A few last words from my Inner Frenchman

The memorial to the United States I posted yesterday caused a few people to wonder if I'd given up. They were wrong. I was merely doing what I do every day here, expressing the way I felt about the day's events.

Although I expected we'd lose the fight in the Senate, the final result nonetheless brought tears to my eyes. I had witnessed the death of the nation I loved, or more specifically, the murder of a set of ideals, upon which a nation was structured. I felt a need to memorialize that loss.

I target patriotism almost daily with my satire, but it's not a love for country I mock, rather it is the simple-minded nationalism of the right; a patriotism that values symbols over substance; a patriotism that drives legislators who angrily acted to ban flag burning to pass a law gutting our Bill of Rights.

The basic values I love most, the ideals that made me proud to be an American, due process, habeas corpus, the proscriptions against cruel and unusual punishment and the use of coercion to compel confession were destroyed in the name of that kind of patriotism yesterday. Our America, liberal America, died with those ideals.

That's why I mourned.

But today is a new day, a day in which I hope we will all resolve to fight harder than ever to bring our America back. The first step is to retake Congress and the Senate from the tyrants and cowards who committed yesterday's crimes. That means doing everything we can to ensure that the Democrats win in November.

Each of us need to pick a candidate in a congressional or senate race in our respective states and work our asses off for him or her. We need to canvass neighborhoods, man phone banks, and talk to everyone we know, urging them to support our candidate, and ensuring that those who do get out and vote on election day.

For some, it will be easier than others. The people of Eastern King County in Washington are blessed to have a candidate like Darcy Burner, while the citizens of Ohio are cursed with the coward, Sherrod Brown. The latter will have to find a way to stifle their gag reflex and work like hell to get him elected, because, in the end, he'll vote for a Democratic Majority Leader. Then, future bills like the Bush McCain Torture Compromise will die in committee.

Are the Democrats perfect? Certainly not. We'll need to purge many of them in primaries over the next ten years. That means we'll need to actively search for candidates more honorable than a Sherrod Brown or a Bill Nelson (perhaps a pimp or a heroin dealer) to run against them. But in the end, we can build a party for which we can be proud if we're willing to work for it.

Lastly, we need to get corporate money out of politics. It limits our power as individuals and tempts our representatives into corruption. Public funding of campaigns is the only way to achieve that.

We have to do these things. We can't afford to sit back and wait for things to change. Waiting will allow the tyrant to strengthen his grip. 2006 may very well be our last chance to bring about change peaceably. We're getting very close to a time when the only option will be revolution. I don't like our odds if that happens. Technology has given enemy the kinds of tools it needs to create the most efficient police state the world has ever seen.

I'm sure you're all tired of hearing from my inner Frenchman, so I'll put him away and bring back the General. Thanks for indulging me, and thanks again for fighting so hard this week.

Elsewhere: There were a lot of great comments made at yesterday's memorial. You can find them here.