Revolutionary Worker Online Special Page
The Will of the People Was NOT Expressed In This Election
Stunned anguish . . . bitter disgust . . . even despair. We try to find the words
and we can't.
And yes, it is as bad as you think. Almost certainly, it is worse.
On November 3rd, George Bush called up the newly elected Republican senators who
believe in such things as the death penalty for abortion providers and banning gays
from teaching and said: "Its time to get the job done." Capitalism personified,
Bush told the press "Let me put it to you this way: I earned political capital in
the campaign and now I intend to spend it". He is full of himself – on a mission
to take this whole nightmare to an even more intense, more repressive level.
If ever there was a leader who should be thoroughly rejected, if ever there was a
time for a country to become politically ungovernable, if ever there was an empire
that should be stopped dead in its tracks and prevented from shaping the future of
the planet – that leader, that country, that empire is right before us. If ever
there was a time when millions need to act on their nagging, deep-gut feeling that
something is terribly and radically wrong – that time is NOW.
Bush crows that he is backed by the will of the people. Bull! What will of the
people – when there was an entire campaign of disenfranchisement and intimidation
directed against Black people and immigrants from Ohio to Arizona, from Florida to
Mississippi?! What will of the people – when we may never be able to say what the
easily-rigged electronic voting machines really recorded? What will of the people –
when people were never given the chance to even hear (let alone vote on) a clear
strong voice against the war, against the repression, and against the Dark Ages
mind-set taking over this country? And where were the voices of people from Gaza
to Falluja, Kathmandu to Korea who are the most victimized by this Bush madness?
Where were the voices of the people of the majority of the planet who bitterly
oppose the war on Iraq? The fact is that the will of the people was NOT expressed
in this election!
True, Bush did get tens of millions of people to support him with eyes wide shut.
That was and is scary – and we'll speak to what's behind that later. But Kerry
never really went after Bush, and the whole way that things got confined to the
terms of "who would be the better commander-in-chief" was loaded against the people
from the gitgo. And now Kerry talks to us about "letting the healing begin?" We
don't think so.
Yes, people who hate what Bush stands for have to ask ourselves a hard question, but
that question is this: how did we get to this place where the choices, the limits
and the framework we are supposed to accept are marked, on one end by the
"Republi-fascists" who are clearly fascist and openly imperialist – and on the other
by the "Republi-crats", who confine themselves to a few petty amendments and even to
outrageous talk of healing?
And now what? Do we just accept this as the will of the people and try to find our
place somewhere within these new norms?
No, no, NO! This has proven disastrous and we have to change course NOW. We have
to build a fierce resistance based on what is truly just.
Two Different Moralities
Oh, but they tell us, Bush won because of his "superior morality."
Well, what kind of morality plays on fear and the desire for a false and illusory
safety to carry out relentless bombing and killing in Iraq, where it is now
estimated that over 100,000 people have died as a result of the war?
What kind of morality is expressed in the brazenly snapped photos of prisoners dead
and wrapped in plastic, or stripped naked and tortured, all sanctioned and
systematized by the chain of command and the legal opinions written by Bush's top
counsels?
Who can find moral salvation in whipping up fear and hatred of gay people, in
preaching the "loving submission" of women to their husbands and in resurrecting the
era of back-alley abortions?
What kind of morality accepts and excuses casting all immigrants under sinister,
police-state suspicion, and equates dissent and critical thinking with "treason"?
What kind of morality puts over 2 million in people in jail, the majority of whom
are Black, Latino and other people of color?
This is a fascist morality, one based on a fundamentalist and extremely vicious
version of Christianity. In the face of a rapidly changing world, this Christian
Fascism offers people order, certainty and vengeance. Millions of people are
severely addicted to Armageddon fantasies which are preparing them to mindlessly
kill and die for this empire.
And no, we cannot either hope this will go away or seek "common ground" with this
poison – we must "stage an intervention" with these people and directly take on this
hurtful and lunatic mindset they have gotten caught up in and are trying to force on
all of society. And if we do sharply take on this madness, we can "peel off" some
of these people from the Bush bunch. Many of them have sons and daughters killing
and dying in Iraq; many of them are victims of the "lean and mean" capitalism
represented by Bush (and Kerry for that matter); many, especially women, are still
trapped in social relations that scar their spirit and their lives; and whatever
solace they find in this Christian fascism cannot ultimately transcend all that.
This program of Bush's is not ending – he is immediately going to try to escalate
the war in Iraq in a terribly bloody way, and plan for further aggression. He is
going to try to pass a heavier version of the Patriot Act. He is going to further !
cut the
programs people desperately depend on and drive them to the "charity" of the
churches.
