The Second Civil War

Professional writers and concerned citizens alike have contributed a myriad of eloquent words this past week, all attempting to bring some sense of perspective to the horror we are sharing. I am reluctant to throw yet another angry screed up against the wall when so many of the essays I have already seen are so insightful, so deadly accurate and so heartfelt.

Nevertheless, I offer these thoughts because I believe and fear them to be true:


The Second Civil War started in Miami Dade County when a farcical band of Republican apparatchiks disrupted the counting of ballots by the force of their own blubbery persons -- coupled with the explict threat to bring in "Cubans" as re-inforcements.

At the time Jim Baker was on TV almost every day, laying the ideological groundwork for the Restoration of Rule By The Bush Family Business. Baker pompously, ponderously and sarcastically expounded the post-modern conception that there is no such thing as Objective Reality -- that a person could not be trusted to look at a cardboard ballot without letting her "bias" determine her assessment of which Presidential candidate should get credit for it.

This premise that power determines reality shortly thereafter became the per curiam rationale for putting Bush into the White House. Rather than applying the rule of law (which incidentally, with a little intellectual effort, could have supported their decision) the Supreme Court just blew an ultra-cynical 5-4 raspberry at Al Gore and the majority of Americans who did not want Bush to become President.

Throughout that miserable month of political disputation in Florida, we saw a continuation of that faux-riot in Miami: a relentless array of shouters from talk radio; Fox News; and the internet; plus ever larger numbers of Mainstream Media voices -- all expressing the exact same message at the exact same time.

Having been a professional labor organizer my whole life, I have to tip my hat to the iron discipline and rock solid unity of this Chanting Machine. I really would not want to emulate this inherently fascistic technique, but we would all be blind fools not to recognize the depth, breadth and perfect unity of the right wing organization assembled behind the Bush Family Business.

In our own disorganized way, liberals, progressives and leftists have tried to come to terms with this Leviathan -- only to get our ass kicked at every turn.

The one dimension that makes absolute unity possible for them and what makes anything remotely resembling unity impossible for us is what Baker expounded in Florida -- their denial of Objective Reality. To them "reality" is a party line dictated from above. For us objective reality is a dozen mutually exclusive interpretations of how smart or dumb is the individual named George Walker Bush.

Our belief in the significance of Objective Reality leads us into holding our end of a perpetual "debate" in which we all speak our own minds while they spout off their Party Line in unison.

Our belief in Objective Reality also leads us to pine for a "Free Press" that adheres to the principle of objective journalism.


Well, there is no escape from the challenge they pose. It is a frontal attack on the premise of democracy and constitutional government.



This past week brings the grim reality to a crisis point. The hurricane is a dose of Objective Reality that no amount of chanting in unison can alter. Caught without his brain trust at his side, the grinning pestilence of George Walker Bush did not know what to do about the human catastrophe that engulfed a wide swath of the USA.

People suffered and died while Bush ate cake and strummed a guitar.

By the end of the week, the game plan was finally cobbled together and you will hear it blasting out of your cable TVs and car radios this week -- it was Somebody Else's Fault.

It does not matter that this is absurd on its face. It does not matter that, even if absolutely true, it would not absolve Bush or FEMA or the DHS of their dithering under fire. It does not even matter that this shows when Al Qaeda does launch its next attack within the USA, our government will go into Instant Blame Game mode rather than address the human suffering caused by terror.

No, we are dealing with a tightly knit organization that has no patriotism, no respect for law and nothing but contempt for truth. Contempt for the truth is what put them in power and it is what keeps them in power.


What we need more than anything else is to realize that there is no reasoning with these people. I hate writing these words. It contradicts everything I have believed in my 52 years on this planet.

I remain a pacifist and I firmly believe that a non-violent campaign to restore Respect For Truth will have a chance to succeed while violence would cause more grief and accomplish nothing.

But until we realize that the other side is fighting a civil war AGAINST US -- particularly the people of color among US -- we will continue to be frustrated, disorganized and, at bottom, losers.

That is what sustains them, by the way. The only belief they have on this earth is that they are winners and we are losers.

that they will manage to spin this so that people stop thinking critically.

I find it difficult to organize my thoughts this week, after witnessing the Federal Government's death sentence upon an entire region of the U.S.; the disregard for human suffering, the failure to implement a disaster plan already in place, the arrogant refusal to accept foreign aid, under-utilization of humanitarian and military resources in place - well, it boggles the mind. Then to rub poison in our wounds - here comes the lies and spin from our evil dictators amplified through their corporate media outlets.

This is a civil war. King George has already begun his offensive against the Governor of LA, blackmailing her in order to wrest all power away from the State gov't. The Federal government will offer the flood victims some measly pittance for their lost land and property and then send the Carpetbaggers to descend upon the region and establish some fake plastic high-priced Disneyland version of New Orleans minus the "unseemly" mixture of Blacks, Creoles and Whites that gave the U.S. it's only original art form - jazz music.

Pacifism requires that your opponents possess some measure of conscience. Gandhi was able to succeed non-violently because most British held an essential respect for human life. Sociopaths like the Bush Crime family do not - there is no measure of bloodshed, suffering, or death, at which they will say "enough". Yet the protests on the 24th MUST remain non-violent. This administration will use any excuse (including implanted agent-provocateurs) it can to impose martial law upon this nation in a final wresting away of all the benefits that democracy has bestowed upon us. We have a chance now to dislodge this criminal regime and restore the rule of law to the nation. I hope we are all up to the task at hand.

