http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110906Z.shtml
09 November 2006
A Deep, Deep Breath
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Let us be absolutely clear on what has taken place.
This was not simply a midterm election, not just a historic running of
the table, not just a scathing repudiation of virtually everything the
Bush administration has stood for since they swaggered into Washington
six long years ago.
It was so very much more than this.
The back of the "Neo-conservative Revolution" has been broken, perhaps
not for all time - simply because nothing truly evil ever really dies
- but for a good long while.
The ideology foisted upon an unwilling public by the likes of Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Ledeen and the rest, the ideology that has
given us slaughter in Iraq and a ravaged reputation abroad, has been
exposed and eviscerated.
The Project for the New American Century, and all that was spawned
from it, has been relegated, for now, to the dustbin of history.
As unutterably massive as this is, it still does not capture the
entirety of the event.
There are many things that make the United States of America unique,
but one stands out above all.
Every other nation on Earth has within it cultural, religious or
historical threads, often stretching back hundreds if not thousands of
years, which bind its people together.
When you see the Orangemen march in Ireland, when you see the Serbs
mark the anniversary of a massacre that happened 900 years ago, when
you see the British celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, you are witnessing an
echo out of time that, for good or ill, silently reminds the people of
those countries that they have a shared heritage which stretches back
dozens of generations.
The United States stands apart from this.
We are an invention, the product of an idea, the children of a dream.
We come from everywhere, and though our history is stained with far
too much blood shed during the unfolding of our own history, the sum
total is an amalgamation of the best and worst of the human
experience.
Nothing like this has ever existed anywhere, ever.
All we have to tie together this amazing and confusing experiment are
a few old pieces of paper.
The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights are the only truths that each and every citizen of this country
have completely in common.
They are our unifying theme, our organizing principle, and we share
this together because the basic idea was, and remains, that these
belong to us and defend us and set us, now and forever, free.
It was not always so, and remains today a dream unfulfilled, but in
the end, that was the genius of it all.
These three documents, and the ideology behind them, were created to
be self-improving entities.
Much remains to be done to move along the "more perfect Union" Lincoln
spoke of, and that work will never be completed ... and that is the
point.
These things are ours, and they are all that we truly have to bind us
together, and our purpose as citizens is to bend our will toward the
creation of that more perfect Union.
Before the sun came up on Wednesday, that shared heritage had been
under a savage, unrelenting attack by men and women who have no
respect for the idea and the dream which makes us all that we are as a
people.
The right to a trial has been shattered, the right to stand before
your accuser has been removed, the right to be secure in home and
person from governmental intrusion has been swept by the boards, and
all by a president who once referred to the Constitution as "just a
God damned piece of paper."
These cancers have not been cut out simply because of an election, of
course.
But the first, vital step towards repairing our shared heritage was
taken on Tuesday night, simply because we have at long last returned
to the basic Constitutional requirement of checks and balances within
this government.
No longer will the best interests of the people be slapped aside by
people who have no patience for the process that was laid out by wiser
and better men.
Some logs have been thrown in the road, and for now, a real chance for
healing has been gifted to us by the very democratic institutions
these people would shun and shatter.
The power of the vote, so often maligned and disdained, has been
restored.
A more perfect Union, indeed.
Much remains to be done.
The departure of Donald Rumsfeld from the Pentagon will not heal Iraq,
nor will it bring back to life the soldiers and civilians who have
died thanks to the hubris of others.
The cornering of ***** Cheney has not sapped him of his power.
George W. Bush remains an incurious front man whose very existence in
that seat of power will stand as a constant threat to the safety and
security of this nation and the world entire.
"U.S. envoy tells Iraqis election won't change policy," reads the
Associated Press headline from Wednesday.
That, in and of itself, says all we need to know about what remains to
be done.
For the first time in far too long, however, an opportunity has
arrived to do more than scream into the thunderstorm and damn the
rain.
The real work begins now.
________________________________________________________
Harry
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