On the Other Hand...

Today I have been pondering other ways of asserting the will of We the People.

It is possible - and this is not news to me - that the AOC project is unnecessary. In the short discussions a few weeks ago that led me to create this blog many argued just that, saying that the system as is (i.e., Congressional oversight and investigations, investigative journalism, growing awareness on the part of the U.S. citizenry, etc.) would eventually work toward some justice regarding the President and his corrupt anti-American regime. Others thought there was no hope, that the undoing of the Constitution of the United States is fait accompli. A significant number of insightful experienced minds are either unimpressed by the expressed need for, or skeptical about the tenability of, a street-level action-oriented activist movement.

New developments over the past month make it easy to argue that the steady drip of revelations and allegations of wrong-doing by the administration, coupled with the growing restlessness of the populace and an unimpressive crop of Republican presidential candidates, will assure additional Democratic advances in the House and Senate along with a Democratic Party victory in the 2008 race for the White House. The extension of this argument is that the new Democratic government will restore recognition of our Constitutional rights.

I believe this. I think the system as designed by Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Hancock and all the rest will work as intended, that our beloved institution of self-government will survive intact.

I also think that it is wise to have an insurance policy in place. If, in the course of Human Events, things do not transpire as we hope, well... what then? If our nation's elected men and women, in whom we place our trust to hew to the founders' ideals, are unwilling or unable to perform their sworn duty to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, are We the People not obligated to intervene?

Assuredly, there is the possibility that mass expressions of grievance will arise spontaneously across the country, inspiring the Legislative Branch into growing a backbone and the Judiciary into interpreting law in deference to the individual, rather than to the state or to corporations. It could happen. But maybe the mainstream news media outlets will continue to downplay the insults of the Bush regime. Maybe the citizenry will remain subdued by the "struggle for the legal tender" (in Jackson Browne's memorable words) and by the onslaught of deliberate high-decibel misinformation and distracting, content-less entertainment media trifles.

More ominously, the administration - and its co-conspirators in the Congress and the Courts and the Press - could, in the name of national security, solidify the authoritarian dictatorial suppression of liberties they have been working steadily to impose for the past five years, culminating in a decisive comprehensive curtailment of the right to free expression and of peaceable assembly.

If the time comes, and if the new Minutemen/women of the Twenty-first Century American Crisis are to be able to respond in a timely fashion to the rallying cry of modern Paul Reveres, the groundwork must be in place in advance. Lead time must be kept to a minimum, in order to overcome the obstacles the Republican regime will surely have in place.

Thus, AOC proceeds in a measured, prudent pace... in the fervent hope that it is never needed.