[Peace] Frightening.

Tue Aug 4 06:07:46 EDT 2009

I'm b-a-a-a-a-a-c-k....

For the past several months, I have been a bit off-key, folks. Some of you have asked where I've been. Well, I've been here, but sometimes life is what happens when you're making your plans.

To write with inspiration, one must be inspired - and I have found the past few months anything but inspiring. On a personal level, I've had some - shall we say? - "challenges."? No, my health is fine, no worry there. It just seems like a lot of other personal concerns have taken priority, as often happens with life.? Additionally, like many of you, I've been in a wait-and-see mode during the first months of the Obama administration - as, unfortunately, the Obama's Afghanistan Quagmire develops -?whether through any fault of his, or not, remains to be seen. I am not sure what the answer is there - but it's not war, I say, as we sink deeper and deeper into war there.

No, peace on earth is not here - so we stand on that street corner every Saturday (though I've even had to miss a few of those lately).? As the weeks go by, I see an even greater need to be there on that corner.? 

We have never faced a more serious time.? We are facing?a time that requires that we be on that street corner now? more than ever. If you have been reading recent essays by Chris Hedges, I think you'll know exactly what I mean right now. Go back to the book I keep recommending to you - American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. And also read Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. The horrors those books foresee are, I worry, happening before our eyes right now. Just because we elected Obama doesn't mean these people have receded into the woodwork - they are coming out with guns-a-blazing - literally.

Recently, I have been totally turned off by "politics," sickened by what is happening nationally. We elected the best President we could possibly have - and the dark forces, unfortunately, are doing every vile, hateful, nasty thing they can do to prevent any success on his part, to prevent any improvement?in the plight of the American people. Hedges has been warning us of this all along - and I have tried to maintain optimism in spite of Hedges' warnings - until last night.

Almost two years ago, we faced a group of nothing less than thugs and bullies on our (yes, "our") street corner. We saw them for what they were - a violent, hate-filled, stop-at-nothing, truly fascist group controlled by the money powers in this country and egged on by the ignorant. Call it what it is: I called them for what they are, the "brown shirts" of our time - and that is exactly what they are. They have not changed in nature but cleaned up their act once their direct ties to the Republican Party became apparent and they entered the realm of formal party politics.? Their signs are toned down, their most vicious dogs have been called off (at least, if they are there, they are relatively muzzled now out of nothing but political concerns), they make a great showing of faked "respectability."? But they still are what they are.

Now we see them on the evening news every night - we see the "tea parties," and now we are seeing what I saw last night that inspired my "coming out" with this message to you - I woke up last night.

What woke me up is the fabricated "town hall? meeting" dramas that we are seeing play out with increasing intensity and frequency across the country on the health-care issue.? They started with the crazed tea parties. Those tactics are truly frightening and sickening. The brown shirts are now coming to those meetings in great numbers - bought and paid for by corporate interests, which is exactly what fascism is all about? Just as Hedges warns, I see a bunch of fasicts, a bunch of? Nazis in our midst - driven on a personal level by racism first and foremost (who the hell does that black President think he is, anyway, trying to fix "our" country?"). They are the crazed "birthers," the Palin nuts, the ones warning of euthanasia of the elderly, the ones talking about "socialism" (who don't even know what the word means), the ones now getting press locally for faked "Constitution" classes (where were these nuts when Bush was shredding the Constitution to ribbons?); they are the thugs we have faced for almost two years.? I saw last night that, finally, Rachel Maddow had a line printed on the screen using the word I've used for two years to describe this group - THUGS. Thanks, Rachel, for stealing my term.

These people are (1) not going to surrender power to a black man and (2) fanatics who will? stop at nothing. I mean nothing. Got that? 

Nothing.

It's time that all of you understand that if you didn't before. Some of you probably still don't have the ability to understand how dark certain forces can be - if you can't understand it, please go back and read some pre-World War II German history. Then maybe you'll understand the gravity of this situation we face. Hard economic times. Scapegoating. Racial and ethnic hatred. Violence. Paranoia. Anti-intellectualism. Religious fanatacism. Sexism. Powerful money interests pulling so-called "populist" strings.?What I see happening right now in this country has happened before - about 70 years ago in Germany, friends.

It's time for you to decide where and when YOU will stand up against it. The fact that Barack Obama was elected? President was not the end of the story of the difficulties we face in this country - it was only the beginning. And, if you don't believe me, google and read the writings of Chris Hedges. He's the Jeremiah you should be reading right now.

Karen Porter, Esq., Director 
The Chester County Peace Movement, P.O. Box 1502, West Chester, PA 19380-1502; ccpeacemovement at aol.com, (610) 344-0228; check www.ccpeace.org (calendar) for upcoming events
So meday, when my great-grandchildren ask, "Why didn't someone try to stop the madness?" I hope my son and my grandchildren can answer, "Your great-grandmother tried, with all her hea rt."
See Progressive Network of Southeast PA http://www.progressivenetworksepa.org/?Your Key to the Progressive Community! CALL (800) 828-0498 for Senators/Congressional Rep.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep; but I have promises to keep , and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. -Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"?
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