Where is Thomas Jefferson when you need him?

[robinturner]

I know I am getting a reputation on LJ as a Europhile anti-American pundit, but please allow me one more question.

Given that a large number of Americans are strongly opposed to their government's Middle-East bloodlust;

Given that a large number of Americans believe with good reason that the last presidential election was fraudulent;

Given that the current American government exists largely to promote the interest of the few against the many, believes in the principle of one dollar, one vote, and is a quagmire of corruption and nepotism comparable to the England of George III;

Where is the revolution?

I see many demonstrations of popular dissent, and I welcome them, like most people in the free world. But I see no strikes, no civil disobedience, no calls to arms. The current protests are a dim reflection of what we saw in the 1960s. Please read once more your Declaration of Independence. Call a strike. Boycott American goods instead of French goods. Destroy government property. Invade military bases. Physically harass a congressman. You used to be able to do it.

When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Comments

[katminnaar.livejournal.com]

Where is Thomas Jefferson when you need him?

Good question. I've been wondering that even long before this (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=aspen_fox&itemid=2459)!

So I heard it's possible that Iraqis might be planning on blowing up the oil wells in the event of war. Now Bush has warned them that if they do, they'll be 'prosecuted.' Prosecuted. For doing something to their OWN property. Riiiiiiiiight.

Please. Someone......... blow up George W. Bush.

Oh, meanwhile, I did write all my area congresspeople. Got the pat replies. Send money to California Peace Action every month; not sure how much that's helping. Hubby even sent the Prez an email to the White House (and he never does stuff like that!). Yeah. Lotta good THAT did. One problem is, although most people oppose the war, there's also a terrible economy right now, gas prices are going up very quickly, and there's a strange media-driven paranoia about terrorist attacks, although I think that's really overblown.

[solri.livejournal.com]

One of my colleagues mailed Bush some time back, about both Iraq and North Korea (at that time the US was taking a much harder line on Korea). It was quite interesting; speaking as someone who had lived and worked in both the Middle East and Korea (South, in this case), his main point was that Bush was acting with no knowledge of the culture of the nations hewas threatening and their likely reaction to threats.

Over a decade ago, Georg Lakoff made a similar point just before Papa Doc Bush's Gulf adventure in an open letter (http://philosophy.uoregon.edu/metaphor/lakoff-l.htm), noting that Bush had no idea of Arab notion of dignity, which is a crucial factor in both Arab nationalism and Islamism.