Wouldn’t it be nice if all the people who demand health care reform and all those who want to end war yesterday would converge on the Capitol to truly Take Back America? Imagine the assembly widened with those who lose sleep over global warming, stolen elections, the national debt, torture – the list goes on. Imagine the tsunami-force power of those united voices.
While impatiently we wait -- for future clean election cycles to pad the Congress and White House with enough "progressives" to take our government and media away from corporations -- we could easily force change in a matter of months.
It’s time to practice some real solidarity. Organize!
Come on MoveOn, UFP&J, Physicians for a National Health Program, VotersUnite, US Labor Against the War, OpEd News, Media Matters, Veterans for Peace, Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson, labor unions and the many thousands of other groups that exist to bring about change. Out of necessity we supported your efforts and helped build our independent news infrastructure.
So let's stop complaining in the echo chamber. Let’s stop diluting the opportunity for major reform by focusing on narrow projects with petitions and vigils. Let’s stop wasting our collective resources on multi-million dollar political campaigns, TV ads and full-page ads in the New York Times. Those strategies haven’t worked.
Are we waiting for Ghandi or Nelson Mandela?
As badly as we need one, it doesn’t make sense to wait for a messiah. The American media would frame Jesus Christ himself as a naive commie-pinko freeloader who is weak on terror. But we do have September 11, 2007, the sixth anniversary of the event the politicians used to turn the country on its axis.
Whether you believe 9/11 was an inside job, the result of gross incompetence or something else, 9/11 unleashed something truly ugly and divisive and unyielding in America. Politicians and corporations have exploited and profited from the disaster, and are wreaking havoc here and globally without constraint.
The March of the People, a spontaneous sprout from the silent majority, stepped off from Chicago June 21 and will walk the 800 miles to the Capitol, arriving on the anniversary of 9/11. They will be met by marchers who are on the way from other directions.
We could be in D.C. on September 11 in the tens of millions to join them. Our interest groups and independent media could focus on getting people to the Capitol on September 11. Our members of Congress who stand by the Constitution could call us to the Capitol.
Now imagine we stay there until government understands the concept: We The People.
It wouldn’t take long.
