We must have had better teachers out in our prairie town in the 1950s and 1960s. I remember listening in social studies classes to teachers who discussed freedom and democracy in the United States – the qualities that made us great – and who in the same breath reminded us of the fragility of democracy.
“We must be as alert to the dangers to democracy from within the country as we are to military threats from outside. There are many ways to undermine and defeat democracy.” Yes, because it is messy and fragile.
I was too young to raise my hand and question my teacher. I don’t know what her stand might have been towards Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. I don’t know if she was inferring that we should be concerned about card-carrying communists and socialists, or if she was referring to uncontrolled, unconscionable capitalism, or perhaps to leaders who seek to control election outcomes and destroy their political opponents.
Our teacher regaled us with tales of Russia, where neighbors turned in neighbors to the secret police; where sometimes, a child might turn in dissident parents. We understood as children that a state-run press meant you never heard the truth about what the government was actually up to; that propaganda masqueraded as news.
I think of these things now when I hear the government is fighting for the right to harass libraries for lists of books people have checked out, or I listen to public radio broadcasts featuring the annual list of stories that the corporate-owned media has failed to publish, or when it is reported that the government has prepared and released propaganda films and that stations around the country have simply aired them. I worry when I read quotes of government officials telling interviewers that we are an empire, and we do what we want. I fret when I read that Karl Rove wants to extend one-party dominance for the next sixty years, knowing that at least when it comes to Presidential elections, he apparently has the software to do so. I hang my head when I learn that John Bolton was responsible for stopping the recount in Florida long enough to throw the 2000 election into federal court; that John Negroponte looked the other way when U.S. sponsored death squads threw women and children out of helicopters; and that Alberto Gonzales authored the so-called torture briefs which set the stage for prison abuses in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq. And these people are running our democracy?
In response to current conditions – the President finishing a national tour at taxpayers expense in his quest to dismantle the Social Security system as we know it, replete with hand picked crowds, dissenters turned forcibly away (probably after being asked for their library cards); anti-Bush protesters locked up indiscriminately in New York City during peaceful protests defending themselves from criminal charges months later; and thousands of POWs and so-called enemy non-combatants held without charges, without counsel, and under conditions of torture and humiliation in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – I thought again about my elementary teachers, and I looked up “fascism” in the dictionary.
Fascism is a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
It is late summer now, and the President’s poll numbers are dropping. A majority of Americans now disapprove of the war and the handling of the war. One rural woman – Cindy Sheehan – has found the strength to confront the President and his ring of co-conspirators at his ranch, no less. She at least understands that in a democracy, in America, we still believe in free speech and free press and dissent in the face of overwhelming odds. It is time to remember our social studies lessons and to recall that it is impossible to force democracy to bloom here or there. It is a right and a responsibility that only we the people own. But our collective power doesn’t work unless and until it is activated. The question is – Is the Bull Shit Deep Enough Yet to be Noticeable? Will the country folks of the Red States say enough is enough? These are not conservative values for which our young people are giving their lives. These people are Fascists with a capital “F”, who will stop at nothing, including treason, to maintain power.
And they obviously take us for their dupes — on which basis they have legitimated their power. According to my rural values, that makes all of us co-conspirators, along with these crooks and liars. Just remember - at the end of the day, they deposit their war profits, while our families bury their dead. Then ask yourself – whose side are you really on and why?