I spent yesterday climbing to the summit of this bald bulb of a hill called Mt. Monadnock, which rises incongruously from the level plains of southern New Hampshire. The day was bright and clear with little wind, a perfect day for a hike. I reached the top in under two hours and paused to absorb the view. New England lay before me to all points on the compass, brown and prepared for winter. Here and there were lakes and houses. In the distance something burned, sending a column of smoke into the air.

The hard blue November sky was stitched with white lines that crossed each other in every direction, as if a deranged skywriter had decided to paint the air repeatedly with the letter 'A.' It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing: contrails from combat aircraft arriving and departing from various bases across the region. Even here, 4,000 feet above the world, the troubles that consume us hover above, close enough to touch.

Then again, that is the rub. Once upon a time this nation seemed above the world, of it but beyond its scalding touch. We were protected by two oceans, vast treasure, armed guardians, and thousands of atom-tipped missiles buried in the earth. One day the sky fell in, and we found ourselves somewhere we had not been for generations. We found ourselves in the middle of things. We found ourselves to be vulnerable.

A fundamental shift of comprehension has been fermenting within the minds of American citizens since September 11th. All of a sudden, the realization that each and every citizen has a stake in the actions and policies of this country has begun to take root. Simply, if justice fails, the common folk become targets. If economic privation goes unchecked, the common folk become targets. If extremism, American or otherwise, achieves too much power, the common folk become targets.

If a liberal, progressive agenda is to achieve purchase in today's climate, this basic truth must be seized upon and repeated over and over again. The fellow who only reads the sports page, who hasn't voted for twenty years, or who votes Republican because he likes his tax cut, needs to have a finger thrust into his face. He needs to be made to understand that the next intelligence failure, the next proxy war, the next arms deal, the next corporate bailout, could result in his shattered corpse lying in the dust.

This is brutal and cruel. It is also the truth. We are all on the firing line. We are the targets in this war. There are reasons for this that have nothing to do with people who hate our freedoms.

This is the most dangerous idea in the world for those currently in power in America. It is an idea that has taken a slow burn through the populace. If it flares alight, people will not shop. They will not tolerate excessive tax cuts for financially healthy corporations. They will demand solutions that do not involve carpet-bombing with B-52s. They will not stand for the dissolution of their constitutional rights. In short, they will demand actions that will reap actual results, instead of actions that give only the illusion of progress. They will want to move forward as progressives instead of backwards as conservatives. They will know that their very survival depends upon it.

Liberals and progressives must seize this time, must pour kerosene on that slowly burning idea, until it explodes into a pyre upon which will burn all of the sad, sorry, broken policies that brought us to this house of woe.

But who is to do it?

It has become an article of faith since January 20th, 2001, that the Democratic chieftains who walk the halls of power in Washington D.C. can not be trusted to fight for this agenda. When the results of the scandalous 2000 election were ratified in Congress, only the Black Caucus had the courage to turn their backs in protest. When religious extremist John Ashcroft stood for nomination as Attorney General, no true opposition was offered.

Today, as the 4th, 6th and 13th Amendments to the Constitution are disposed of, as Posse Comitatus is replaced by clandestine military tribunals that know no civil authority, the Democrats stand almost completely silent. Only the timely defection of Senator James Jeffords has allowed Democrats to thwart Republican thrusts into the Federal larder and our environmental inheritance. Had Jeffords not jumped, there would be no stopping the GOP.

Democratic Senator and Presidential hopeful John Edwards worked night and day to craft the abominable PATRIOT Anti-Terrorism bill, possibly the most invasive bit of work to come out of Washington since Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Perhaps he believes that we must destroy freedom in order to save it, but it is more likely that he succumbed to political cowardice and went along for the ride to ensure a safe trip to the primaries in 2004. He is certainly not alone in this.

On any other day, the anthrax sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy would be called assassination attempts. Today, these attacks are shrouded in the threatening veil of international terrorism, despite the fact that they almost certainly originated from the Ashcroftian wing of the American Right. Even after this most dire of threats, the Democrats stand mute. Bush enjoys approval ratings that would make Jesus Christ Himself blush, a formidable obstacle for Democrats who may feel in their gut that the nation is on the road to Hell. Their timidity is our catastrophe.

Thus, it falls to us. We must become the calcium in the withered Democratic backbone, and we must do it now.

Writing to these people is useless. Protesting against the President will bear no fruit. Letters to the editor go unread. Emails to like-minded friends amount to political masturbation. We are a people made too comfortable by pleasant arguments and debates. The day has arrived where action is demanded, else all that happens from here on out can be lain at our own feet. The document in question says We The People for a good reason.

Take heed of conservative successes. They ran for state representative positions, took over school boards, got jobs in local government and basically stormed the bulwarks of the Republican Party from the bottom of the walls. It took ten years, but they did it, and the Presidency of George W. Bush is but one reward they have reaped by their labors. The media is awash with the conservative viewpoint because they commandeered the dialogue after years of grass-roots work. This is another reward, one that ensures their continued success.

To overcome this, we must become it.

The only reason the Democrats moved to the right is because of the aforementioned conservative grass-roots revolution. The Party had nothing to counteract the surge of conservatism that blasted through Washington, no shock troops of their own, so they swung Rightward in order to survive. Now, the Parties are slowly becoming indistinguishable. They are not yet there, no matter what Ralph Nader says, but they are on their way and this can not be denied.

It has been argued that true progressives will never find a home in the Democratic Party, because it has sold too much of its soul in a hard tack to the right borne of defensive strategy and political expediency. This leaves two alternatives: either abandon the Party completely, or roll up some sleeves and clean out the Augean stables.

Despite its flaws, the Democratic Party is the best tool we have available for the propagation of the liberal, progressive agenda. The Party have faithful followers in every state, and unconquerable strongholds on both coasts. The Democratic political machine stands in every county in every state in the Union. There are doubtless men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives who would savor the chance to act upon principle, instead of from a core of self-defense, a chance we can give them if we get to work now.

The time has come to invade this Party, to storm the battlements from the ground up. The Democratic Party can again become a bastion of true liberalism, as the Republican Party has become a bastion of ultraconservatism, if American progressives take it over from pillar to post. If we take back the Party, if we change the dialogue coming from the media through the brute reality of our strident and unyielding voices, if we tend and nurture that flame of new comprehension blazing in every American breast, we can achieve all that our dreams have whispered.

Most within the Party will welcome this, I believe. Those who do not can be reminded of the wisdom spoken by an old politico named James H. Rowe: "The old bulls never quit until the young bulls run them out. The old bulls are dead."

Master the issues. Walk down to your local Democratic Party office and find work. Take as much responsibility as you can, and make it your office. Run for positions on your school board, or within your local government, or stand for election to your state congress. If you can not do these things, find someone who is doing them and dedicate your energies to their success. Run the old bulls out, and harness the young bulls to plow new fields. Make the Party a home for everyone who knows in their heart that things must change in this country before the targets can be stripped from our backs.

It will take time and patience. There is a window of opportunity to act in time for the 2002 elections, but the target should be 2004. Don't look to the Oval office, for working from the top down has bred a dizzying array of recent failures. Go from the ground up, one step at a time.

What a paradise we can make of this world if given the chance. The chance will not come on its own. We must make it, take it, demand it, fight for it tooth and nail.

Get to work.

Comments? Contact the author at w_pitt@hotmail.com

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