I get considerable feedback on the essays I write, and a surprisingly large majority of it is positive. I might joke that I wish I was a little old lady so the right wing would hate me as much as they seem to hate Helen Thomas and Granny D, but the fact is that like anyone, I like being praised more than I like being damned.

So you should probably take it with a grain of salt when I say that people who like my essays tend to be articulate, thoughtful, pleasant people with lively curiosity and good table manners, while people who don’t like my essays tend to be knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing hirsute oafs who fantasize that some day, Rush Limbaugh and Britney Spears will be married and produce a race of superior beings who will all look like Ollie North.

But I might be biased on the matter.

Still, it seems that the more thoughtful notes seem to come from the people who like my stuff. The following example raises questions that we all need to be asking ourselves.

Zepp,

I really don't remember how long I have subscribed to your service - well over a year - but your e-mails have become as much a part of my daily routine as my morning coffee. I have written you often in the past and, with a surprising degree of regularity, you have taken time to answer. I appreciate that a lot. I have come to respect your honesty, your eloquence, your informed viewpoints, your common sense and your humor. So I come to you now, not so much asking an individual answer, but to make a "request" that I would like to see included among your essay topics.

You know better than I do that the GOP smear machine is winding up for an all-out assault on anyone who would dare question the monkey king or attempt to puncture the mass delusions that keep him in power. The Limbaughs, O'Reilleys, Coulters and Savages are getting ready to finger point and howl as they never have before. And, in an inspiring example of loyal selflessness, the more patriotic among their followers are going so far as to sacrifice a lunch hour to counter anti-war protests, a significant escalation from flipping off demonstrators through the window of a moving SUV. People like you and I, Molly Ivins, the Dixie Chicks, the better actors in Hollywood, the Pope, Sen. Robert Byrd and the majority of US citizens are going to be branded as terrorists. Given the success of Ashcroft's prosecution in the aftermath of 9-11, there is probably little to worry about legally. The jails are already full as are the cages at Guantanamo, and unless Bush and Company have been secretly building more, there are just too many of us, and we are too well informed and too vocal.

So what do I want from you? I would like to see an essay about keeping your wits about you, about retaining a clear understanding of your rights, and about preserving rationality and hope while, as you have observed, the country succumbs to complete insanity. I suppose I am asking, more specifically, for some guesses as to what form the attacks will take, what psychological ploys, orchestrated by the Whitehouse and carried out by the gelded and compliant excuse we now have for a press, will be used to instill self-doubt, fear and division in the anti-war community. How far are the attacks likely to go in terms of personal violence? Incidents of wingers actually getting out of their cars to punch protesters are still rare, but that could change - they have been swerving their SUV's at protesters for a while now. I would also like to know what form appropriate responses from the Anti-war side might take: do we present an adamant wall of consistent non-violence like Gandhi or do we answer the bastards on their own terms like Bartcop? I can see merit in both approaches, although I lean toward the Bartcop model because the Freepers and Fascists are simply incapable of facing reality on any level higher than the gut instincts of greed, fear and hate. Do we have to descend to that level ourselves? Should we show up at peace vigils armed with something more persuasive than lit candles? You can bet the drive-by hecklers in their SUV's are. I suppose my biggest nightmare is escalation of personal violence into all-out civil war. It doesn't seem likely, but then we have never before had a president chosen by an ideologically motivated Supreme Court or a country secretly run from an undisclosed location by a ruthless corporate criminal.

I am requesting your thoughts on such issues.

[...]

I sit here, obsessed with Yeats' Second Coming and wondering with dread:

"...what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

I'm sure you understand.

Thanks for your time.

John Abbick

I think the right is in a mad, desperate frenzy right now, and they are only going to get worse. That’s both the bad news and the good news.

