Press Action ::: This Is the Long-Distance Call

Friday, November 05, 2004

This Is the Long-Distance Call

By Gary Lapreziosa

The election results are in. And the winner is: “a loose association of millionaires and billionaires.” Surprise, surprise.

On Tuesday night, another door clicked shut. It’s locked, and there’s no key. Republican government is already a “distant constellation, dying in a corner of the sky.” (1)

The System’s capacity for self-correction is remarkable. The energy and determination that arose from a mass public awakening in horror, outrage, and shame during the past four years was diverted into an extravagant pageant, this national ritual, this diversion known as The Election.

Clever Karl Rove. The Kerry organizers wanted to make the election a referendum on Bush. Rove instead turned it into a referendum on Kerry, who was found wanting by enough people to make a legitimate Bush triumph seem plausible. Masterful. Give the man his due.

A tip-of-the-hat as well to those who authored the legislation called the “Help America Vote Act.” And thanks for the “help,” Diebold and ESS. (2)

Kerry conceded, ending fears of a drawn-out legal fight similar to that in 2000. My guess is that he heard from America’s owners: drop all challenges. The financial markets are too fragile to risk an investor stampede from the dollar that might result from a loss of confidence in America’s political stability.

The official Election 2004 story is that the Republicans got their “mandate.” The Christian Right will read it as their mandate, too. Come, Lord Jesus, come, and redden your sword with the blood of the infidels!

Bush-versus-Kerry had no hope of reversing anything. “This is the most important election of our lifetimes” was just a slogan. The great capital-accumulating and earth-consuming locomotive of global capitalism doesn’t risk the outcome of an election in its main boiler (3), the great United States, on the caprices of a fickle electorate.

Once again, Deus Ex Machina failed to descend onto the stage.

So all those voting drives, the emails, flyers, phone calls, and home visits trying to scare people into voting, all those poignant appeals from icons of the Left and the entertainment world urging a “hold your nose” support for Kerry and the Democrats—what did it all accomplish?

That remains to be seen. With the outcome we got, there’s no cause for resting because there are no laurels to rest on. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Kerry’s quick concession renders irrelevant, for the time being, how much fraud was used to secure the election. What matters now is “facts on the ground.” The right-wing forces that have fixed Bush in the Oval Office are masterful at creating new realities that spring from their collective “triumph of the will.” (4)

What now? We are not helpless before such a totalizing power. The first thing to note is that it contains the seeds of its own destruction, in the form of hubris, stupidity, and an appallingly poor sense of humor and irony.

Let’s take stock of what’s coming. We’re likely to see a continuing centralization of economic wealth and political authority. Many of our fellow citizens actually welcome this trend. For the Christian fundamentalists, November 3rd dawned as a fresh “morning in America,” and their substantial exuberance and energy will sweep along a sizable portion of their fellows. Many souls will be “called to Christ” in the coming years.

It will be difficult and costly to openly express dissent or to resist nationalism. Tyranny will trickle down to organizations in which we ordinarily participate: schools, municipal governments, and some private companies, for example.

America will become even more isolated and disengaged from other countries, politically, economically, and culturally. Traditional allies will edge away and quietly continue to develop regional partnerships and blocs; Uncle Sam will run with an unsavory pack of friends.

For the already wealthy and powerful, or for those aspiring to such heights, these are the halcyon days. Others, however, will have to choose their path.

For those clinging to the remaining shreds of financial and physical security offered by middle-class life, a more acquiescent and cooperative attitude toward private and government power will be necessary. Most who choose a path of nonconformity in isolation will unfortunately be steamrolled by the Powers. The third option is to organize ourselves locally in alternative, self-help networks.

Let’s create, on a local basis, sustainable, self-financing business networks, mutual-support systems, food growth and currency systems, home-schooling networks, and media publishing. Let’s oppose war in deed as well as words, by withholding payment on some or all of our Federal taxes. It’s time for nonviolent, creative resistance in the form of withdrawing our participation from the Powers. Be warned, however, that they hate when we do that.

The point is to build relationships that have a relatively good chance of weathering the coming storm. Think of it as something we owe to coming generations.

Even if we don’t have expertise or experience in organizing new endeavors of this sort, we can learn together. Please don’t approach me with petition drives, get-out-the-vote campaigns, phone calls to Congress, or peace vigils. No more emailed jokes about Bush, homespun homilies, cute animal pictures, or, heaven forbid, any more lectures from Michael Moore.

Time’s up on all of that. There’s work to be done.

Notes:

1. The title and the first two quotes are from the Paul Simon song, “The Boy in the Bubble.”

2. Diebold Systems and ESS are the two companies that supplied about 80% of the touch-screen voting machines used in the elections.

3. Which burns natural resources, physical capital, lives, and hopes, and produces the financial expansion that drives the pistons. Wars, the national-security state, and paranoia are among its sooty byproducts.

4. “Triumph of the Will” is the title of a 1934 documentary film chronicling the rise of the Nazi party in Germany; it is considered a masterpiece of the “propaganda” film genre.

Gary Lapreziosa is a Quaker and a freelance editor and writer living near Philadelphia. You can reach him at lapreziosa@earthlink.net.

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