Revolution #006, June 19, 2005, posted at revcom.us
We received the following from comrades who see an urgent need for a major leap in the people's resistance.
Other countries have driven hated regimes from power—why not here? Is there any country whose direction has a more disproportionate impact on the future of the whole planet?
Too Radical?
Today, just eight months since the November election and the "revolution" called for by Bush's right- wing Christian supporters, we are witnessing the most radical assault on the separation of church and state that this country has ever experienced. In a word: this country sits on the verge of theocracy. Yesterday's "lunatic fringe" now sits securely in the halls of power. When powerful senators threaten federal judges on the Schiavo case and then to go on to single out a Supreme Court justice for citing international law in a recent decision barring the execution of minors, you get a whiff not just of flagrant hypocrisy but the stench of crimes against humanity and where this agenda is headed.
These are not ordinary Christians or Conservatives but Christian Fascists and they are stalking not just the red states for the control of people's minds. Under the now famous "moral values" exit polls of 2004 lurk traditional values that have uniquely American strains of puritanism, slavery, and genocide. These are theocrats who actually believe that God is speaking through the presidency of George Bush, and Bush has appointed them at every level of his administration. They intend to put their stamp on society and everyone in it—and they have already gone very far. Whether they succeed or fail to get their "nuclear option" today, they are a monster demanding to be fed who will not stop until their agenda of theocracy is fulfilled.
Whether they get their way depends hugely on if people face what is unfolding and snap out of a denial that such a thing could happen here. History is far too haunted with the memories of people from Germany to Rwanda who never thought that neighbors living side by side and intermarried for generations could possibly be on opposite sides or taken off in the night.
Writing in The New York Times , cultural critic Frank Rich aptly put it this way,
"the majority of American colonists didn't believe in witches during the Salem trials either—any more than the Taliban reflected the views of a majority of Afghans. At a certain point, and we seem to be nearing that point, fear takes over, allowing a mob to bully the majority over the short term. (Of course if you think the end is near there is no long term.)"
This country now stands before the world and history with a president who condones torture. No wonder the subjects of the new empire in other countries feel they should have had a vote in this election. This is an utterly intolerable situation and one that growing numbers of people are ready to massively repudiate—including thousands if not millions of people who voted for George Bush and are waking up to the ugly reality of what they bought and what it's wrought.
This regime has to be driven from power and it could happen! It is important to recall the millions who were present in the streets with people across the planet to oppose the Iraq war and that just six months ago millions engaged in a groundswell of hopeful political activity to drive Bush from office through voting. But no vision, no coherent alternative to Bush was ever on the electoral playing field.
The world can't wait until 2008 to put a halt to this.
We don't want to tell future generations "we were waiting for the pendulum to swing." We want to tell them we were the people who said NOT IN OUR NAME! What is needed is to launch the kind of massive resistance that can drive this regime out.
November 2, 2005, the anniversary of Bush and Cheney's re-election. How will the first year of the Christian fundamentalist "revolution" look? Will the country continue to pitch more and more to the right, with opposition so ineffective that there will be no choice but to be swept along? Or will the whole world witness the opening rounds of an upsurge that can conjure up the specter of Spain and the Ukraine, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or Nixon? It can — if people conceive of themselves as politically at war in an all-out battle for the future.
Anything less is not commensurate with the challenge we face.
We in the RCP are approaching this as repolarizing society for revolution, and we are sincere about learning from and uniting with people from many different perspectives who also see the need to rid the world of the Bush regime. We can tell you from our personal experience, talking to people across the country as we passed out millions of the statement "The Battle of the Future Will be Fought from Here Forward," that people are waiting for the next wave of protest to be unleashed...but they want to know that it will really make a difference.
Very Radical!
Let's talk about how to make it happen—contact us at drivethemout@yahoo.com