So now it’s stage two—time for President Bush to have absolute power, completely unchecked by his insatiable desire for re-election. I guess all of the WesDems can go home, and we can recharge our combined forces until the next time around. Or not. The problem is, many (though not all) of us at Wesleyan are trying on the wrong level. Here we are preaching to the mostly preached, calling for a revolution in scrawled pink-chalk lettering. Why are we doing it—to make something change, or to make ourselves feel better about our intrinsic inertia?
Last year I heard Scott Ritter, former chief UN weapons inspector, speak about the Bush administration, and about the system’s flaws. One of the most memorable elements in the talk was his emphasis on what we, the common people, can do to make changes. No, he did not advocate childish “Bush is an idiot” rants, nor did he call for our blind support of “anyone but Bush.” One example he gave was both sensible and feasible: start on a local level, but still nip the problem(s) in the bud by looking at the most important factor in any campaign– where the money is coming from. Who sponsors your representatives? If you don’t like Congresswoman Jane Doe’s support of Operation: Heinous Liberty Breach, call her sponsor, Money Inc., and tell them you’ll stop using their products if they continue to condone Doe’s offensive standings. A number of calls like that are enough to unsettle any profit-oriented company.
Ritter’s suggestion will not work everywhere, nor is it guaranteed to alter anything at all. But we need to go beyond intra-Wesleyan protests which, while valuable to some emotional degree, in all likelihood will not succeed in changing many representatives’ minds.
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