Like little kids in December, they seem to believe that just by being nice, Santa will deliver the gifts: election victories and control of the Congress.
The Republicans know better. They analyze, they scheme, they think things through, they act aggressively and ruthlessly, and thus they win.
Unfortunately, the Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And opportunities aplenty are coming their way which, for the most part, they simply ignore. For example, when one of their number, Senator Russ Feingold, speaks up with a loud and eloquent voice, he is told to shut up. Demanding censure of the outlaw President, he is told by his own party, is "not nice."
Provided conditions remain essentially as they are now.
Now the good news: it is virtually certain that conditions will not remain essentially as they are now. Beneath the placid surface of our body-politic, stresses are accumulating that could result in a seismic political rupture. (I've listed these "stresses" in my "Perception is Reality" and so will not repeat them here). More conspicuously: Bush, Cheney and their war are becoming ever-more unpopular, public trust in Bush's competence and his honesty is likewise eroding, the mainstream media is beginning to desert Bush and his administration as the media continues to lose its credibility with the public. Still more moderate Republicans, libertarians and evangelical Christians are abandoning Bushism. Following John Dean, Kevin Phillips, "Pete" Peterson and John Eisenhower in 2004, now its Bruce Bartlett, Francis Fukuyama, Larry Wilkerson, and Paul Pillar. Even Chris Matthews, who once compared Bush to Henry V and Winston Churchill, has had it with Bush's and Cheney's lies. To Don Imus, he said just last week:
"From the beginning everything about how they've got WMD's, they are a threat to us, they are going to bomb us with a nuclear weapon, this country is going to be an easy liberate, it's going to be a cake walk. As Cheney said as recently as ten months ago the insurgents are in their last throes. Everything that is said is not true... They don't want the whole truth out and that's the fact."
Whether or not the Democrats will wake up and seize the offensive in the upcoming election campaign remains to be seen. But of this we can be confident: the Democrats must venture forth and seize their victory. Santa will not bring it to them just for being passively "nice."
A descent into despotism.
Critics who use "the F-word" (Fascism) to describe the Bush regime are denounced as "shrill" and "irresponsible." Are they? Consider this: when Bush signs bills from the Congress forbidding torture and warrantless surveillance, he issues "signing statements" which states that he is free to ignore these laws when, at his discretion, he chooses to do so. And now this: "Last month ... President Bush signed into law a bill that never passed the house." In effect, this demotes the Congress of the United States from a law-making to
an "advisory" body. Add to that the fact that Bush and his party are "elected" with privately owned and operated, unverifiable "black box" voting machines and compilers, conveniently provided by GOP partisans. So it comes to this: rule by decree by a "leader" who has placed himself above the law and beyond recall by the voters. If this does not define a "dictatorship," I don't know what does.
Meanwhile, the Congress, the courts, the media, the Democratic Party, and public acquiesce in silence.
We've not fully descended to totalitarianism. Dissent, however muted, is still tolerated. (But don't you dare protest within sight or earshot of "Our Leader"). Those of us who continue to criticize the regime have not yet been charged with "thought-crime," and sent to "re-education camps." Not yet.
So the task before us is not to protect our democracy; it's too late for that. Our task is to restore our democracy, to re-institute the government we once had, "deriving [its] just powers from the consent of the governed."
Election Fraud: "The Dragon at the Gate."
If the Democrats are to capture at least one house of Congress in November and if, as a result, the American people begin to take back their own country, the party must first of all slay the dragon at the gate: election fraud. For, as anyone who dares face and study the evidence must appreciate, because GOP partisans build the unauditable machines, write the secret software, and count 80% of the votes, "the people's will" at elections is essentially irrelevant. The election results are simply what the GOP wants them to be, as they were in 2000, 2002, and 2004, and as they will be again in 2006 - provided conditions remain essentially as they are now.
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