Today represents the start of a major campaign to roll back the forces of authoritarianism.

[Selatius]

I guess, in some ways, it could be a political "D-Day" of sorts. We're struggling against a mighty enemy that wants to keep people in fear and in the darkness of ignorance, and we've just landed on the shores of Normandy to "denazify" the continent.

That's how I see it. We were suffering proto-fascist spasms across this great land, but I think today represents a major defeat of the mighty scourge of fascism that has been stalking this land for so long. It has cost the lives of countless civilians caught in the aggressive war started by the government, and it has cost the lives of countless Americans sent to die for greed and lies.

We saw how freedoms were curbed in the name of national security and that those who questioned these actions were condemned as unpatriotic, and we saw the horrors of America's torture programs from Bagram to Abu Ghraib to Gitmo and points beyond where prisoners were flown to be subject to "extraordinary rendition" and learned of the government's warrantless wiretapping of Americans aided and abetted by some of America's largest telecom companies and the shameful immunity given to them by a complicit Congress.

We bore witness to an economy that was allowed to spiral out of control and slam into the ground due to the religion of deregulation and Reaganomics and saw it roll through entire cities leaving devastating poverty, rusted-out factories, entire neighborhoods now populated by foreclosure signs, and legions of the unemployed and homeless forced to scramble for help in the aftermath. As if to add insult, in this same period the pay of high level executives accelerated at an even faster pace, while worker wages stagnated and declined.

We watched in horror as major American cities were devastated and brought down by natural disasters and then essentially abandoned by a corrupt government too concerned with protecting itself and making money than protecting the citizens it was charged to protect.

Today is just the start of a campaign to roll back the darkness, to defeat the people who want control and power over democracy and freedom. It will be a long and hard struggle, and I fear there will be some more loss of lives before all the troops are brought home, but the campaign won't end until we've made this land safe for democracy once again.

Sadly, due to the war in Iraq and the disasters visited on American cities, some of our friends and family members didn't live to see this monumental day. We should take measure of what we've lost but also what we've won and know that today represents the hope of new things to come.

[readmoreoften]

1. It's just the beginning of our struggle.

The heads up that we've reached critical mass. Now, it begins.

[xochi]

2. Amen, brother! Well said!

Our democracy has sustained extraordinary damage over the last eight nightmarish years at the hands of our own two-bit terrorist dictator. We need to dismantle the Bush Doctrine, redefine the Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind, restore Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus, and reassert the democratic ideals upon which this nation was founded. We must stop following the unbelievably destructive precedents set by the last administration.