Smallness
Of Vision
By T. Patrick
Donovan
06 November, 2004
Countercurrents.org
"They sentenced
me to 20 years of boredom,
for tryin' to change the system from within"
(Poet and songwriter, Leonard Cohen).
In
the wake of Elections 2000 and 2004, the post-9/11 fear-mongering, and
the slaughter that is Iraq, could anything be more banal than "setting
our sights on 2008"?
The framework of
electoral politics -- indeed, the whole structure of representative
American democracy -- has become a charnal house filled with the dead
souls of justice seekers.
American-style democracy
was never intended, and has never included, anything beyond capital's
"democratic" exploitation and commodification of the world.
Bush cheerleads this fact; Kerry would've attempted to camoflague it.
There are no current politicians in America who are not cut from this
fundamental cloth.
And those much vaunted
other freedoms? Every one came at the price of protest and bloodshed.
Now "morals"
will rationalize the further rightward shift of the Democratic National
Committee and inflate the Republican "mandate."
Fear trumped morals
in this election; it does everytime. Throughout post-World War 2 American
political history, the climate of fear has caused people to default
to their morals as a form of psychological security.
Remember the Soviet
Menace?
What did commie-pinko
Beatnik intellectuals, fornicating hippies, and bra-burning women have
to do with the Soviet Union during the Cold War?
What does gay marriage,
gun ownership, and God have to do with terrorism?
When the shadow
of fear stalks the land, every conceivable symbol is used as fuel to
cover the truth and stir up even more fear, in a self-perpetuating hamster
wheel of greater and greater insecurity and irrational decisions.
Yeats' poem "The
Second Coming" intermingles with Louis Armstrong's "It's A
Wonderful World" in my head. As the words swirl around each other
it becomes clear that so much of this world is now at stake due to that
slouching, rough beast.
Election 2008 will
not stop the decimation of Fallujah, nor will it end the occupation
of Iraq. Election 2008 will not heal this environment or slow global
warming. Election 2008 will not free us from our fear.
Election 2008 is
but a straightjacket, a step toward continued self-confinement that,
in the face of the worldwide perspective and action required, is paucity
in extremis.
This is neither
"stiff upper lip" time nor is it time to wring our hands.
Our human predicament is more complex than that. We must band together
in new configurations that hold the world's people and the world environment
as both our allies and our starting point.
We must step back
and recall the world as it looks from outer space; what demands, actions,
and demonstrations serve our common human future? War, pollution, and
injustice are non-negotiable organizing touchstones in our new vision.
The so-called political
experts caution not to get too far out ahead of the people. What is
too far ahead when the future of the planet is at stake? What is too
far when the blood running in the streets of Fallujah is condoned by
the deafening slilences across America? What is too far when injustice
is the organizing principle for millions of lives across the globe?
It is long overdue
to find out.
T. Patrick Donovan is a doctoral student in Depth Psychology