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November 5, 2004

An open letter to the Democrats elected on November 2nd.

Congratulations! You ran a great campaign. The people in your district or state chose you because you stood up to the rising tide of corporatism, colonialism and fundamentalism. You bucked the tide of fear and lies that propelled the Republicans into firmer control of the Senate, House and the Presidency. And now the President has called for you to join with Republicans in their attack on America's progressive dreams and to go along with the subterfuge and dishonesty implicit in their plan to “reshape the pension system, simplify the tax code, impose a cap on medical lawsuits and extend testing in schools.”

What the President didn’t speak of, in his call to put aside your differences, is his real agenda. His agenda to extend the patriot act to further limit our freedoms. His agenda to embed the society with an enduring elite and a concomitant permanent underclass. His agenda to crush any country that stands in the way of those toxic misnomers “access to markets” and “free markets.” His agenda to give the wealth and prosperity of our nation to the most corrupt of corporations, the twenty-first century robber barons. His agenda to divide us through campaigns of fear and hate. His agenda is to keep the American people uninformed and fighting over manufactured issues.

The twentieth century has seen great progress by Democrats in women’s right, voting rights, civil rights, social security and other progressive causes. Democrats should be justifiably proud. And we should acknowledge the failures of our party as well - Viet Nam, the Bay of Pigs, and our taste for pork barrel politics. As Democrats, we share a mixed legacy, but, all in all, the twentieth century was better because of us. And, we well know what happened at the times in the twentieth century that Republicans held dominion.

1929 was the year that Republican excesses caused the great crash and the subsequent years of depression. In 1947, the Republican “Class of 1946” passed the Taft-Hartley Act over the veto of President Truman. We still pay the price in a weakened labor movement.

In 1953, when Eisenhower became president, the United States started down the path that we are now on, when, for the first time, a president approved a CIA coup. What followed was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran and the beginning of the repression under the Shaw. Today, we are still overthrowing governments and supporting authoritarian regimes and the world is no safer. Instead, what we have done is spread totalitarianism throughout the world in our quest to “bring freedom.” And we created an environment of repression and colonialism that led directly to the terrorist reprisals against us. We Democrats did not start the United States down this path, but we certainly abetted it. And for that we must take responsibility.

So, to the President and to your colleagues in both houses you must say no. And no and no and no. You must say no to the jurists they propose, you must say no to attempts to subvert democracy, you must say no to the efforts to further shift wealth to the elite among us, and you must say no to any subversion of the gains we have made in the last century. You must say no to the pleas to join the president but in doing so you must say yes to something greater. You must be willing to stand up to the onslaught of propaganda that will be hurled at you. You must be willing to speak out for the weak, the poor, the disenfranchised.

You must have integrity. The Republicans will find your flaws and exploit them. They are masters at this game. You can only fight them if you act with candor and frankness. Do not be tempted with corruption by playing pork barrel politics. It will lead you down the path of failure. Do what is best for the whole county, regardless of the political cost to you. Respect the people in the rest of the world as you respect the people of the United States.

Abhor the President’s Machiavellian politics. Machiavellians must lie to their enemies at all times to retain advantage. The President’s enemy is the people.  Do not be temped to follow his lead. The people are not your enemy. Speak truth to them. Trust that they will eventually hear you.

Do not compromise your beliefs for transient gain. Do not lose sight of the real problems we face – poverty, political repression, religious intolerance, global warming, environmental degradation, resource depletion, exploding population, and the corruption of our political process. That is the will of the people who elected you. Do not to roll over, or become more like those you defeated.

The will of the people who elected you demand a new Democratic Agenda for the Twenty- First Century. An agenda as bold as the Marshall Plan. An agenda that seeks peace and justice for all of mankind. An agenda that faces up to our mistakes and provides redress for them. An agenda that makes allies, not enemies. An agenda that guarantees the world we give our children is better than the one we were given. Give the world hope again.

A Native American proverb says it well, "Take care of the Earth, for we do not inherit it from our parents, we borrow it from our children."

Johnny Peaceseed