Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." This sage advice cuts both ways. For me it means that I am impelled to return to political activity once I can ensure that it can play a healthy and balanced roll in my life.
But for the 51% of America it means something very different. At the time when Hitler rose to power in Germany there were, on average, six newspapers in every German city. The people had an extraordinary level of information about what was happening in their government, and yet, they could not stop it. Today, with the Internet, TV, newspapers, radio, wireless news on our PDAs and everywhere you look, the information is there. But study after study showed that the country decided to be willfully ignorant of the acknowledged facts of the day. The bi-partisan 9/11 report, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the incompetence of the Bush administration to provide for our safety, was roundly ignored. People who voted for reasons of safety simply ignored proven evidence of the incompetence of those they had chosen to protect them.
I know that I voted the right way. I know history will prove that to be the case. I know I did that because I remained informed even when it was difficult to face the truth. That is the responsibility that the founding fathers gave us. A Democracy depends on an informed electorate.
For health reasons I will be going on a news fast of sorts, but it is only temporary. I'm stuck in a rut where anytime I meet anyone Republican I now feel as if they are personally responsibly for the tragedy of Iraq and having squandered our one opportunity to nip the flower of fascism before it had come to a full bloom. That's fine for someone in college, but for a man with a job and responsibilities it's too discordant.
All I have left now is hope. I no longer have faith in more than half of my fellow American voters.
Posted by jherr at November 4, 2004 05:49 AM