March 3, 2004 by lonbud

Who You Gonna Call?

I am not a bitter man. Yet. I was only born in 1960. John F. Kennedy died when I was 3, his brother Robert and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when I was 8. Richard Nixon delivered his resignation speech to the American people the night of my 14th birthday.

But, somehow, I can’t get out of my head that old saying about those unwilling (unable, maybe) to remember the past, ­and those doomed to repeat it.

That, and Bernie Taupin’s line about “seen that movie, too.”

Ralph Nader is absolutely right to run for President.

As is Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton, and anyone else who is willing to stand up and bear witness to, ­let alone suggest ways to change, what is going on in the United States of America today.

Forget about the rest of the world for a moment. If our charade of a two-party system of democracy is to continue in abeyance, someone must actually assume the mantle of truth, and reason, and peace. Even if only 1% – 5% of voters respond to it. Otherwise, it’s just about where the money goes.

If John Kerry is to be the next President of the United States, he and the Democratic Party he represents ought to be ever mindful of Howard Dean’s victory in the Vermont Primary on Super Tuesday 2004. He is going to need every one of Dr. Dean’s multitude, so palpable and fresh last Summer and Fall, and vaporized by Real Politics in a matter of a few Winter days.

Lots of those $25 check writers are going to need a really good reason not to stay home on November 2nd, or not to vote for someone speaking to their hopes instead of to their fears.

One doesn’t imagine John Kerry would use the United States Military to provide security for a coup against a democratically elected leader of a sovereign nation, as Herr Bush has apparently done in Haiti, but he ought to at least speak directly to the question of our role as the world’s policeman. Most folks, it would seem, prefer the role of “strong cop” to “good cop” –given the choice. But if the choice were actually “strong cop” and “not a cop” things might well be different.

Give the Republicans, and the neocons, and the religious intolerants, ­as well as the honest and loyal and well-meaning average folk who support them credit for being (mostly) clear, and true, to their agenda.

Now is truly fish-or-cut-bait time for the Democrats.

If the choice is merely one of degrees, as everything about the junior Senator from Massachusetts would suggest is the case, George W. Bush may actually get elected President of the United States.