Eclectic Writer

Considering a Movement of Non-Violent Non-Compliance to End the War in Iraq/Afghanistan, Divest the United States of Empire, return power to the hands of the people, and Bring Peace and Stability to the U.S.A.

Liberals are in disarray after their willing seduction and abandonment by the Pragmatists of the Centrist Branch of the Democratic Party led by President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine and other “Leaders” of the National Democratic Party. Many people searching in the blogosphere and living in the atmosphere will find that statement ludicrous. A party in disarray should be on the run from their enemies. The Democratic Party in is not in shambles, but the grass roots of one of its constituencies, that being the liberal left, finds itself half in the wilderness and half linked by an umbilicus of belief to a party that uses them for elections and forgets in the pragmatics of governing.

The Liberal Left that came out in force for Barack Obama, seeing him as the man of the hour who would carry the standard of peace for a desperate world, now find him a disinterested peacemaker. Obama has declared an end to the adventure in Iraq while charging willfully into the wilderness of Afghanistan. The war does not end, it only moves to a different location. Obama has not ended the Don’t Ask Don’t’Tell policy designed to enforce societal concepts that gays and lesbians as lesser human beings. He has resisted holding the Bush Administration responsible for violations of law and even protected them by reneging on the promise to release torture photographs. In his acceptance of the CIA’s just following orders defense used at the Nuremberg trials he has become an accessory after the fact to torture, and complicit in torture. All of these actions are abominable by the left.

Liberals now find themselves in a position in relation to the Democratic Party under Obama that God’s social warriors of the Religious Right found themselves with respect to the Republican Party under Bush. God’s social warriors were lip serviced and glad handed to gain their vote while their critical goals remained unmet. The ten commandments as enunciated in the King James version of the bible were not made legally binding on Americans, abortion was not made a capital crime requiring the death penalty, gays and lesbians were not hunted like witches in Salem, Apostasy was not made illegal, and other religions were not demoted to a lesser place in a nation ruled from the City on the Hill.

What most of us forgot is that political parties exist to gather power into the political parties’ hands and for no other purpose. In the US, political parties are coalitions of groups with similar goals There is no monolithic Democratic Party or Republican Party. The Republican Coalition used the religious right, fiscal conservatives, business, and other members to gain and keep power. The Democratic Party used progressives, liberals, unions, the peace movement and other similar groups to gain power. But political coalitions are not held together by giving individual groups what they want. Parties make small changes to reward their constituencies but keep the big changes forever at arms reach to hold their coalition together by keeping its individual parts hungry for what they really want.

Liberals are hungry for real peace, equality for genders as well as individuals, justice that is blind to power, and economic fairness. Though the Democratic Party will move in that direction that movement will be at a glacial pace. Democrats have captured the reins of power in the American Empire. They will now move to the political center and forget the high toned rhetoric that paved their route to power. We Liberals can remain good little horses and pull the political band wagon when and where we are are told, or we can recognize that we can not leave real change in the hands of a system that lives to maintain the status quo.

We Liberals must recognize we have a problem before we can solve it. We are addicted to the idea that Democrats are a Liberal/Progressive party with the welfare of the little guy foremost in their thoughts. The Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, exists only to gain and maintain power.

For those of us who can take that step, who realize that Democrats and Obama are not the equivalent of the Great White Hope, we must formulate a plan to force the Democrats to move in the direction we want them to go or get the hell out of our way. Fortunately, we are not the first in history to do this. We have a pattern to follow formulated by one of the great minds in world history, Gandhi.

After returning to India in 1915, Gandhi used the knowledge gained in his fight against racism in South Africa to develop a non-violent Non-Compliance movement against the British Empire. He did not take up arms against his oppressors as was the common model used throughout history, and actually taught by socialist and democratic theoreticians. Though eschewing violence, he did not remain passive. In a series of confrontations he led his people. His protests were designed to attack the British Imperial Institutions with destroying individual members. In his protest of the “levy of tax by the British government on producing salt from sea water” his act was a blow against the Imperial economy and the Imperial government. Without committing acts of violence, he crippled British power in India and eventually forced the British Empire to leave.

Non-violent non-compliance does not mean that liberals would not suffer violence at the hands of the government or those who sympathize with the government, regardless of which party holds the reins. The British Empire used targeted violence against the Indian people, some died and many suffered injuries and went to prison for their acts. Martin Luther King, who emulated Gandhi’s methods and utilized his tactics, suffered violence at the hands of his oppressors. Both Gandhi and King were assassinated, but the changes they made endure.

In the absence of pressure to force the government to move in the direction we want, we will never achieve the goals that are important to us. We have a choice between accepting lip service from Democrats and forcing them to back their words with real actions. Without internal pressure to end it, the American Empire will continue to function until an outside force pushes it over. Without internal pressure to stop it, the war will continue to be waged wherever the empire feels it must use its power for its ends. But we must be willing to do the Full Gandhi. We must be willing to don the dhoti and refuse to accept the abnegation of our ideas and ideals for the convenience of empire. Unless we make them do what we want, they will ignore us until the next election’s lip service appeal.