-opted and does not report their demonstrations.
As far as I'm concerned, the members of the left wing blogosphere are the real heros of the day. Bloggers at Firedoglake, some, trial lawyers themselves, reported live from Scooter Libby's trial , and they're doing the same at the Senate Hearings on the firing of US prosecutors by the Department of Justice.
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo doggedly stayed with the federal prosecuter firings and brought them to public attention. Paul Kiel explains the voluntary group effort that took place through TPM Muckraker when, just last week, many volunteers reviewed the heap of documents the Justice Department dumped on the congressional oversight committee, finding a number of off- the-record email addresses used by the administration to cover their dirty dealings, and a suspicious 16 day gap in correspondence They're still at it . Slate published a handy chart so that you can follow the chronology of criminal activity at the Department of Justice.
Most of the mainstream media did not or would not cover these extremely important issues until they were forced into the light by good citizens of cyberspace.
Solnit says "I wanted to do something so epic that it would turn the tide, stop the crime. Then I would consider that the best approaches were probably already being taken, by the heroic lawyers at the Centre for Constitutional Rights and other human rights organisations, and I would write another cheque and some more letters and feel a little futile and a little corrupt."
I say, oh go ahead, write a check -- to the folks at Firedoglake, or Talking Points Memo, or Crooks and Liars, or Daily Kos and then read what they're writing about and tell your friends. It may not be enough, but it's a very patriotic place to start
Photo note: Buying a flag, however voluminous, does not constitute adequate patriotism in this, the time of George W. Bush. Put your money where it will really count -- support the left wing blogosphere. (It won't take much, since most of them work for nothing)