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WILL WE WIN?
There
is good reason to believe we will win the 2004 election - that we will oust Bush
and stop the corporate drive to push our country backward.
We
believe that because in critical periods of American history such as present,
the American people have always won against those who would reverse our progress
toward a better world. There are many instances of that scenario.
For
instance, right after the successful U.S. revolution against British
imperialism, the Federalists (early day conservative property interests) passed
an Alien and Sedition law (a forerunner of present Patriot Act).
It made it illegal to criticize the President and illegal to support the
French revolutionists. The next
Congress under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin repealed
that law as a threat to U.S. constitutional rights.
The
next great clash of democratic and propertied interests came in the Civil War.
The forces of democracy and progress won and abolished slavery.
After
the Civil War, the propertied interests stole land for railroad owners and
raised shipping rates that put farmers out of business. Industry brutally
exploited labor. As a result a populist and trade union movement began to grow
and forced passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust law that counted as another victory
for peoples' interests. Also,
under president Theodore Roosevelt, the environmental movement was launched. The
trade union and radical political movements continued to grow until World War I.
We
fought that war to "save democracy" but were sold out by international
big business.
Then the Great Depression of the thirties brought a great advance in
the principles of democracy and progress. With
"one third of the nation ill-fed, ill-housed and ill-clothed,"
marching in the streets demanding relief, the New Deal was launched to
strengthen the economy and democracy. We
won again! Then came the great anti-fascist second World War and the defeat of
anti-democratic forces worldwide. Another
profound peoples' victory. Many
times since then, corporate interests have tried unsuccessfully to turn the
world back to a pre-World War I status. They have been defeated at each turn such as the
anti-union period of the 30s that was stopped by the great union organizing
drives in basic industry. The McCarthy "un-American" period of the
fifties was completely routed as a serious threat to civil rights.
The
powerful civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s brought more victories for the
people. Add to that the anti-Vietnam
war struggles that led to victory for the Vietnamese against the most powerful
military power in the world, and we begin to see the power of the people.
Now
we see the latest in a corporate scheme to undermine democracy in the Bush
administration and its corporate sponsors. This one is critical. They are
betting the ranch this time. They know if they lose, they lose big. They do not
have resources in the old capitalist system to recover from such a setback.
That
is what makes this election so crucial. If
the Bush’s
win they will turn us, and the world, back to undeterred corporate power and
continued loss of democracy; or they will be defeated by the people and
corporate power will be put on a leash for the foreseeable future.
The choice is yours. Do not let
the people down!
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