Good news: They seem like a much bigger force because they have control of so much of the media, and the wealth to sway elections. But in fact, when we talk about "the right" we’re talking about no more than 20% of the entire adult population of the United States, and when you consider the hard core right, the ones who run out and religiously buy everything Ann Coulter and Mike Savage put out, and who depend on Faux News only for their information, then that number drops dramatically, to less than 2% of the population.

Bad News: the number of Germans who were National Socialist supporters and hard core Nazis in 1932 were about the same percentages, and the obvious correlation holds. They have considerable wealth and power backing them.

You ask if we should respond like Gandhi, or like Bartcop (for anyone one not familiar with him, go to his page at www.bartcop.com), and my answer is "both." That’s the way the right has been doing it for years, with benign and rather warm political sorts chuckling their heads sadly over the viciousness of the battles and suggesting "compromises" that are always further right than where we were, and the knifefighters who get in and gouge and kick and bite. We need something similar.

We need Gandhi to express a vision for our future, to emphasize the positive, to rekindle the American dream, to remind us that we are human and should rise above where we are. And we need plenty of Bartcops to do what Gandhi can’t, and fight the bastards on their own terms. On the broader American stage, you could use any of the liberal candidates for the high-road approach, Howard Dean or John Kerry or Dennis Kucinich. For fighting off the brownshirts, you need James Carville, or Greg Palast, or Joe Conason.

I can’t tell anyone which approach to take. (Well, I could tell Bartcop which approach he should take, but he would just look at me and say, "What do you think I’ve been DOING for the past six years, fool?"). That you have to decide for yourself. Do you like chess, or are you a brawler? Pick the approach you feel most comfortable with.

The right is pretty versatile in their propaganda memes, largely because they don’t usually pay much attention to the truth. Just the other day I had a right winger tell me about Clinton’s "$500 haircut," a long-since discredited urban legend dating from his first months in office that is STILL making the rounds among the right wing.

There are a couple of things to remember to innoculate against the smear campaigns. Remember you are against the war, and against Putsch. You are not against America, you are not disloyal, and you are not disdainful of the military personnel engaged overseas. You’ll be accused of all those things, of course. Being against the war does not mean you are for Saddam.

We are in dangerous times, and the fascists are impatient with due process. However, they usually have little stomach for a fight, so everyone is well advised to remember a few basic rights that we all have if we are confronted by police or Homeland Security agents:

You do not have to answer questions. You have the right to remain silent, and in the event that Homeland Security agents or other types with badges accost you, remember that you do not and should not respond to their interrogations if detained, but always, always, always demand a lawyer.

You have an absolute right to advocate for change. You have the right to oppose any and all policies of the administration. You do not have the right to advocate violence, or to threaten any public official. You have no right to libel or slander anyone, although criticism of public figures is generally accorded a protected status. If you are not a citizen, you can be deported for advocacy, but ONLY if they have other reasons to deport you. Advocacy by itself is not a deportable action.

If they want to search, always demand a search warrant. If one is produced, study it to make sure that the specific areas to be searched are listed, and the reasons given for the search.

It’s important to remember that despite the best efforts of John Ashcroft, habeas corpus has not been suspended, and indeed to do so requires an emergency action by Congress, and then only in cases of "Rebellion or Invasion." Neither Congress, nor the Courts, can overrule the rights established in the Constitution. Only a constitutional amendment can do that. As long as there is an America, those rights still stand.

If you aren’t willing to fight for them, the fascists will happily trample them, and you. But if you put up a fight, they’ll show their essential timidity and weakness. If we ALL fight for them, we’ll beat them.

Nearly every western country has a list of similar rights, and in nearly all cases, it was because the people demanded them. Leaders will never "grant" them, even though they are happy to try and take the credit afterward. Nor will Americans be the first who have had to fight to take those rights BACK.

It’s never easy, and a lot of innocent people will get hurt before the country recovers from this current bout of madness. How many? The answer to that is up to you.

The sooner you take your stand, the sooner we ALL take a stand, the sooner we get America back.