What are You Prepared to Do?
Iraq’s a mess, we all know it. The Downing Street documents (not just the minutes from Blair’s July 2002 meeting — see the transcript of the BBC show here which details all the evidence that came out) demonstrate that we, the American Public was lied to all along.
There never was any desire to let diplomacy work, or to give the UN inspectors enough time to do their job. Nor was there any inclination to believe evidence that contradicted the stated reasons for invading Iraq. They fixed the evidence so that it would support the only justification for war they could sell to buy our support: the fear of Islamic mushroom clouds blossoming over America.
But so what?
(more after the fold)
The US media isn’t going to cover it. To them it’s old news. “Everybody knows Georgie boy cooked the books on Iraq,” they say. “No one cares. Americans had their accountability moment last November. Time to move on. Politics is boring. We’d rather cover car chases, runaway brides and Michael Jackson, anyway.”
The US Congress isn’t going to do anything about it. All the Congressional Committees that could start an independent investigation of the Bush Administration are controlled by the GOP. And if we know one thing about that party, we know they ain’t gonna turn on Bushco, not after two electoral victories (dubious or not) have given them unfettered control of the reins of federal power, something no party has had since the early days of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
So that brings me (finally) to the question I used as a title for this diary. Because the only way anything is going to get done is through collective action by those of us who are outraged at this deception, and who do think that those in high office who abuse our trust, who kill thousands of innocents, Americans and Iraqis alike, based on a lie, deserve to be punished.
So what are YOU prepared to do?
And I don’t mean sign an online petition calling for impeachment, or calling (or emailing) your representative’s DC office requesting the he or she propose legislation to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the White House. And I don’t mean writing diaries at DKos, or commenting on other people’s diaries, or writing another blog entry, or letter to the editor. Those are all nice things to do, they make us feel good, sure, but Ladies and Gentlemen, they don’t get results.
I can’t tell you how many petitions I’ve signed, how many letters to the editor I’ve written (I’ve even had a couple of them published), or how many diaries and comments I’ve posted over the course of the last few years, how much scratch I’ve sent to MoveOn or the DNC or Kerry/Edwards or Senator Boxer.
Last Fall, I wrote complaint letters to the FCC regarding my local Sinclair station and made calls to its local advertisers. I campaigned for Kerry in Ohio, and spent election day in Cleveland manning the phones at one of Election Protection’s field offices. All good things to pat myself on the back for, yeah, but ultimately I have to say it hasn’t got the job done. For all the time and effort and money I’ve contributed so far its all added up to only a few miniscule successes, and mostly a lot of failure.
The plain simple truth is that everything I’ve done, and likely you’ve done too, hasn’t made a difference. So I ask again: What are YOU prepared to do?
Because we are in a fight for our country boys and girls. And we’re losing it. We keep bringing knives to GOP gunfights. People are dying in Iraq. We are the poster child for war crimes and torture worldwide. Our economy is sinking under the weight of massive government and trade deficits. Real people are hurting. Children and their parents without medical insurance. Soldiers returning home with shattered bodies and shattered minds. Real incomes falling even as corporate profits (especially oil company profits rise).
We need to do more. We need a movement as powerful and as willing to take risks as the Civil Rights Movement was during the 50’s and 60’s. We need to hold nationwide marches, boycotts and strikes. We need massive and coordinated civil disobedience. We need images on network and cable news as powerful as the fire hoses and attack dogs that were set upon little African American children in Birmingham, Alabama.
We need to capture America’s attention and let the world know that we do give a flying fuck about these lies and these murders being propagated in our country’s name. We need to let the msm elites know that this isn’t old news to us, that it’s as PERSONAL as it gets.
So what are YOU prepared to do?
