First, we need to recognize that the enemy is us. You’re either a protector of freedom or its enemy. Easily distracted, consumed with our own wants and needs, unwilling to do the hard work of maintaining our individual and collective freedoms, we have become the greatest threat to our freedoms. We’ve become willing victims of entertainment and rampant materialism. It’s the old magician’s sleight of hand: the corporations are entertaining and distracting us, all the while we’re being taken for a ride. We are, so to speak, being entertained while Rome burns.
Second, we need to stop looking to elections as our ultimate hope. Despite what we saw with the Democratic electoral wins in 2008 and the Tea Party backlash in 2010, nothing has really changed. It remains business as usual in the halls of Congress. As Dan Eggen, writing for the Washington Post, reports: “After winning election with an anti-Washington battle cry . . . incoming Republican freshmen have rapidly embraced the capital’s culture of big-money fundraisers, according to new campaign-finance reports and other records. Dozens of freshmen lawmakers have held receptions at Capitol Hill bistros and corporate townhouses in recent weeks, taking money from K Street lobbyists and other powerbrokers within days of their victories.”
Third, if our freedoms are to be maintained, we must become actively involved in local community affairs, politics and legal battles. As the adage goes, “Think globally, act locally.” America was meant to be primarily a system of local governments, which is a far cry from the colossal federal bureaucracy we have today. Understanding what is transpiring practically in your own backyard -- in one’s home, neighborhood, school district, town council -- and taking direct action at the local level must be the starting point.
Finally, we need to focus on the very real, pressing human needs in our communities and stop funding the war machine, which is not making America safer. These endless wars have succeeded in deepening the hatred of America among our foreign enemies, enriching the corporations who have a vested interest in seeing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, and impoverishing the lower and middle classes. All the while, 45 million Americans lived in poverty in 2009, with one out of every five children living in poverty; household participation in the food stamp program has increased 20% since last year, with a record 41 million Americans on food stamps; one out of every seven mortgages in the United States was either delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010; 28% of all U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job; and the number of Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits has risen over 60 percent in just the past year.
