Enthusiastically Luke Warm

[Daveparts]

The Bush Administration has granted a 400 million dollar contract to Halliburton for the design of mass detention camps. FEMA has built refugee camps in Louisiana in the shadow of an Exxon refinery and its occupants are threatened with eviction for speaking with reporters about the conditions there. Investigative reporter Greg Palast was arrested and charged with violating national security for photographing the camp.

Maybe I’ll write a letter to my Congressman, yeah that will do it. Under the Patriot Act the government may search your home and read your mail with out your knowledge. They can obtain your bank records and in the name of fighting the war on drugs seize your assets before conviction leaving you naked before the law. They can also claim your parents or your children as co conspirators and seize their assets as well.

I think I’ll make a picket sign, yeah that will show them I mean business. But then I have to go down to the courthouse and get a parade permit and post a security bond. I’ll have to provide documentation as to who I am and the purpose of my protest and assume liability for the cost of any extra law enforcement. Then after due consideration the government may or may not deem to grant my request and assign me a time slot. I will be advised to carry a photo ID on me at all times for it is a crime not to deliver up my papers when the police demand it of me. Not just with my picket sign but any time they demand it of me, Thank God I don’t live in a totalitarian country!

A petition that’s what I’ll do, when they see that there are thousands and millions who agree with me why I bet they’ll back right down. Just like when the millions of people around the world picketed to protest America’s invasion of Iraq why our government stood right up and paid attention didn’t they? Just like they are paying attention now to the public outcry over the phony bologna immigration bill. Just like they paid attention about NAFTA and GATT. Am I the only here whose read Stienbeck or Churchill?

Evil doesn’t respect the rules, evil doesn’t care if you picket or protest. Evil doesn’t care how many names you’ve got on your silly petition. The names of those who try to reason and negotiate with evil are famous only for their failures. This country the United States of America is operating concentration camps and detention camps and torturing people in secret jails. This government has created special classifications of prisoners to deny them any access to a legal defense. It’s mock tribunals allow secret hear say evidence to be admitted with out the right of challenge.

A bumper sticker! Hell yeah! A bumper sticker, then when the government officials see millions of bumper stickers oh wait, riding in the backseat of their limos they’ll never see them. So what do I do?

Well the Prince of Peace went into the temple and approached the money changers “Hi fellas, you don’t know me I’m a Rabbi from out of town and I don’t know gosh maybe this is a bad time and I could come back later if it is. But gee fellas no reflection on you personally but buying and selling in the temple violates a scared tenet of my religion. And I don’t mean to be a bother but if it wouldn’t be too much trouble could you do that outside?”

We as Americans have adopted this policy of don’t make waves don’t be impolite for we might offend someone and we might lose elections. Maybe it was that box on our report cards in school that asked, plays well with others? Some how we’ve lost sight of fighting for our basic principle’s we live in fear of upsetting people. Why? Are we afraid we might make them think? Are we right about these things or not? I think that this philosophy is dead wrong; I think that’s what got us here to a political system with two political parties following different paths to the same corporate destination.

We want to win elections instead of standing up for our people; oh we can’t say that it would hurt our corporate donations. Yes maybe so, but maybe just maybe several million people would get up off the couch if they started telling the truth instead of playing the game. You win by leading not by imitating a leader and if you have to win by moderating or disguising your beliefs what did you win?

Woody Guthrie playing at a war bond dinner in Baltimore was offered a place for dinner at the main table while his harmonica player Sonny Terry who was black was offered a plate in the kitchen. Guthrie was outraged despite the explanations that, that is how it was done in Baltimore. Woody over threw the banquet table to the ground and shouted, “By God if we are going to fight fascism I’ll start right here!”

Maybe he should have signed a petition or started a protest; didn’t he understand that his actions could hurt his career or people might not like him because of it? A quick review of Guthrie’s career shows a man who didn’t bend on matters of principle, he lost jobs and got his ass beaten on more than one occasion over nothing more than principle. He believed this country belonged to the people and that government should work for the people not big business.

He didn’t wait to form a consensus he lead and hoped others would follow just like when Truman split the Democratic party in 1948 over civil rights you do it because it’s right and hope others will follow not the other way around of wait until your sure it the majority opinion and then jump in and say, “I agree, let me lead you!”

“Yes, but how are you so damn sure your right?” If you think that is a valid point of view reread the first three paragraphs again or as Harry Truman once said, “I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you?” Or as Dylan sang, “You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.” Give me liberty or give me prolonged negotiations!

The next time the anti war movement wants to hold a protest in Washington I would suggest a change in venue rather than the steps of the Capital Building try I-395 where it crosses the river.

I’m all for working within the system but sooner or later the time comes when you realize the systems working you. Pelosi and Hillary have both had anti war protestors removed and arrested for refusing to leave their offices. Isn’t that what we as Americans are supposed to do peaceful protest? Even Nixon spoke to the protestors at the Pentagon. And yet to have mothers of veterans arrested by the so-called good guys of the so-called peace party. In regards to Iran, Edward’s says all options are on the table how is that position any different from Condalessa Rice?

When dealing with a schoolyard bully or a tyrant war criminal there are only two paths, conciliation or confrontation and eventually both paths lead to the same destination. It only remains how much abuse we are willing to suffer in our education before realizing their never was a choice in the first place.

I close with Mario Savio, "There is a time, when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

A time to get hot, rather than enthusiastically luke warm!