Bush, Man of the Year? History will Remember you and the Silence of the good

21 DEC 2000

TIME has elected George Bush Man of the year. Jesus.

A man steals the elections, buys the Supreme Court, and is in the process of wrapping up all three branches of the government (click here to read more on that), all three heads of the triumvirate, in point of fact eliminating so called political parties, and the rights of the populace to any voice in their government. In short, a coup has occurred in this country, and George Bush has ,with help, turned our Democracy into a Dictatorship.   We live now in an age of Tyranny, and all TIME magazine can think to do is nominate him Man of the Year.

Christ, god makes no little fools.

Those of you who support him, I know it's hard to think we could be human, to think we could be wrong. I know its easy to want to make excuses, want to sidestep the things we do wrong. The choices we make wrong. But sometimes learning from a mistake, admitting a mistake, is the only saving grace we have, our only cure , our only antidote to repeating mistakes.

People invariably want to see this political crossroads we're at in terms of us and them. It's a familiar comfortable way of looking at our problems. Unfortunately it's a mode of thinking that does not lead to solutions, that indeed keeps us embroiled in more problems. Mires us, in the hates and hypocrisies of an older America. It's a way of thinking that keeps us going backwards, when we desperately need, finally, completely to move forward.

We want to see people in terms of what we want rather than what they give. We want to see the lie rather than the truth. And all I am saying is we have to see with better eyes than that. We have to look at the road a man takes to get someplace, because it matters, the things we do to win, matter. They say much about our character and our soul, the things we're prepared to do and the things we're prepared to sacrifice in order to win.

Bush sacrificed the very idea of a free government, the idea of your right to vote, and nothing he says is ever going to make that right.

This isn't about partisan politics, if it ever was it's not anymore. This is about the very nature of our liberties to matter. About our rights to decide who shall and shall not lead us, about the rights of our votes, our democracy to matter. It's about our integrity as a nation, and how one man's mad grab for power trampled on the will of the people, and the memory of so many other people, the memory of people who fought, and bled, and suffered, and died, for this idea of one man one vote. This increasingly unpopular idea among the rich, and the corrupt, this idea of Democracy.

What happened in Florida, and what happened in the Supreme Court on the 12th of December, can be called by many names, but perhaps the one that will stick. The one history will remember, is the simplest and most true. Tyranny. Tyranny happened.

Bloody Tyranny.

The will of the people was set aside by a few people. And that should worry anyone who calls themselves American. If candidate Bush won the popular vote, so be it. Neither him nor Gore were my candidates of choice, but he didn't win, not the popular vote, and a full count of the votes would have shown not even the Electoral votes. He stole the rights of people to matter, he stole the very spirit of what we purport to be America.

He silenced not just thousands of votes, not just Black votes, not just Jewish Votes, he ultimately silenced all of our votes... if we let this ruling stand. What can be done once, gotten away with once, will be done again. It is a law of history, that things repeat, lest acted upon by greater things. Lest acted upon by outmoded ideas like Democracy, reason, courage, compassion, justice, and Love, history lest acted upon by these forces... repeats.

And liberties lost are not easily found again. That too is a lesson of history, that freedom lost cannot be found again without much fall of blood. Those of you who in good faith supported this man, are even now finding your faith abused, and your future rights to support a candidate of your choice... curtailed.

 

"We need our Ellisons, to stand up and scream, the unpopular screams. There are too few Ellisons, so for some screams I just have to rely on me. And if I scream at you I do it not for money, not for fame. I do it for the oldest reason in the world, because I care what happens to you, to me, to us, and it needs to be done.

This page is my Angry Candy and here I'll tell you what's on my mind.  "

 

It's a frightening thought, this idea, that History will remember what we do today. A humbling thought, that in spite of ourselves, in spite of our desire not to get involved, we are involved, and in spite of our desire not to take sides, we do take sides.

We are all, in spite of ourselves, either heroes or villains in our own lives our own times. And not choosing is itself a choice, sometimes the loudest of choices, the most damning of them.

We are in pivotal times, and to go with the crowd, and do nothing, to keep silent, to keep your head down, to hope it all blows away, is to be accomplice to the hells to come. It is to by inaction give your consent, and our history is full of such places where evil triumphed because good people were silent. Slaver America, Nazi Germany, South Africa, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, half the world is being exterminated, while we play with our newest cellular phone.

The silence of good people kills, make no doubt of it. It has killed more than the ranting of madmen, this absence of rational men to oppose them.

So what we must start fighting for is not a question of Democrat or Republican, two party and 3 party systems. What we must start fighting for, is nothing less than the very rights of man.

And what are we prepared to do to preserve and in some cases retrieve those rights? It's a question of some import. What are you prepared to do to be free? What are you prepared to lose? Your TV, your German cars, your Asian Electronics, your Italian clothes, your stock portfolio, your credit cards, your fast food, your convenience. What are you prepared to lose to be free?

And ultimately it is a hard question, but these are hard times and require a single hard answer. Everything. You have to be prepared to lose everything for freedom. Even your life, perhaps especially your life.

Get up from the couch, away from the television, and act. And write, and call, and meet, and arrange, and protest, (I would say vote, but obviously that act is meaningless), get ready, finally ready, to do what the fathers of this nation did, when faced with tyranny, What Attucks, and Washington, and Jefferson, and Salem did, when faced ultimately with a government that bled the people, and gave them no rights and no voice, and no recourse, in effect no real government. They fought, because that is all they were left with. The fight. The concept of dying in pieces on your knees or in glory on your feet.   That is ultimately where we are as a nation. We have come to this totally repellant and totally unavoidable idea, that our government is no longer ours. That it is inoperable and like a mad dog must be put down. Must be put down.

I am not talking sedition here, that has already been done from within, The brothers Bush and The Supreme Court have attacked our government, our America pillaged, our rights usurped, now the only true American government lies in the hearts and minds and wills of those men and women willing to fight for her.

I like you am an American. A soldier I think, a patriot I hope. A good man I aspire.  What we do, what you do, right now, in this moment, right now, not tomorrow, not next week, determines what type of man you are, and what type of government we'll have.

And ultimately it determines... how much blood will be spilt.

Search out addresses of people to join, people to complain to, people to get informed with, and how you pleaseth God, dispose the day. p.s.  

 

And cancel your subscriptions to TIME.