Gay Today: Viewpoint

To U.S. Senators from the Grass Roots:
ACT NOW!

By Bill Weintraub

A few days ago Senator Kerry of Massachusetts announced that he would filibuster to prevent exploitation of the Alaska Wildlife Refuge.

The question arises: Why? And why now? Why is safeguarding that refuge more important than protecting the civil rights of 280 million Americans, rights that so many brave Americans gave their lives to defend, rights that the Senate Democrats so cavalierly entrusted to a radical right liar and bully?

Sen. John Kerry says he'll take action to stop Mr. Bush's effort to open the Alaska Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling

I think the answer is obvious: Judged not by their words but by their behavior, Senator Kerry and his Democratic colleagues don't care about that refuge, or civil rights, or anything else. They care about staying in office. And so they're beginning to act, slowly, because they've been feeling the heat from the grass roots – us, the people who campaign for them and elect them.

But that isn't good enough.

A month ago I said in print that Tom Daschle was our Chamberlain and that we needed a Churchill. What I say now is that we've got 50 Chamberlains in the Senate, 50 peace-at-any-price appeasers – and that we've either got to get rid of them – through the recall – or persuade them to do their duty very fast.

I'd like to think that somewhere out there – maybe in the House, or perhaps in a governor's office, or maybe even among all those blow-dried and well-coiffed Senators – there's someone with the wisdom and the guts to say that this is an illegal regime, that we don't cooperate with illegal regimes, and that the Democratic Party can have but one goal: the removal of George W. Bush from office and the impeachment and removal of Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist.

That's the only morally acceptable and the only politically viable stance to take. The person who does that – NOW – will be, I believe, the next President of the United States. Like Churchill, that person may have to spend some time in the political wilderness. Ultimately, however, he or she will prevail.

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But if no Democrat can be found to do that, then the Democrats don't deserve the presidency – or any other office.

And if no Democrat can be found to do that, I also believe, the Democratic Party will soon cease to exist, for the grass roots -- the heart of the party -- will find other solutions.

I remember the moment when I thought Bill Clinton might actually beat the Republicans. It was when he defended himself about Jennifer Flowers. I could see that he was willing to fight. And fight hard.

The grass roots long for another leader who will fight. The American people will respect and listen to a fighter, just as they did Clinton. And they will listen to a fighter, who, like Churchill, stakes his claim to lead on a plain statement of morality: you cannot steal an election and remain President of the United States.

But that fighter, our next leader, has to come forward NOW. Every day that he or she equivocates, even as the Bush regime grows more and more outrageous, even as the ferment in the grass roots grows more and more intense, will lead to the inevitable questions: Where were you? Where were you on December 12? January 6? February 1? What took you so long? And why should we trust you now?

Evan Bayh is one of the Democrats in the Senate whom activists say can make a difference

Bobby Kennedy hesitated in '68. It hurt him badly, damaged the country, may even have cost him, to the extent that so many saw him as an opportunist, his life. What a difference it would have made had he stepped forward boldly before Eugene McCarthy, before the country had been torn apart by protest.

So – Senator Kerry, or Biden, or Bayh, or Feinstein, or Boxer – if you're going to act, you'd better do it soon. Because we in the countercoup are not going back. We are going forward to restore justice to the heart of American life. And if you continue to delay, you’ll be left behind with the debris and detritus of the old discredited regime .

Bill Weintraub Bridgeville, California February 17, 2001