Those who are not reading me for the first
time will remember that I have questioned in the past
whether there will be free elections for
Americans come the year 2004. It seems to me that when
five members of one branch of government
select the chief executive of another branch, one who is
most closely aligned with their particular
point of view, and against the legal votes of the majority of
the electorate in both the United States
and in the single state of Florida, it is a reasonable question
for the press to ask. It seems to
me that when touch screen computer voting is instituted in many
key states, and when the source codes for
those computers are written by heavy contributors to
a single party, but not inspected by unaligned
auditors, it is more than a legitimate question to ask.
When an aircraft that carries a key opposition
party member mysteriously crashes in the forest,
and the FAA requires that aircraft to carry
a black box, but no such device is present, it seems to me
to be a legitimate question to ask why
the black box was not present. After all, when aircraft tumble
from the skies they don't always fall in
the forest. Sometimes they fall into crowded cities or school yards.
The black box would tell us why that plane
fell, and we could prevent future occurrences.
But no mainstream journalist has asked
that question. Why?
Answering my own question; it is because
anyone who asks questions such as these are instantly labeled
"conspiracy theorists." The label
quickly calls to mind the schizophrenic who wears tinfoil on his head,
or uses pliers to rip the dental work from
his mouth in order to prevent the CIA from using the metal as
a conduit for mind control. The current
mainstream media, owned and operated by the financial interests
that fund a compliant congress, will not
allow questions that may shed doubt on their agenda.
And this is one of the many hallmarks of
Fascism.
I am sorry that this word, "Fascism," has
been so much used over the years, since the fall of the Third Reich.
The word has lost its impact. But
make no mistake. We have at least temporarily lost our democracy,
and
we have become a Fascist state. It
is a free press and free speech-the combination of a multitude of voices
from varying perspectives-that serves as
the national watchdog and limits the corruption of government.
Perhaps it was the excess of accusations
against Bill Clinton which made his administration one of the least
corrupt in history-only one felony conviction
for an act that occurred well before the Clinton administration.
Perhaps it was the free pass given to Ronald
Reagan that made his administration one of the most corrupt-thirty
two convictions for felonies committed
while in office (three overturned on appeal-not because the accused
were innocent, but because the trial court
had admitted evidence that was inadmissible by law). But when all
of the voices are effectively silenced,
save for one point of view, Fascism arrives, as Harley Sorensen recently
wrote, "on little cat feet."
Milton Mayer, in his book, They Thought
They Were Free, describes this process from his personal
observations of living in Germany during
the rise of the Third Reich. "Each act, each occasion, is worse than
the last, but only a little worse.
You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking
occasion,
thinking that others, when such a shock
comes, will join with you in resisting somehow." But who will speak
out
without a voice? When the press is
gone, organized opposition disappears also. "To live in this process
is
absolutely not to be able to notice it
- please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political
awareness, acuity, than most of us had
ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential,
so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,'
that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the
beginning, unless one understood what the
whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' that no
'patriotic German' could resent must some
day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a
farmer in his field sees the corn growing.
One day it is over his head."
One day a man wakes up to see all that he
has lost, and the realization finally takes hold. "And one day, too
late,
your principles, if you were ever sensible
of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self deception has grown
too heavy... You see what you are, what
you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was
all that was required of most of us: that
we do nothing)." And so the world is forever changed. The fear
of
speaking out at last has become overwhelming.
One only dares speak to one or two trusted friends in absolute secrecy.
"'Once the war began,' my colleague continued,
'resistance, protest, criticism, complaint, all carried with them a
multiplied likelihood of the greatest punishment.
Mere lack of enthusiasm, or failure to show it in public, was "defeatism."
You assumed that there were lists of those
who would be "dealt with" later, after the victory. Goebbels was
very
clever here, too. He continually
promised a "victory orgy" to "take care of" those who thought that their
"treasonable
attitude" had escaped notice. And
he meant it; that was not just propaganda. And that was enough to
put an end
to all uncertainty.
"'Once the war began, the government could do
anything "necessary" to win it; so it was with the "final solution" of
the Jewish problem, which the Nazis always
talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war
and its "necessities" gave them the knowledge
that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that
war against Hitler would help the Jews
were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun,
still thought of complaining, protesting,
resisting, were betting on Germany's losing the war. [And since Germany
had created the most powerful army on Earth...]