We cannot afford to either ignore, run away from, or to lose hope in the face of
this ignorant fanaticism and the hurtling momentum behind it. We can and must
remember the lessons of 9/11 – when Bush started out with the vast majority of the
country united around his "War on Terror", and when people were able to reverse that
polarization by exposing the true nature of it and mounting forceful resistance in
the streets. Yes, there is no denying, that Bush has just won the last round – and
that this will have devastating consequences. But it is an even greater truth that
the basis exists to puncture this atmosphere and actually reverse this dynamic and
get a different dynamic going – resistance based on the real interests of the
people, resistance based on aiming not just to dissent from or oppose this agenda,
but to actually STOP IT.
And yes, we do need morality – but a different morality. Our morality cannot be a
rationale for oppression and plunder, but must be an ethic based on the
understanding that the lives of people born around the world are no less precious
than our own. On the belief that the needs and interests of people should determine
the economic and political order, not be subjugated to a drive for ever greater
concentrations of wealth and power. On our refusal to stuff women and gays back
into the brutal box of traditional biblical notions. On our profound rejection of
racism and all its "modern, enlightened" coded language and policies. On a powerful
vision of human potential and the idea that all people should be brought into
thinking critically and scientifically and enabled to take part in determining the
goals and policies of our societies on an ever-deepening and expanding basis. On
our resistance to inhumanity and our willingness to put it all on the line to stop
it.
This morality reflects the interests of 90% of the people – not only around the
world but yes, here in the U.S. – and is something that a movement of resistance
should hammer out together and propagate. These are heavy times. The Christian
Fascist morality is preparing people to fight and die for exploitation, oppression
and ignorance. What are WE going to do? What kind of person is it worth being in
these days? These are the questions that together we will develop the morality to
answer and found our movement on.
Revolution, Resistance and What We Gotta Do Right NOW
Three years ago, shortly after 9/11, our Chairman, Bob Avakian, said that, "things
are bound to be vastly different . . . the America we have known will not exist in
the same way anymore." This is profoundly true and borne out by the events of the
past few years.
Even beyond the immediate grotesque inhumanity of the Bush agenda, there is an utter
absurdity that in the year 2004, with all the tremendous resources and technological
advances, with the unparalleled wealth of knowledge and communications, and with the
creativity of billions on our planet, that we sit perched on the edge of being
plunged into darkness. But these very conditions also hold the possibility of an
entirely new era based on revolutionary transformation. The Revolutionary Communist
Party, USA has a programme and an eminently sane and necessarily bold plan for
revolution. And it has the leadership of Bob Avakian, who has led in looking at
the whole experience of socialist society – upholding the great achievements while
critically examining the shortcomings – and has re-envisioned a radically new
"model" that not only eliminates the terrible inequalities of capitalism but brings
forth a vibrancy and flourishing of the critical spirit never before seen in any s!
ociety.
And as part of that whole vision, we see the urgent need right now to join with
others to build a movement founded both on our common opposition to the Bush
juggernaut and an ethos where we discuss and wrangle over what should replace that
and how we get there.
And as for the elections? Okay, we took a hit, a bad hit. But it ain't time to
leave the country or to put your head down and figure out how to live under fascism.
For the past few years the people in this country have been taking our place as a
part of a global humanity, filling the streets and letting the world know about the
opposition to the whole Bush agenda of war, repression and enforced ignorance right
here in its homeland. It was only two months ago that half a million converged to
protest the Republican National Convention. That half a million folks – and the
millions more who put their hopes in Kerry only to find them crushed yet again –
have to act and act NOW.
Right now Bush & Co. are getting ready to carry out a horrific massacre in Falluja.
They are preparing a disgusting coronation of their blood-soaked arrogant champion.
They are moving quickly to bring down the hammer and beyond that to set the terms
for the next generation. Is the Bush crew gonna face resistance to this? Will
people all over the world see Americans marching in the streets, refusing to be
bottled up – or will they be left with an image of a sheep-like populace rolling
over for Bush, reinforcing the image of America as a monolithic evil? Will people
walk the streets of America, not even daring to think about the future and fearing
for the present, or will they take heart when they see windows full of "NO" posters,
whole towns declaring themselves "fascist-free zones", and a rebirth of the
traditions of the Sanctuary movement of the 1980's and the Underground Railroad of
slavery times? Will we have each other's backs – the librarians, the professors,
the!
artists,
the everyday folks who dare to step out and say NO? Will we discuss and debate
even as – and as part of – solidifying our own unity, while we boldly step to and
try to win over people still under the sway of the Bushian mentality of fear and
ignorance?
