Dear America, Thank You

- by Macdonald Stainsby

Dear United States: I want to thank you. Don't get me wrong. I don't think you had a real choice. But the fact is, you are going along with this. No, I don't mean that no one is challenging the vote. I was unable to figure out which side I was thinking would be better in helping the movement for a better world. I suppose there is a part of me that is choosing to believe that we have been granted the best option possible, whatever the outcome, we are stuck with it anyhow. For the last couple of weeks, I was trying to determine for myself which of the various options available would be best for those of us on the planet-- you know us, the other six billion, give or take-- engaged in one form or another of resisting your government.

I couldn't determine for the life of me what to say. I mean, I have stated time and again and continue to believe that, in the equally genocidal settler state of Canada, the resistance will have to be continental wide or it will fail. That's a strategic understanding that I have come to. But John Kerry? Well, even the left-leaning columnists in various newspapers have pointed out that only on issues that do not concern: war, Palestine, economics & trade, civil liberties, immigration-- is there any difference at all. Why, John Kerry was easily the most patriarchal candidate put forward by the US elites who prefer donkeys in decades. It wasn't possible to simply figure out what to hope for.

However, it has become more obvious with the advent of time. At first, I thought surely the rulers of Lady Liberty's overpopulated living mausoleum would see it fit to give us a Kerry presidency. I was also, I'm afraid to say, feeling that this would be the best option. No, I thought the governments and people of the world who believed this would give them cause for an easier life-whether that be breathing easier or something similar-- would be very wrong. I wasn't-- like so many pundits-- willing to lie to myself about what Vietnam War Criminal Kerry would do as president. However, since the "left" when broadly defined had capitulated to the choice of tweedle-dum, I feared that the choice of tweedle-dee might be even more pessimism, defeatism; I did not want people to say "Hell, I tried... It's time for us to move onto something more tangible." The follow-up argument, I feared, would be along the lines of "Look, we settled on John Kerry and we couldn't even get that." Since so many anti-war organizers had opted for the campaign of pro-war Kerry, if they lost this, or so I feared, we would be even more spiritually defeated.

That your government would want to put in a president that was indeed, just as reactionary on all fronts-- but who came with a clean bill of health. I am not a gambling man, but I told many of you: Kerry will win for the simple reason that he can carry out the American bourgeois agenda without any real flaws. He can declare that the war on Iraq-- now a must win, must stay proposition-- was something that was horribly misguided. It's too bad we must win this war, we would be told, but we owe the Iraqis "democracy". Meanwhile, it's time to return to the War on Terror. That would mean going after Syria, and more importantly, Saudi Arabia. And, so I had been thinking, this would then "prove" that the anti-war movement, after being able to "elect" its president, would then feel betrayed and doubly-determined.

In other words, I imagined a scenario much like the one I live everyday here in Quebec: people who had every right to look at the program of Jean Charest and voted for him anyhow are running around saying they didn't vote his government in to slash all these social programs and attack trade unions. With a Kerry presidency just as with the Liberal Quebecois government: yes, you certainly did vote for this. Don't fool yourselves.

My biggest fear about the Bush win was how many of the American people will blame themselves now. The simple reality is we will never really know ever again what takes place behind the voting booth curtain, in front of the touch screen with no print out ballot, or near the punch card machine. They are all simply unreliable, as is the American electoral system. But that's not really a matter, for I must blame you for this much. You didn't immediately try something other than pressure politics. Many of your rank immediately started to speak of the Diebold voting machines-- but I find that rather odd, seeing as the machines were known to be a problem long before Kerry "lost" to Bush.

A beautiful thing has happened. There has been one of those truly rare splits that actually lead to a better, stronger and more confident movement. The idiots who obsessed over the election cartoon show as if it was a live action broadcast are now chastising each other over who was really at fault; ignoring all the stolen election evidence, many Democrats are arguing over what to do four years from now. Others still, are organizing what they say will be the "largest freedom of information act challenge and request in American history". Well, good luck. But the others? What of them?

I have received countless numbers of emails, articles and impassioned and desperate pleas about what we should do to stop Bush. The cartoon that people said was causing a distraction is actually galvanizing people. We have as long a period of time as possible under what is left of constitutional law until the rulers have to program another election. Every side of American political life is controlled by the most vicious, racist and warmongering Republican party in history. Reaction has never been this deep-- or this powerful. Americans who are not Bush fanatics are now vehemently working overtime to do whatever they can to stop their valuable brothers and sisters from moving to my state, Canada. The theme? All of them the same old but beautiful cliché of our dear departed Joe Hill "Don't mourn, organize!"

Meanwhile, the real America has a chance now to redeem itself. We have the most bloodthirsty assault on Iraq happening yet. I have typed that sentence too many times in the last year and a half. There will be no Kerry troop reduction, withdrawl or anything else. There will be no senate over-ruling of this ongoing slaughter. There will not even be a house majority leader who will protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Why is this? Because people who are every bit as ideologically driven as the Third Reich are in power, total absolute power, and they want what little oil is left on a planet that is rapidly running out. There is no recourse but to you. American citizen, the world is mad at you. But it isn't worth it; you still are as powerless, even more so than the real Bush voters are clueless. Your disaster is still only over the mountain. And there are many, many of you who woke up on November 4th with one sentence on your minds:

"What can I do?" And so long as this question is being asked, on a planet that belongs to all of us, that's fine by me.

For the rest of us globally, we need to make two links at the same time. We need to find ways to link up with the resistance in Fallujah, at the very least, in our hearts. Surely nothing in the manner of resistance is wrong facing no other choice, no new president to wipe our collective asses and tell us we can go out and play again. No, we don't have any excuses. We have none, even if we believe that 51% of America that voted for Little Bush, voted for war. We can't hate Americans because we need them, and they need us. It's about 100 people vs Six Billion, and we've exhausted every option short of the real game: Revolution. We don't even have rights now, recall? PATRIOT II is still there and those who would repeal only "excesses" from it are not in power. People are still disappearing off the streets of all parts of North America. But there is another disappearance I hadn't had the nerve to hold my breath for: excuses. There are no more, let's get on with the final show.

Because with that disappearance, the appearance of something far more important: Hope. We really are the last option. There is nothing but a fork in the road. One road means death, electoral insipidity, useless prattle about whether or not the fire that is consuming the planet needs to be put out. On the other side we have deeply passionate, caring people who, like the wake of Nixons victory, use this as a call to arms. Do not despair of your fellow human. Despair of nothing but fear-- our last and only remaining obstacle.

Thank you, America. You've cleared the map. Now let's clear out the trash. What kind of world do you want to live in?

Discussion List Issues: Debating Differences Between Vietnam and Iraq (1) Debating Differences Between Vietnam and Iraq (2) The Present Crisis of US Imperialism Is Marxism Still Relevant? (1) Is Marxism Still Relevant? (2) Is Marxism Still Relevant? (3) To join our discussion list, go here Join Our Info. List:
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