Democratic Conversation

Protestors in Budapest and around Hungary demand that their president step down for admissions of lying to the people during his politcal campaign. Thailand’s army has seized power from its prime minister for his role in corruption and trying to solidify power into a dictatorship. How many people around the world today wonder why the world has not seen such vehemence, and indeed a coup, staged by the American people against George W. Bush? Why have not the U.S. military high command put Bush and his administration hierarchy in chains, taken them before the American people, and tried them for high treason? Why hasn’t the U.S. House of Representatives conferred article of impeachment on Bush fo high crimes against his oath of office, the U.S. Constitution and the American people?

These are reasonable questions that deserve honest answers.

Lest Americans forget, George W. Bush cheated his way through two presidential elections. The facts spell this out both in clear intent—disenfranchisement of the people—and end desires —devolve the United States into an oligarchy. Few enough protests were staged in 2000, the least coming from then-Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic nominee. No protest was staged in 2004, including that of John Kerry, yet another frightened Democratic nominee. Had the American people given up? Are their streets paved with such glittering gold that they have forgotten how a democracy remains a democracy?

Lest Americans forget, news investigations and Congressional panels have proven that George W. Bush lied to the American public in order to attack, invade, and occupy Iraq. Today Iraq is a cauldron of sectarian violence, civil war, and terrorist training activity. George W. Bush has committed human rights abuses by illegally arresting and detaining people without any domestic or international rights they deserve by law; he has committed crimes against humanity by attacking a sovereign nation without provocation and bombing its civilian population; he is a wanted man under the terms of international law for war crimes.

Lest Americans forget, George W. Bush has used fear tactics against the American public and Congressional opposition to push through laws that have now diluted the Bill of Rights protecting basic freedoms; he has pushed through laws that have disrupted and now threaten to ruin the checks & balances written into the Constitution more than 200 years ago by the founding legislators of the United States to make sure one branch of government does not gain dictatorial powers against the others or—inevitably—the people; and George W. Bush has used every immoral tactic within reach to thwart opposition from the people, congress, American jurisprudence, and international law.

Lest Americans forget, George W. Bush calls himself a Christian. Do Christians act as he has? Actually, many do. However, lest Americans forget, George W. Bush belongs to a Christian Evangelical sect that believes Jesus is their light and savior, a sect that dictates if you’re doing right for Jesus, you can act in any manner deemed justified to gain the ends demanded by your vision of what Christ would want. While this in itself is not illegal, most reasonable people will see George W. Bush’s illegal actions in the name of the American presidency as direct adherence to such radical, damaging, dangerous religious thought.

Both John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000 said they would not contest their respective presidential elections because it would be harmful to American democracy. Apparently they—both of them lawyers—forgot in their years practicing and making American law that American democracy (democracy by definition!) is about contesting the status quo, contesting suspected illegal government actions, contesting the very law that makes America a democracy. (Hell, George W. Bush does a better job, albeit immoral and for nefarious purposes, in contesting established American law.)

The basis for American democracy and ascendancy as a beacon of freedoms, the stage upon which the downtrodden can enter and live peaceably, and as THE symbol for hope among the unjustly governed around the globe (roughly 70% of the world’s countries) was its founders’ recognition of tyranny when it was thrust upon them. America didn’t just happen; its wide cultural and religious mix of colonists fought for freedom against imperialist Britain, fought verbally amongst each other to establish a government of laws backed by the consent of the people. Many of them called this democracy “an experiment” because it had not been tried for nearly 1,500 years, not since ancient Rome’s statesmen-turned-dictators ultimately failed under their own weight of government and upper class corruption.

This new basis of human rights was called “inalienable,” and was profoundly felt in mind and body by these fledgling democrats. They had experienced how life under totalitarian rule affected their conscience. This was not a first for history, nor has it been the last, but it was the time and impetus behind the insurrection, revolt, and military coup that changed the history of government. But many of the so-called Founding Fathers distrusted government. Two in particular were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Franklin didn’t give these new United States much of a chance for success. Tyranny would win out, Franklin warned. Jefferson held out hope for the people, but he wrote later in his life that government should be overthrown every seven years because that was all the time it took for power to corrupt and tyranny to rule.

As revolutionary war raged through the colonies, Jefferson’s hope for his fellow conspirators, ire for the British government, and zeal to teach all people that a better system is in their hands, helped him to write the Declaration of Independence. In it he pointed out a basic right—no, duty—of an oppressed people:

Lest Americans today think they are dreaming—or perhaps hopeful—these words were written in 1776, although they could have been written today, or last week, or in December 2000, or November 2001, or March 2003, or tomorrow.