"The momentum of the far right can't last"

From Michael Ventura's latest "Letters at 3 a.m.:"

Trends, no matter how forceful, always change. Paradigms always molt. That is the nature of things. The momentum of the far right can't last and is not all-powerful. Their plan to dismantle Social Security has stalled. Recent polls show Americans increasingly frightened of our national debt. Conservative Utah is fighting the phony No Child Left Behind mandates. This month, Tiffany Muller, the first openly gay officeholder in Kansas, successfully fought off a rabidly anti-gay challenge to her seat on Topeka's City Council. Britain's magazine The Economist (March 5), citing the instability of our housing bubble, strongly suggests that now Americans would do better to rent than buy houses. Trends, big and little, change. For better or worse. Which is where you come in. The point of perspective is: not to be hypnotized by the seeming power of what is. Right in front of you, in your space, there's the power to do something about all this – the power to push the inevitable change toward the better.

Which invokes a tough third kind of doing – asking a question that, when I asked it of myself, made me very uncomfortable: How much time are your convictions worth? Two hours a day? One? Two a week, a month? A vote every four years? How much time is it worth to you to live in a free and just country? On the answer to that question the future of the United States depends. Donating money to causes is fine and necessary, but it doesn't get you off the hook; active human energy is what generates change. How much time is it worth to you, to live in a free and just country? I figure: two hours a day. Minimum. (If you're poor and have children – one hour. If you're working three jobs – a half-hour. What can you do in a half-hour? Make a few phone calls.)

You're too busy for that? And you're asking me about hope?

Conviction without action is mere sentiment. History is not a spectator sport. You may let other people decide your fate because you're "too busy" to decide it for yourself, but you'll eventually participate, if only as flotsam swept away by the next historical wave. The pity of it is that your children – and they're all your children – will be swept away with you. Those photographs taken by doomed people watching the tsunami surge toward them on the beaches of the Asian Pacific – there's never been a more apt metaphor of what's about to happen to us, if we're "too busy." You're the solution, you're the hope. If you're not, there is no hope. As the Tao Te Ching puts it: "The journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath your feet."

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http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-03-18/cols_ventura.html

--and the hope is us. It's as simple -- and difficult -- as that.

...with those recommendations!

that is why i read it. I will print this up for my sister to read now..thanks for posting. I will nominate this for greatest page. :hi:

elections. We could be doomed to 70 years of fascist inertia.

His remedy is correct, however. Just make sure we keep some of our focus on free and fair elections, all votes truly counted.

...is part of "the work" ahead of us, absolutely...

citizen activism is the only path ... it is easy to grow skeptical, cynical and hopeless ... power is sucked up very rapidly by those pulling the levers of power making them even stronger ... it's almost unimaginable to many of us that such greed for money and power exists ... for those raised on idealism and a belief in democracy, we are slow to see and grasp the idea that others are exploiting our institutions for their own gain ...

the current right-wing malaise we see will end ... more then ending, it will explode ... i suppose i find some optimism in that ... unfortunately, the right-wing empire will not fail until more and more of us are harmed by their selfish policies ... the U.S. is approaching critical mass ... as more are harmed, as more can see those they care about suffering, more will join us and the balance will shift ...

the author's call to action is inspirational ... there is no alternative to citizen action ... but i am deeply troubled by what i see as the "establishment opposition" to right-wing extremism ... stating this more clearly, i am deeply disturbed by what i see as the shortcomings of the Democratic Party at this time ... the good news is the Party seems to have awakened to the neo-con extremist tactics ... i appreciate that ... but they continue to fail to lay the groundwork for the time when we return to power ... they either do not see, or do not agree, with the education campaign i believe must be waged now ...

at the core of this campaign lies a very simple but very powerful message ... we Americans have lost our democracy to the corporate state ... we can no longer allow commercial corporate interests to dominate both our foreign and domestic policy ... our government must never again be sold to the highest bidder ...

i'm worried that the Democratic Party will not ever make this critically necessary case ... if voters, in the long run, lack this context and understanding, it will be all too easy for the pendulum of power to swing far right in the longterm future ... if we don't begin to develop a vaccine for corporate greed now, the disease will reappear even if we're able to overcome it in the shortterm ...

it is truly tragic that we've come to label those who see America as a corporate state as "left wingers" ... what they really are is nothing more than common sense patriots who cherish the ideals upon which the country was founded ...

to the far right, and each of those "cuts" starts with us...

In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, "light a candle rather than curse the darkness."

Find a group and get involved.

There's plenty here to choose from if you can't find something in your town:

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org

I have a Democratic meeting tonight at 7:00!!!!!

Yes people, it is time to get involved!!!

:hi: