Saturday, March 19, will find us again assembled at Westlake Plaza to protest the eighth anniversary of our unjust crusade to steal the resources of the Middle East. We plunder others to maintain a way of life that is shaped in such a way that 400 Americans hold as much wealth as the bottom 155 million Americans combined. More than 50 years ago, President Eisenhower warned us about the fusion of military and corporate power. This now fully fused power has raped and pillaged without mercy, and certainly without any sense of honor and justice.
Today these powers are beginning to pillage right here at home through the austerity plans of both political parties, each refusing to name and confront the beast that has devoured our national commonwealth. We are seeing the insatiable hunger of the beast through the events taking place in Michigan where the legislature is attempting to strip democratic rights throughout its towns and municipalities, and in Wisconsin where underneath the headlines, buried in the budget are plans to sell off the energy resources of the state with the same kind of no-bid contracts made famous in the crusade against Iraq.
We are seeing the takeover and makeover of the national Republican Party into a fascist movement set to strip this country of all means to resist its will. The sobering news is that our nation, our beloved nation, our nation of high idealism, a nation whose Lady Liberty icon welcomes the poor, tired huddled masses yearning to breathe free, whose constitutional Bill of Rights once balanced the power of the wealthy with the power of the people, a nation that has worked hard to integrate races, to painfully live out the true meaning of its creed that "all are created equal," this nation of our birth, this nation of our destiny, this nation where our hopes and dreams reside, this nation, our beloved country, is fast approaching a spiritual death that will rip us apart and bring forth an unspeakably violent future if light does not enter to dispel the darkness now threatening.
I would think that even those of moderate temperament must surely realize that once institutional help and mutual aid, oversight and commonwealth are hollowed out they are not easily rebuilt. Recall elections cannot take back what thieves have stolen. Rebuilding a country that has been privatized, with its people commodified, will require decades and generations of struggle, and conflict. In other words, the time of sitting on a fence, frozen because you're trying to listen to all sides as if they are all equally valid is rapidly fading. The time of choice, of decision, of actions rooted in faith (not certainty) is coming, whether you like it or not, whether you are ready for it, or not.
See you Saturday at noon on the plaza.