Bush cannot be treated -- he must be surgically removed

Approaching the podium with trepidation, I wondered what the audience that applauded the previous speakers' harsh brand of conservatism would do with mine, which challenged the audience to rise to what I considered the core of true conservatism -- the biblical admonition that we shall be judged by what we do for the least among us.

In its article on the event, the New York Times reported that "Mrs. Huffington's goal is the redemption of the Republican Party. If she had her way, greed and selfishness will be banished forever, to be replaced by altruism, compassion, and the 'kinder, gentler' world that George Bush talked about but failed to deliver." The Times reporter, Karen De Witt, went on to express the opinion, "It is an odd notion to link altruism and compassion with conservatives, considering last year's Republican convention."

I too had been appalled by the 1992 Republican convention -- particularly Pat Buchanan's divisive speech (the one Molly Ivins memorably nailed as probably sounding better in the original German). But I believed at the time -- wrongly, as it turned out -- that I could challenge the Republican Party by harking back to the nobler traditions of its past.

The problem is not with rank-and-file Republicans but with the party's leaders. The same conservative audience that gave a standing ovation to Bozell gave a standing ovation to me. We just appealed to different parts of their brains and their psyches. I reached out to classic conservatism that sees individuals as the spiritual center of society, and expects them to obey the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Indeed, they are expected to follow the biblical precept, "To whom much is given, from him that much more shall be expected." Individuals, not government, have the responsibility to form communities, to weave a social fabric that sustains the weak, cares for the young, and nurtures those who have grown old. Without this component of social conscience, the potent doctrine of individual responsibility is reduced to an exclusively material self-interest. And individuals are reduced to little more than economic entities: producing and consuming units.

I believed just as deeply in the need for social responsibility during my Republican days as I believe in it now. But these days I draw very different conclusions from that basic principle. The reason is very simple. The social challenge I issued that morning during my speech, a gauntlet I kept throwing down until my final disillusionment with the Grand Old Party, was never taken up. The hope and expectation that people would roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty to solve social problems at the local level was never fully realized. There were never enough volunteers, never enough donations, never enough model partnerships and pilot projects set up to prove what we conservatives claimed: that we could solve America's ills without "big government."

Feeling that the whole system had to be shaken up, I cast my vote in 2000 for neither Bush nor Gore. Instead I marked my ballot for "none of the above" as a protest against the broken status quo. But that wasn't enough. So I helped organize the Shadow Conventions to coincide with the Republican convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic convention in Los Angeles and put the media spotlight on the fact that neither major party was addressing three key issues facing us: 1) the painful truth that we've become two nations, separated by an ever-widening economic gulf -- not just in income but in educational opportunities, access to health care, even in the quality of the air we breathe and our statistical chances of living to an old age; 2) the way money is corrupting our politics and campaign contributors are buying public policy; and 3) the nation's failed $40-billion-a-year war on drugs, which has turned into a war on the poor and minorities.

Then came the Bush White House -- and all it has brought with it, including Iraq, multitrillion-dollar tax cuts, corporate scandals, the gutting of environmental regulations, a record-breaking number of lost jobs, and the neglect of millions of struggling Americans. Despite this abysmal performance, there was no "loyal opposition." There was some bickering, a little partisanship, a bit of token jockeying from the other side of the aisle, but no clear alternative vision to rally around.

Last year, during the course of a thirteen-city college speaking tour, I came to a realization: it wasn't just me. To put it bluntly, Americans young and old, northerner and southerner, city slicker and country cousin, rich and poor (OK, maybe not the Bush rich) are all royally pissed off. But the pain, rage, and anxiety that came pouring out as soon as I opened the floor to questions and comments signaled that indignation had risen to a whole new level. This was not the dry, intellectual harrumphing found on the op-ed page. This was the cry of people who were ready to stop just talking and start acting.

I knew how they felt. I've always had a hard time just identifying wrongs and leaving it at that. I too wanted to take action, to move beyond the confines of jousting punditry. Which brings us to January 2003. That's when the Oregonian newspaper abruptly decided to stop carrying my syndicated column, giving as a reason: "She has dragged herself across the line from being a commentator to being an activist." The truth is that I have always seen myself as a crusading journalist in the tradition of my heroes Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and Ida Tarbell. I have always wanted to walk my talk, which is why, two years after I helped organize the Shadow Conventions, I cofounded the Detroit Project with my friends and fellow activists, Lawrence Bender, Laurie David, and Ari Emmanuel. It's a grassroots campaign to prod Detroit to stop building gas-guzzling SUVs and start producing cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars that will allow us to break our addiction to foreign oil. That was what constituted crossing the line, in the Oregonian's memorable phrase.

Two months after the Detroit Project, I helped create the Bermuda Project to expose corporate America's growing use of shady offshore tax havens to avoid paying its fair share.

Next Page: We cannot afford the kind of protest votes that are geared toward long-term reform

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