Kat has the right of it.

Vast numbers of this country's population are so busy going about their own business that, unfortunately, they often don't pay enough attention to politics (which, to many people, is much like examining the contents of a septic tank). They wander through life, careless, dumb, and happy. But--you can get their attention.

Notice how cranky people got when gasoline prices went over three dollars a gallon. They grumbled and started asking questions. There are enough families with sons, daughters, husbands, or wives overseas having their assignments repeatedly re-upped long after Bush announced "Mission accomplished;" this along with the seemingly endless drumbeat of continuing casualties, and Bush's only exit strategy being "Stay the course." They are also asking a lot of questions. And they and they also want to know what all this bellicose talk about Iran is all about. We've already spent half a trillion dollars on this Iraqi fiasco (increasing the national debt to unheard of heights and mortgaging our future generations) and it's only increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks.

Some of the more sophisticated and aware are asking questions like, "Why do I have to pay $500 a month for health insurance when every other civilized, industrialized country in the world has free health care?" [Including--and this may surprise you--Iraq under Saddam Hussein. And the Iraqis also have free health care under the American occupation, but we do not!]   People are starting to ask lots of questions.

And people are informing themselves. When I hear of new books just out, such as the new one by Bob Woodward, or books such as Michelle Goldberg's on the melding of the Republican Party with the religious Right, or Rajiv Chandrasekaran's astounding book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City : Inside Iraq's Green Zone, in which he describes the pathetic cluelessness and monumental screw-ups of the American administration forces in Iraq, I go to the Seattle Public Library's web site to place the books on hold (so my wife who works at the library can pick them up for me), and I find that there are already fifty, seventy, a hundred or more holds on the book (on Michelle Goldberg's book, over 160!–when this sort of thing happens, the SPL buys another couple dozen copies). People are reading these books. That indicates to me that there are a lot of people out there who are not as uninformed as one might think.

So I haven't given up on the democratic process yet.

But you recall the civil rights marches in the Sixites? And the angry riots over the Vietnam war in the late Sixties? If Bush or anyone else tried anything like a coup, what would follow would be an uproar that would make what happened in the Sixties look like a minor hiccup. The American people would most definitely rise up. And I think those who might be thinking along the lines of a take-over (and I'm sure there are some) are fully aware of this.

Choose a candidate, Campaign. Work your butt off for them. Vote. And pay a lot of attention to the electoral process. Question your local board of elections and don't let them blow you off!

Get involved!

Don Firth