Welcome to DU, DaveT :hi:

I can see it taking form right now. People are planning this very moment to bring us another Disneyland.

Yet, as has happened before in history, people are blinded by monstrous evil applied so directly, shamelessly, and in the open.

It may well be too late to stop it, for even at this late date our "opposition" leadership still seems completely clueless as to what they face.

Just like the German Social Democrats of 1933.

And a belated welcome to DU, Dave!

I'm not expecting any help from the chicken shit media either. Pound them everyday until they're mush!

Clear. sober. o b j e c t i v e

:yourock:

Where there is one, there is an other, a reason to kill or not to kill. we say we are reasonable people in being fair, but it is IN reason that we fail. when I lost my mind, I found my heart, and then found my peace. I keep love as my guidepost and will stay as long as I'm sucking air. peace.

How do we win this civil war we didn't know we were fighting?
How do we do away with PNAC and the neo-conservative movement permanently? I want them to go the way of the Whig party and the Know-nothing party and the Anti-Masonic party. I want them to go away and quit messing up MY country.

down to an undeniable truth and then to confront the Government in Washington with that truth.

There are a zillion important items for an agenda of reform, but we cannot assemble an 80 percent majority behind very many of them.

Voting reform is an excellent candidate. Nobody can honorably oppose that.

This Katrina crisis may develop into a national (and non-ideological) revulsion against the incompentence of Bush and his Administration.

We have no existing structure for making the choice of what issue to push -- I have no suggestion for how we find consensus. But we need to find a damn consensus and then set up a series of public demonstrations that involve the People confronting the government.

We get several million people surrounding the Congress and things will change. We need to unite the people within the military with the people abandoned on the Gulf Coast. We need to spell out the plain truth in plain terms and dare our enemies to use their temporary power to jail us, beat us, kill us.

Of course, the specific personalities at the top of the Bush Family Business organization chart have no conscience, and will issue orders to jail, beat and kill us.

We win when nobody follows their orders.

This is not pie in the sky. It brought down the British and Soviet Empires. It will bring down these guys.


Gandhi and King knew what they were talking about.



The key is uniting the overwhelming majority of people who still believe in Objective Reality. Once the Constitution is restored, we can go back to arguing about politics.

:kick:

I can't picture it at all. You've had 52 years on this planet and I've had 66, so we know pretty well the enormous changes that have taken place in the past few years. It's truly devastating to see the country one has always loved be torn apart by these people. It's like a constant stress.....neverending!

and we are eternally trying to analyze it while they continuouly create new reality

the realiy based community (us) vs the faith based community (bushco)

anyone have a link to the article?????

Objective reality is about to smack them upside their collective head.

Submitted for your approval
1. It's not the second civil war but the same old class war.
2. The first shots of this battle of the class war were fired in Dallas.
3. Until most Americans are treated the way the Americans deserted in New Orleans were this past week the sick joke the powerful love to tell will be true.

Question : What happened to the war on poverty ?
Answer : It's over .... the poor lost.

Well said indeed!

It is a pleasure to see you about the place, and give you a belated welcome to the forum!

DaveT is correct that the Stolen Election of 2000 was the watershed event from which all our recent horrors (yes, even 9/11**) directly flowed.

And while it is also true that "there is no reasoning with these people," that is NOT what we need to be doing. We need to restore "Respect for Truth" by telling it to each other -- which includes our alleged "leaders."

We need to demand that the truth be acted upon. As Senator Boxer acted on January 6th.

As for those who launched this civil war against us, we have no need to reason with them (it is futile). But we CAN battle them on the level of belief.

Our belief that this regime is wholly illegitimate, and has been from its first Act of Treason in 2000.

Our belief that they must be accused, tried, and punished for their crimes against OUR democracy in 2000 and 2004.

Our belief that they must be surrendered to the world court for trial of their war crime and/or crimes against humanity in Iraq.

Our belief that they must be held acountable for every Amercan death resulting from their crimes - on 9/11, in Iraq, and in New Orleans.

As for those who support these neofascists, we need only state to them that these beliefs as real - this is all we can do.

The real task remains convincing ourselves (the anti-fascist Real Americans) that it is our moral duty to act on these beliefs.

We don't need a movement. We just need to move.

--

**That's what made us "fair game" for 9/11. US public opinion could no longer be looked to as the only consistent powerful force for good on the planet. The American People were literally taken out of the loop.

--

The smelling salts have been applied. We awake disorientated and groggy. -- now how do we re-orientate ourselves?

Welcome to DU, DaveT. You're a credit for sure. :yourock:

Arguing with their PR machine is like arguing with a defense attorney--they will not concede anything even when confronted with indisputable facts.

This is the hardest thing to explain to my righty friends. They assume that Rush et al just happen to have right wing opinions and can't wrap their brain around the fact that they are not only paid to expose those particular views, but coordinate their message with the White House.

Another apt comparison is the Monty Python Parrot Sketch.

But the real significance of these comparisons is not the mendacity -- it is the way that political power is divorced from the debate altogether. These absurd stories like "Sure Kerry has a bunch of medals, but he didn't earn them," and "The Mayor of New Orleans is the one who screwed up," are not intended to be "believed." They are intended to absorb all our energy in a sham "debate" while the Bush Administration goes about its business of looting the Federal Treasury.

The realization I am calling for is to quit worrying about the text of the perpetual argument which mainly takes place within corporate owned media like TV, radio and cable.

And start worrying about organizing direct action.

I have preached that against these thugs there is no action but direct action. And we have to be prepared to be jailed or to die to be rid of them. But we cannot lose. Unless we choose not to act.