HISTORY

July 2, 2003

Bug George Day

Remember Bug George Day? It's such a Great Day in History!. One could argue it was even more important than the day we celebrate -- July 4th. Because July 2nd was two days before they signed the Declaration. It was the historic threshold through which the American Nation was ushered into being.

Imagine what pandemonium that was! Those wild guys who were letting that new continent go to their heads and saying they wouldn't recognize the king anymore as their sovereign. They called themselves "Americans"! What rubbish! the aristocracy must have thought. What pigs they are!

And here are these violent revolutionaries cooking up the scheme that will Bug George like nothing he ever dreamed of -- or any monarch before him. Monarchs were used to insurgencies over the centuries, this one was something different. It had a new component.

This is the foundation upon which this country was built, and upon which democratic republican revolutions have been based around the world until barely a monarchy still stands, except of course the great and noble Prince Charles, the King Who Would Never Be King, who fails even to be a good prince, prefers to be a tampon. The royal tradition, what's left of it.

Now they are hyping Prince Charles son William, who is a hunk and has a lot of the radiant healthiness of his mother, whom Charles used to breed his heirs.

Unfortunately George the Bizarro is today leading a charge backward in history back through that threshold in the opposite direction, to erase what his ilk perceives to be an error. The "crisis of democracy" is to them the very idea of democracy. That idea they are making a massive effort to stamp out now. Not just the practice of democracy, but the very idea of democracy. They are doing that by using the word to describe the technofascist totalitarianism they are trying to establish in Iraq and the middle east, and at home as well. They are profaning it.

You have to hand it to them, the Founders, they had a lot more chutzpah than anyone seems to have today in the defense of those principles. The George W. Bush types believe that "Liberty" means liberty for them to do whatever they want, take whatever they want from whomever they want and kill anyone who gets in their way. The politicians who don't believe in those political principles are apparently afraid to do much or even say much about it.

Most of them seem to believe in the corporate buck and that is about it.

There have been many July 4ths that weren't too terribly eventful, at least it seemed that way. But this is no longer something to be celebrated emptily. This year should be an affirmation of the moral obligation to make America true to its principles. It is only we the living who can hand this tradition down to posterity. We can't wait for mythical Lincolns and Washingtons to leap off a movie screen and repair the damage, right the wrongs and get America back on track. This is it. We're it. Not just people in America, but everywhere. The dream is alive in the world at large. And it is our responsibility to try to make it real for the people who come after us.

The alternative is not acceptable.

On the Other Hand!:

Give credit where it is due, there are a few who are speaking out in a way that makes sense to the "Man on the Street," who is not so dumb by the way. My favorite of the ones who are running for president is Dennis Kucinich -- [DISCLAIMER!] ONLY because of what he says. I admit, he's not ... "Presidential". -- How I loathe that word! -- That is a word that the lying scumbags on the media started trafficking in 1980 when the Actor They Couldn't Shut Up was being groomed for the presidency of USA Incorporated.

No Kucinich just don't look the part. I loved what he had to say so when I was scanning the Godawful local cable network and saw that he was going to be shown on CSPAN I checked it out. I waited for him to come out. I'd seen some pictures, even a little dim footage on CSPAN of a milling crowd after a political rally. He said some good things about the ongoing rollback of workers rights and the current move by the Corporate Congress to abolish the requirement for overtime pay.

So suddenly Kucinich appears on the screen, he's speaking to a meeting of Americans for Democratic Action, and he is so not the part of the presidential politician.

I'm liking this, I realize. He doesn't look anything like the standard career politician, and there are hundreds of them out of the same mold. That's a step in the right direction. Now if he doesn't behave like the standard politician, we may have something.

I can see George Will now shaking his head downwardly, and Plastic Sam next to him with that devilish smile. This man is just not presidential! The model politician of the corporate media has a certain look and manner, varying somewhat regionally. Square chins, big crop of hair, speaking in stentorian tones dripping with self-importance.

Kucinich isn't a bad looking guy. He's a little impish, with a black pudding bowl headdress, and a glint in his eye. What is that? Intelligence? Does this guy -- could he actually understand the words he is reading in a speech? He didn't even have a teleprompter. That's WEIRD! Sounds suspiciously like a member of what dear Newt of the Barnyard lately called "the literary class". I believe he was referring to people who are making an issue of the fact that Bush lied about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. These of the literary class, Gingrich said, are just doing this because they "don't like Bush."

That's one of Bush's favorite tricks of logic, to dismiss any opposition as "political", therefore not legitimate. Gingrich has it backwards. People don't like Bush because of the policies, not the other way around.

As Kucinich spoke, he started very happy, radiating the pleasure of being able to do what he is doing. His talk was educational, historical, not just the empty slogans, fractured logic and rhetorical lies of the Truly Unpresidential W. He started with a paraphrase of the Gettysberg Address, which is as eloquent in its crystalline perfection as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And they are all still perfectly relevant and true. Our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal... Now we are involved in a great struggle testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

The boyish cheer faded when he got further into detail. He became emphatic and expressed some appropriate anger. Addressing the real issues of the publis is not even the same language as the standard politician favored by the corporate media.

As I watched him and studied that funny face, the way you do someone who is new to you, I thought of Lincoln and how he sho nuff wasn't up there for his looks. It really is about what he is saying and even more what he is really standing for. I would love to elect a president on that basis for a change.

Who are the real conservatives here? The ones who are saying let's go back to the old ways, the Constitution, the principles emodied in those documents, congresspeople who represent their constituents, the right to vote. These are not old fashioned principles that should be abandoned, though our designated government is now in the process of doing that.

So I do want a president that George Will and Sam Donaldson et.al., the Keepers of Public Opinion, will say is Not Presidential. That would be a very good sign. If the corporate media don't like him, there must be something uncorporate about him. Talking like a real person to real people is a step in the right direction.

No doubt the corporate media will crush Kucinich for good as soon as they can. Kucinich is the kind of pest that dies in plane crashes. But I am really enjoying having his voice in the dialogue. That is even more important at this point than whether he will be elected, that there be someone introducing these ideas into the political debate. Keeping Nader out of the debate was an error for the Democrats. By turning their back on the constituency represented by Nader, they cut off a principle base of support. Then they had to compete with the Republicans for Republicans. And deceived people. Maybe this time the desperate nature of the situation will force progressive ideas into the dialogue through the Democratic party.

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