Friend of mine, a fellow writer I'll call "Joe," put the question to his email network last week: Would anyone join him in a hunger strike for the closing of Guantanamo? It would be a real one that wouldn't stop until/unless the prisoners were turned over to the US justice system.
He figures we have to do something to keep the Administration from destroying everything this country should stand for. Life's been pretty tough for him lately and he's decided he'd rather go out fighting for something big rather than being quietly done in by his malfunctioning body.
Talk about putting it right in your lap. I had to think long and hard about that one.
I couldn't agree more that we have to do something. And I don't think anything I've done so far has had a real effect on the big picture.
I've made campaign calls for Congressional candidates, pressed everyone I know to vote, written compelling messages to legislators.
Some of my calls may have helped a little to tip the Senate--I was calling into Virginia on behalf of Jim Webb. When he squeaked in by a hair, I thought maybe the people I urged to vote were in the .5% that gave him the seat. It felt good.
But. Here we are after almost a full year of that hard-won Democratic control and it has not stopped the Administration from continuing to do whatever it chooses to do.
We're four years down the road from the days when millions of us across the world marched to stop the invasion of Iraq. Minor annoyance--perhaps--to Bush/Cheney, but we didn't even delay the attack, much less stop it.
It's been eight years since I marched with labor unions at the WTO protests in Seattle. The agreements went right ahead and are doing exactly what the unions said they would do--erase blue collar jobs in this country.
I'd say that the powers that be have been quite unimpressed with my/your efforts. Trying to use our lives to leverage right treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners would also be, I think, unimpressive. Which means my writer friend is setting himself up to die for that cause.
I suspect that even if hundreds of us publicly starved ourselves to death in protest against the impeachable actions of our "leaders," their only reaction--if they noticed--would be mild pleasure. Fewer kooks mouthing off. What could be bad about that?
"Joe" relayed the responses he got from writers all over the country. One urged him to stay alive and in the best possible health so he could keep doing the mouthing off. One signed on, even said he had a boat they could use to anchor off Guantanamo. He'd decided that his almost-80 years were enough. The rest of us said No thanks.
There's this problem a lot of us have--we like our little lives.
In the big picture, things are going to hell in that hand basket. But in the micro, I've got this book I'm working on and it's going pretty good. I recently found a longlost son and I'm having a grand time getting to know him and his family. The view of the Olympic Mountains from my window still gives me goosebumps. A medical scare turned out to be a false alarm, leaving me in good health and high spirits. There's a Mozart concerto playing on the radio and it's gorgeous. In my day job, my estimable mate and I are doing good work, getting people to become engaged citizens.
And here I am saying that I am not "engaged" enough to give up my happy little life in hopes of stopping the public villains I so oppose.
In hopes. There's the sticking point. I'm banging pots and pans, as Molly Ivins said we must. I'm encouraging the moves for impeachment, sending my small checks to candidates who speak for honorable public policies, for the people and against corporate greed.
I'll get back on the phone, go back into the streets, keep blogging, "in hopes" that we'll manage an honest election next year and turn these unAmerican lunatics out of power.
I know I'm walking a line here. It's a line too many people walked too long in Germany as the Fascists drove them slowly and surely straight toward the cliff. If thousands of that country's citizens had risked their lives to stop that drive, might they have changed history?
I'm gambling that we still have a chance to put this country back on an honorable course--with our voices and our votes instead of our lives.
But if we're faced on November 5, 2008 with President-elect Giuliani, I will have to concede that I haven't done enough, that loving my little life made me too cautious, that we're over the cliff and I am one of the too-cautious citizens who let it happen.
For now, I'll keep banging them pots--in hopes.