It was a long bet. Not many made it.'"
But what if there is at least one single
voice with the power to be heard, and the courage to face the onslaught
of
public criticism by speaking the forbidden
truth? By this I mean an individual who will be recognized by the
people
as one who has the capability of national
leadership. An individual with a steady and clear voice with the
ability to
find traction with those yet too frightened
to exercise their own political power. Might there still be a chance
to
turn the tide before circumstances can
completely silence even those who were once powerful?
There is a man who walks among us, apparently
once ignorant of the current nature of our national press corps
and who allowed himself to be destroyed
by it, who has watched for two years in silence before his recent
reemergence. He has observed the
casual change in our nation from an innovative democracy to an emerging
dictatorship. He no longer carries
the fear of losing, because he has already lost enough. He has become
the
voice of opposition, even within his own
complacent opposition party. When asked if he is old and damaged
goods in a party that now seeks new blood
after crushing defeats, he only quotes Bob Dylan. "I was so much
older then, I'm younger than that now."
The election in 2002 reveals one thing,
and one thing only. Given a choice between Fascism and Fascism,
twenty-one percent of the people will choose
Fascism. Most of the people will not bother to make a choice
where there is none, and just under twenty-one
percent of the people will attempt to be optimistic enough to
fashion another choice where none exists.
The lack of options comes from the lack of public discourse.
If the majority of the citizens of this
country decide that over two hundred years of democracy is enough,
and that Fascism (for our own safety sake?)
is the rightful order for the twenty-first century, than so be it.
I will either make arrangements for my
own well being, or I will leave the country. Americans should be
offered a clear choice of alternatives
in open and public debate. That debate has been readily hidden from
the American electorate. If we, who
believe in democracy are given the opportunity to make our case,
we believe that the truth is on our side.
If we lose, we lose. We demand the opportunity to make our case!
Yet we cannot expect, at this late date,
that the opportunity will be readily given. It is therefore an imperative
that one who shares our principles with
the power to make himself heard be given the mantle of leadership
to take us into 2004.
It is for this reason primarily that I would
encourage Al Gore to decide to run for President, and the sooner
he begins to organize his campaign, the
better. Al Gore is the only Democratic leader of stature who has
been able to speak the truth with enough
voice by which to be heard. He has lost the fear of losing, so he
will run a campaign based on ideas, and
not a campaign that begs mercy from the start.
If he chooses to run he will have to combat
a hostile national press corps which finds his ideas will leave
America unsafe for corporately run Fascism.
Al Gore has traveled that road before and has a better idea
of its pitfalls than any politician in
this country. If he decides to run again, so he claims, he will leave
the
media events to others, and find a way
to speak directly to the people. It is my belief that he will do
this
by taking a page from the history of his
Democratic base. He will go directly to those who suffer in America,
the homeless and the jobless, and allow
those people to pose their own questions to government, much as
Robert Kennedy did in 1968. Under
these circumstances, and as the front runner to the Democratic party
ticket, the press will not be able to ignore
his message, because his message will be one that is posed by his
fellow Americans. And Al Gore will
give them a voice.
Watch Al Gore! Watch him very closely.
He has distanced himself from the rightward drifters who have left
the Democratic party impotent. He
is speaking truth to power, from a powerful pulpit. If you decide
that you
agree with me, that he is the best candidate
to take our message to America and the world, I ask that you join
with me to encourage him to run.
I ask this of the Greens as well. If you feel that his ideas are
clear and unqualified,
I hope that you will assist in giving him
traction. It is not necessary for me to say that I hope he means
this, or I
hope he means that, because I believe that
he is saying everything he needs to say quite clearly. And if he
gains
the proper traction, others in his party
will follow. It will then be up to all of us to prevent another election
from
being stolen.
Maybe, just maybe, we can find a way to
turn America on her proper course. There is no question that it's
a
long bet. Only the best gamblers
will be able to play in this crapshoot, but it is my belief that Al Gore
has learned,
on his own, the proper way to throw the
dice.