"It Doesn't Matter"

"It doesn't matter." -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Nov. 5, 2006, referring to polls repeatedly showing the majority of Americans oppose the Iraq war -- a sign the ruling class truly does not care about the demands of the public.

David Sirota shares with us this morning his top ten quotes from the past decade. The above quote from Dick Cheney was Number One.  His point:

These epigrams expose a nation that has internalized and accepted the forces of avarice, corruption, dishonesty, incompetence and insensitivity. Some of them are darkly funny, some of them are gut-wrenchingly sad -- but all of them are warnings. Whether we listen to them or not will be the difference between repeating the last decade's folly or learning from it.

Here's to resolutions for the new decade that finally choose the latter.

I will agree with Mr. Sirota on this.  What we do on blogs, with letters to the editor, with our vote, and with our community organizations does indeed matter.  Our efforts seem frustratingly small and ineffective, but the opposite is much closer to the truth.  In fact the only thing that can "move the stone" of public opinion, of pundocratic conventional wisdom, of corporatism, and of militarism is participation in the process.

We, as a people, have embraced corporatism as a way of governance and militarism as a definition of character.  The political elite has conditioned us to accept, as Sirota says, "the forces of avarice, corruption, dishonesty, incompetence and insensitivity" yet I believe that the tide has turned. The machine of state, that was eerily close to plunging off the cliff, has come to a screeching halt and is now, ever so slowly, turning around and inching it's way back towards the high ground.

No Mr. Cheney, it DOES matter.  We the people still hold the power, it's just up to us to use it.