Liberty Calling: Our Summer of Discontent

Today is a day that is different from any other day: it is not tomorrow, it is not yesterday. We can, if we want, take action today, regardless of what we did yesterday, regardless of what we fear for tomorrow. Right now more Americans want impeachment procedings opened against George W. Bush than approve of the job he is doing. More people want him out, than want him in. If you are among that number, ask yourself a question, what did you do today to increase that number?

If you think this is too high a wall to climb, realize that in 2001, 90% of Americans polled approved of the job that George W. Bush was doing as President. Yes this was the "rally around the flag" effect, which is why it is so important that we have a free press and an independent judiciary and a clean election system, all things that would have prvented George W. Bush from being the person who happened to be in office on September 12, 2001. Since then, support for him has dropped by 60%. For every person who approves of George Bush now, two don't any more. That's a winnowing effect that a medical school would be proud of.

If you think this is too high a wall to climb, realize that in 2003, a confused majority of Americans supported some kind of invasion of Iraq. That number us now below 40%, and below 30% in some polls. For every American who thinks we should have gone in, there is one who now believes that the were wrong. That's a winnowing effect that an 8am biochemistry class would envy.

If you think this is too high a wall to climb, realize that right now, in major polls, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton both best all Republican challengers for the Presidency. A bit over a decade ago, a majorit of Americans would not have supported either a woman, or someone who was not white for the highest office.

If you think this is too high a wall to climb, realize that equal marriage is now the law in more states than it was when George W. Bush took office. Despite constant drumbeats from every Republican pulpit in the land. Think about it.

I don't need to tell you about all the other times in American history when a wall that seemed impossible to climb, suddenly fell. Those are the facts, that is the history, and today is the day that history can repeat itself.

But something beyond history is at stake at this moment, because we've reached the point where everyone is part of the solution or part of the problem. The people in Washington aren't leaders, they are followers. That's the way things work. They can follow the piper's call of money from lobbyists, who, by and large have had a happy war, or they can listen to other voices. It has been a summer of discontent. Those other voices elected a new congress to see new policies. What is at stake is the simple question of whether your vote is a demand that your elected representatives listen to you, or merely a himble petition to distant mandrins in a distant central government that perhaps they might want to hear your unworthy pleas.

The word in biology for animals without a backbone is "invertebrate."

It is the summer of our discontent, because we asked for out of Iraq, and have gotten a year of farther in. With another year to follow. Forgive me for saying this, but it is pretty clear that our occupation of Iraq has gotten deep into a gopher groove.

It is the summer of our discontent, because we want an end to the decade of stupid, and yet, we keep waking up in stupid's America. We seem entertainments that seem to believe that this is still 2003, and we are still living in George W. Orwell's America. The one where the Jack Bauer school of interogation gets results.

It is the summer of our discontent because everyone can see that gasoline stays expensive, food is not cheap, and paychecks don't seem to be going up. They can feel our financial house of cards, is on fire. I'll let someone who knows more half asleep than I ever will fill you in on the details.

It is the summer of our discontent because we need access to health care expanded, and Bush is trying to cut children from the rolls. Even as newspapers tell the Democrats in congress to just accept this. Obviously the children of people who write editorials aren't in danger of losing health insurance and access yet.

It is the summer of our discontent because the Congress cannot even seem to get straight answers out of underlings, courts can't send Administration wrong doers to jail, and it all seems like this is business as usual. The air must be different in Washington, that or people are inhaling.

It is the summer of our discontent because it seems as if everything were locked in place, with, as the song I can't escape on the oldster's radio stations says, "no time left to start again."

Some people wait, hoping that the summer of discontent is the winner for their glorious senator from New York, you know the one, she wants to cut our troop presence in half, and calls it a withdrawal. The one who voted for the war several times, and only repented this year of it.

Some people wait, and hope that the summer of our discontent will start the fall of the House of Bush. But if not you, who? If not now, when? If not by your hand, how? If not in the place where you live, where? If not for what we have seen and know, what?

Tomorrow is another day. It can be the first day of you doing something, the next day of you doing something. Just don't let it be the last day of doing anything, or the next day of not doing anything, or the first day of not doing anything any more. And if what you have been doing hasn't been working, then maybe it is time to try something else. I was angry once, proudly shrill even. But that's time is over, because it really is time to explain to the people who don't approve of Bush, but don't yet want him gone, that he's never read anything not written on a baseball bat.

Which end of that bat are you going to be on?

Signed


Liberty Calling