Green dream turns to nightmare

I guess by now you've noticed that we are not living in normal times. Even many mainstream political observers are finally waking up to just how VERY dangerous the fundamentalist neo-con onslaught in Washington really is. George W. Bush's own father, the former President, refers to his son's neo-con friends as the "crazies". One might think anyone here in New England even vaguely aware of the threat these guys represent would do all in their power to rid the nation of the Bush regime. However, just recently we learned that members of the Green Party in Vermont might disregard their party's strategic approach to the looming threat of fascism and launch a kind of draft Nader campaign.

In what seems like a very long time ago, this observer gladly engaged in Green Party street theater and voted for Ralph Nader, hoping in part, that if Bush did win (which he didn't), the neo-cons' actions would galvanize the left. That actually happened to some degree (witness millions in the streets last year), but I vastly under-estimated how really dangerous the Bush regime could be. My bad, VERY bad. Now we all see, and if you don't feel the chill you're not paying attention. I'm looking 60 in the face over here and I've NEVER seen anything in this nation that looks remotely as threatening to freedom, democracy, the U.S. Constitution and the well being of the biosphere as the junta that now occupies the White House. Simply said: there's zero room for Ralph Nader drawing votes while we are perched here on the precipice of the new fascism now threatening to engulf any freedoms we have remaining.

Another four years of the Bush regime? Not on your life. The Greens in Vermont, or anywhere in New England or the nation, are living in a dream world if they think we can survive another four years under the Bush regime. The neo-cons will push the biosphere over the edge. No self-respecting Green can sign onto any tactic that even comes close to keeping Bush in the White House. Never has holding your nose and voting for the Dems been more important. Voting for Nader will be like voting for the end of what little democracy we have left. The lives of my children and my grandchildren are far more important; your lives and those of your loved ones are far more important. We can deal with the duopoly and the corporados under Kerry soon enough, but under an entrenched Bush regime you'll be lucky if you can take any action at all. Think pre-war Germany here. Join the resistance to Bush AND Nader. Politically and ecologically speaking, I believe it's truly a matter of life and death.

Are you ________ than you were four years ago?

Speaking as an independent, one who seldom has been found advocating for either a Democrat or a Republican candidate, I’d like to have a word with citizens in the Northeast who are among the reportedly slim margin of undecided voters in the upcoming presidential election. Since you are undecided exactly who you will vote for come November, perhaps that indicates that you have an open mind. This is a good thing, especially in a culture where closed minds are in such abundance nowadays. In any case, I’d like to take this opportunity to submit to your open mind a few questions that are of extreme importance to the situation we now find ourselves in here on the lip of the 21st century in the United States of America.

In order to answer these questions in a manner that acknowledges your opened-mindedness, first I must ask that you forget everything you have ever heard about George W. Bush and his handlers, as well as everything you have ever heard about John Kerry and his handlers. Having done that, please also forget any old campaign slogans about where you were four years ago. OK…….are you ready? Is your mind good and open? Let’s go:

Are you safer than you were four years ago? Honest now! Don’t forget that open mind! If you answered yes to this question we have a problem. For one thing, a yes answer indicates that your capacity for logic has somehow been affected by either the present political climate in the U.S. or perhaps something in your diet. Given that nearly 1,000 of your fellow citizens, many of them residents of the Northeast, are no longer living since the present occupants of the White House invaded Iraq, and that they WOULD be living had that poorly armed nation NOT been invaded; and given that Muslim fundamentalists have increasingly taken up arms against your nation and multiplying their numbers as a result of that invasion, might not that indicate that we are NOT safer than we were four years ago? In addition, given that four years ago no one in these parts ever heard of a yellow, orange, or red alert outside of Hollywood disaster films; much less found any of their neighbors duct taping their doors and windows shut or getting antsy about that dark-skinned Arab-looking guy behind the counter at the Mini-mart, might not THAT indicate that we are not safer than we were four years ago? Come on, let’s be honest now.

Next question (and this one may sound a little familiar, but since you’ve already forgotten old campaign slogans it shouldn’t):

Are you better off than you were four years ago? Putting aside the fact that angry terrorists would like to remove your head (something that is hardly better than having it where it is), and assuming that you’re not actually benefiting financially from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, are you REALLY enjoying the same economic situation you experienced in the year 2000? If you answered yes to this question, can I have $20,000? Do you have stock in Halliburton or Exxon? Surely you didn’t have stock in Enron! Any student who slept through Economics 101 in the past few years will tell you that we here in the USA are decidedly NOT better off than we were four years ago. In addition, many of the students who remained awake in class may tell you that Republicans are no strangers to deficits, but hey, we’re non-partisan here, right? Keep that mind open.

My final question for the open-minded is this:

Do you even REMEMBER four years ago? We here in the U.S. are forever being accused of possessing the infamous 15-second attention span, right? Those of us with an open mind know that such accusations are not exactly baseless, at least that’s how I remember it. We do have the History Channel on cable, and I believe American and World history is still being taught in the public schools (not sure about those chartered ones). So how is it we can’t recall what things were like four years ago when so many of our terrorist opponents are acting out about stuff that happened 500 years ago?? We beat the Soviets in the arms race and the space race, right? How is it we’re so far behind the terrorists in the memory race? Frankly, I think we need to get on a war-like footing once again. We have our War on Drugs and our War on Terror, once we had a War on Poverty (if memory serves me right). Today we need a War on Oblivion! Maybe those of us with open minds will then be able to fill them with something useful, like facts.