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Seize The Moral Highground

By T. Patrick Donovan

19 October, 2004
Countercurrents.org

Few of us alive today, certainly those of us who are of voting age, have not seen the stirring photos of M.K. Gandhi and M.L. King standing up to power. Two men of color, brought up under the gun and lash of racism and oppression, faced down two of the modern world's most powerful empires.

How did they do it?

By the sheer realization that the systems they were resisting were morally bankrupt and that to participate in them any longer could only mean a willing submission to continued degradation.Out of this realization they determined to seize the moral highground and organize resistance from the
vantage point of humanity's higher good and most noble vision.

How did they do this?

What is often remembered about the movements led by Gandhi and King is the nonviolent orientation and character with which they mobilized the people. This is an important thing to remember and is a fundamental part of their ideals and the superior morality which imbued these mass movements.

But the subversive cornerstone of these two social-political movements, the cardinal point that we must remember today, is their declaration that these oppressive systems no longer had any legitimate moral authority over the people. Once this deep, strategic truth was realized the tactics of non-cooperation, boycotts, sit-ins, civil disobedience and massive mobilizations flowed easily and forthrightly.

What does this have to do with Election Day 2004?

If there ever was a time in American history when the political system had exposed itself as illegitimate and morally bankrupt it is this time, right here, right now. The occupation of Iraq is the most brutally compelling example of this. Add to the mix Afghanistan and Haiti; add to the mix tax cuts and corporate crime; add to the mix preemptive war and empire-building; add to the mix all the crimes against the environment. Keep adding.

Is it not time for us to step away from the foul contamination that this unjust and morally decrepit system is attempting to spread? People ask, "dude, where's my country?" And the answer that consistently comes back from the powers-that-be is, "Don't you get it? This IS your country."

So let us make concerted and noble effort to clamber out of this pigstyand take the highground. If the resounding cry "Not in my name" is to have any real meaning, it is time to take our names off the voter rolls.

It is time for a movement of non-cooperation in the Presidential elections on November 2, 2004.

A must be a movement that explicitly states our decision not to participate in no uncertain terms. In other words, simply staying home and not voting does nothing to alter the consciousness of the people of America, the politicians, or our own for that matter.

If the polling places are made empty by our movement, then the streets around the polling places must swell with our bodies and our voices declaring the moral illegitimacy of America's government, its actions at home and especially around the world.

Gandhi and King paved the way. Let us celebrate and creatively apply their legacies by turning the voter booths into ghost towns. Let us not continue to give legitimacy to a system that has, by its own actions, rendered itself illegitimate.

Rather than "Vote No" on Election Day, our rallying cry must by "No Vote On Election Day!"

Our morality, our humanity, and our planet is at stake.

[T. Patrick Donovan is a doctoral student in Depth Psychology and can be reached at [email protected]]

 

 

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