Republicans a growing threat to democracy
This November, the choice is in your hands. Democracy affords us the opportunity to punish leaders who mislead us and abuse our loyalty. But we will defeat the republicans only once we understand our enemy.
Neoconservatism is not simply a reinterpretation of classic conservativism, but a warped inversion of traditional republican values. Our new republican is a covert spokesperson for private interests. He will say what he’s told to say, hiding the inauthenticity of his assertions, ironically, behind nationalism. Corrupt puppets with conflicted interests have replaced honest republicans.
The glaring truth behind their paranoid lies can be seen when, while invoking the name of our great country, they do violence to the very values it embodies. Nor is this violence abstract, merely a hypocritical self-deception — from Baghdad to AT&T’s “secret” NSA wiretapping room one can witness the horrifying scale of this uniquely American proto-fascism. The face of each of the forty-one suicides at Guantanamo Bay bears unholy witness to the rape of freedom in the name of freedom.
We let clear indications pass unnoticed. Insulated so thoroughly that we are unruffled by atrocity, Americans do not worry about the future of their freedom. After all, when’s the last time liberty was in jeopardy? It’s become easy to believe our liberties are promised to us.
We forget how rare, how precious freedom is.
Mistakenly we see our civil liberties as natural rights. Our freedoms have become invisible; not from distance, but precisely by their closeness — their constant, comforting presence. Instinctively averting our eyes from corruption and abuses of power, we blindly believe our nation’s values are ancient, absolute, and inviolable. Optimism convinces us to hope our liberty cannot disappear — but I say: Today we must do more than hope.
We can no longer afford such ignorance. The world has changed. Those who see this profoundly–and there are few who do not after the horror and tragedy of September 11— recognize that we can no longer rest secure in our freedom’s future. For there are those who cynically profit from our fear, who fuel the cowardly violence they use to justify the erosion of freedom. The image is hideous, yet impossibly made more loathsome by their deliberate manipulation of religious faith to promote an amoral agenda.
We must have absolute courage in the face of the truth. Liberty, equality and justice — we must not let these precious flames die. We must protect them against those who would suffocate them. We will not be afraid. We shall hold accountable those who have failed in their entrusted task. We have placed our faith in men and women who have failed us. Now the time to correct past errors has arrived.
Our voice matters. November is our chance for a meaningful change. Together we can bring an end to fear.
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Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Sep 1 2006. Filed under Opinion.
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