Dear Cary,

As the election draws near, I am finding myself growing more and more anxious. I believe our democracy is in serious trouble, that we are headed toward an even more totalitarian government, and that the current administration will stop at nothing to maintain power. Having studied rhetoric in college, I can't help but note that Condoleezza Rice is using identical language to describe Iran as was used to describe Iraq before the administration started its "hard sell" on war there. Having gone to school with many Iranians I find the idea of invading their country even more horrifying than I found the invasion of Iraq.

My problem is, I am beginning to feel hopeless. "Cowed" might be a better word. As the resistance grows, so does the repression, exemplified by the latest FBI preemptive interviews. (Why isn't anyone saying: Preempting what?)

I have many obligations and emotional ties to this country, but I am seriously considering emigrating. How does one know when it is time to leave a country? How did our ancestors know when it was time to leave "the old country"?

Wondering When to Pack Up and Leave

Dear Wondering,

I carried this question around with me for several weeks before suddenly, with great passion, I realized what I believe: No, of course you should not leave. This is your country. This is our country. Why should we have to leave because things are not to our liking?

If this country has been hijacked by right-wing zealots, we can vote them out.

To leave now, it seems to me, would be premature. It might relieve you of a certain chronic angst. It might make it easier in certain ways. But it would be wrenching personally; the costs would be high. And there is much work to be done here. What more can one do from France or England to organize Americans to resist their own government? To leave would not impede this country's imperial quest or enlighten its leadership. It would not strengthen the resistance at home.

If we feel this country has been lost, let's find it again. If we feel threatened, let's vanquish the threat. In whatever sense we feel that this country is no longer recognizable, let's refashion it. Let's re-create what we have lost. If the media have become enslaved, let's create new, free media, and support the few independent media that survive. If the country has taken reckless foreign adventures, let's rein it in.

When people start disappearing, that's when you pack your suitcase and bury the silver. The paradox, of course, is that only when you are prevented from leaving does it finally seem like it's time to leave. Oh, well.

As to the sense many have that we have awakened a latent fascism, I think elements of fascism have become visible in our national character and in our leaders, but I do not think we are on the road to a fascist or totalitarian form of government. What we have seen in the last three years is a clumsy and incompetent reaction to an unprecedented threat. Our stupid little men in Washington are not up to the job. We have got the wrong government for our times. We need a new one. We can get one.

Now, some would say that the battle is lost already, that the manufacturing of consent is so finely tuned that we are all slaves without a shot being fired. So why stick around? Why stick around? Because we own this thing. It is ours.

Until they start taking people away in the night, I say fight the bastards. After they start taking people away in the night, I say fight the bastards. Why? Because it's our friggin' spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

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