What Democracy Looks Like

“THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE,” is a widely revered chant the can be heard echoing throughout the streets of the United States when concerned citizens choose to activate their threatened freedom of speech and assembly. Ironically, when this type of direct action actually weakens the workings of the power in question, the response is militant and far from democratic embrace. Under this umbrella, the 2004 Republican National convention has already amassed a record setting 1760 estimated arrests for individuals speaking up for “controversial” topics like AIDS awareness, decent health care, suitable employment, and the deaths of our citizens for fictitious weapons of mass destruction.

Although President George W. Bush’s tell tale Freudian slip alerted the nation that his efforts against terrorism are a not winnable battle, the administration continues to loosely throw around the term “terrorist” and opportunistically apply it when it suits their agenda. In the case of the Republican National Convention, the ridiculous fluctuating terror alert meter was raised for possible attacks during the obligatory nomination of Bush as the Republican candidate for the upcoming election. As the week of the convention draws to a halt, it became clear that the heightened security preparations were not for Middle Eastern based threats, but for threats by U.S. people who intended to make their opposition to the worst regime in U.S. history clear to the world.

The “terrorists” the Bush administration feared most were merely concerned citizens that refused to have their intelligence insulted any more by blatant lies. While the actions of the Bush regime continue to destroy foreign relations ultimately sewing the seeds for more terrorist attacks in the world theatre, more opposition is coming home to the streets of the United States as the effects of an inept administration are being seen more vividly in communities across America.

In this tumultuous 2004 election, vast campaigns underlying the necessity to vote are difficult to ignore. Celebrity backed campaigns proclaiming “Vote or Die,” are only half right. A vote for the Bush administration does guarantee death and the depravation of basic human dignities that are no so self evident in The War Against Terror. It is true that the underlying message at a glance may seem commonsensical, but in reality, the matter is more complex. Merely popular voting is not necessarily enough to choose a candidate, if that case were true, the second Bush regime would have never came to power.

Voting George W. Bush out of power is only a beginning to the struggle and not an end. John Kerry is not a savior but another symptom of the lack of suitable choices Americans are faced with at the poles. In the vast agendas of the one party system posing as two entities, an election of John Kerry would merely be the lesser of two evils. In the case of a current regime who actually refers to opposition as “evil,” that vote is of immense importance. A change is a small battlefield victory, however, candidates that actually represent the needs of citizens and not special interests is the real war against terror.

Hasta La Victoria Siempre!