In the summer of 1968, a power struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party was underway in Chicago.
Inside the convention center, the Democratic National Convention was being held.
Outside, the world was on fire. Robert Kennedy had been assassinated several weeks earlier. Martin Luther King was gunned down a few weeks before that. Student protests had shut down Columbia University, disrupted scores of campuses in the United States, and rocked Paris and Mexico City. The Tet Offensive had shaken America's confidence in Vietnam earlier in the year. Washington, DC, Baltimore, Chicago and Cleveland had burned.
(Also available at My Left Wing)
In Chicago, something was happening here, but The Powers That Be
didn't know what it was.
As the machinations inside the convention hall grew more Machiavellian, and it became clear that Machine Politics would rule the parliamentary day, part of that same Machine went to work outside. As thousands of protesters took to the streets of Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley's police force waded into the mass, using tear gas and nightsticks to brutally put down the rebellion in the streets. The protestors chanted,
"THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING! THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!"
For three nights the demonstrations continued. Eventually, nearly 28,000 police, Army and National Guard troops, and Secret Service took part in putting down the demonstrations.
The attempt to turn the Democratic Party away from its "stay the course" stance on the Vietnam War had been crushed.
This time, the struggle is taking place on the streets of Hartford, in the gymnasiums of Storrs, in the church halls of Kent and Norwich, and the libraries of Meriden. There are no National Guardsmen formed up facing flower-wielding hippies, no bare-chested yippies angrily flipping the bird to riot-geared police, no tear gas, no nightsticks, no blaring PA announcements to disperse. There is a struggle going on, a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party, but this time it's different.
This time, the upheaval looks a little something like this:
And in fact, the whole world is watching. Because - like in 1968 - it's not just about the Democratic Party, it's about the direction of this country.
The whole world is watching a Democratic senatorial primary in the state of Connecticut, a state with a population smaller than that of Los Angeles, for a Senate seat that is as reliably Democratic as they come. Why?
Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do ya, Mister Jones?
And why do you suppose it is that the Right Wing is so concerned about this election? Why could they possibly care about which Democrat wins the nomination for the Senate seat that has been in Democratic hands since 1989? Why in God's name would Fox News and the Wall Street Journal be so strongly supportive of one Democrat over another?
One word:
Accountability.
This election is about one thing:
Accountability.
"Accountability" is a concept that scares the bejesus out of certain elements in this country, as well it should. Up until now, for them, "accountability" has been only that: a concept. But with the impending election of Ned Lamont, all of those responsible for the state this nation is in, are coming to the realization that they, too, will - now sooner than later - be held to account for all of their actions, their utterances, their beliefs - and the terrible impact all of those have had on the people of the United States, and indeed the world.
This little election in Connecticut - with its retired folk manning the polling places, its ballots not being counted by Diebold, its safely Democratic Senate seat up for grabs, its New England common sense at work - is about something the American people have been craving for six long years, and that the world has been desperately in need of from this country for just as long:
Accountability.
Heh. Democracy is on the march. In Connecticut. And it's scaring the crap out of the Right.
The Right is holding its breath.
The whole world is watching.