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let an illegitimately elected president take the oath of office in their presence. They would not sanctify it. They would not agree to it. They would not cooperate with it. They shouted Calderon down and denied him the stage and the microphone in the forum of the people--so that he had to be sword in at midnight in secret.
In that sense, and several others, Mexico is a far superior democracy to ours. The people there are not taking a stolen election sitting down. They will not legitimize it. They will not allow it to be routine. It will, at the very least, not be covered up, as it was here in 2004.
Our Democrats too often misconstrue what order IS, and compromise on issues of life or death for the sake of not being "disorderly." But what is disorderly--slaughtering a hundred thousand innocent people, or, say, chaining yourselves to your desks in Congress to prevent Congress from giving away its power to declare war to George Bush? The slaughterers of a hundred thousand innocent people are war criminals. And you, who have breached decorum, who have defied illegitimate government, who have honored your oath of office to defend the Constitution, are not "disorderly." THEY are.
And the same would have been true in January 2005, when Bush was re-(s)elected in the most egregiously non-transparent election in the history of democracy--an election in which Bushite corporations "counted" all the votes behind a veil of secrecy, using new electronic voting technology run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, in a coup engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (and abetted by corporatist 'Democrats' like Christopher Dodd). Indeed, Bush got beaten so badly in the 2004 Bush/Kerry election, that, in addition to this new secret vote counting technology, the Republican Party had to actively and openly suppress hundred of thousands of Democratic votes in Ohio, in blatant violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This election was so putrid, there are now volumes devoted to chronicling its outrages. Yet, with the exception of the Black Caucus and Senator Barbara Boxer--who challenged the Ohio electoral votes--there was barely a peep out of the Democrats in Congress, who permitted the funding of the slaughter in Iraq to continue--and many other crimes, including the president basically ripping the Constitution of the United States to shreds--with decorum preserved, in an "orderly" manner.
I would like to make this point about the five month protest led by the teachers union in Oaxaca. The protest, though disruptive of business as usual, was entirely peaceful and ORDERLY. It the fascist governor of Oaxaca, whose troops violently assaulted the teachers, and whose paramilitaries have murdered 17 people so far, and kidnapped, beaten, tortured, raped and jailed many more, who are DISORDERLY--as the result of yet another rightwing stolen election (in '04). It is the Fox/Calderon government who invaded Oaxaca with a federal army on the side of the murderers, and have further brutalized the people of Oaxaca, who are DISORDERLY.
It is unjust war that is disorderly.
It is stolen elections that are disorderly.
It is gross poverty that is disorderly.
It is brutalizing peaceful protesters that is disorderly.
It is decorum that is disorderly. It is silence that is disorderly. It is inaction and LACK of protest that are disorderly--when action and protest are so obviously warranted.
I can understand thinking strategically, biding your time, getting your "ducks in a row," caution, wisdom, gathering strength, carefully evaluating the forces arrayed against you, being wary of hotheads (as well as agents provocateur) who might blow a good strategy of re-empowerment of the people--especially in the face of the ruthless and deadly power that the Bushites have wielded in all spheres--and all the reasons for compromise, lack of immediate action, lack of protest, and so on, with which we have excused our Democratic Party leaders on many vital issues, from unjust war to stolen elections. But when people are being slaughtered in your name, and elections are being stolen, decorum puts your very soul at risk, and being "disruptive" must be considered--as Mario Savio said, putting our bodies into the "gears and wheels" of the machinery of war--in the case of dissenting Democrats, active protest within Congress to shut down the government, to paralyze it, to deny it funding, and, above all, to break the silence!
But that was not to be. Barbara Boxer and the Black Caucus came closest to angelic "disorder," when they challenged the Ohio electors. Rep. Murtha also had his moment of throwing his body on the "gears and wheels." But we have seen no other "loss of decorum" (or creation of real order) in our government, in contrast to the Mexican legislators, who refused to maintain "decorum" in the face of a stolen election and vast injustice. Will the Mexican legislators be effective in preventing the passage of fascist legislation (for instance, privatization of Mexico's oil industry)--as ours were not? That remains to be seen. But step one is to break the silence that covers up injustice and criminal government. And that they have done. As a consequence, I think justice and good order will come to Mexico quicker than it will here.
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