We're Gonna Make It

Jr. Gong says, "Don't you ever give up, dont you ever give in..." and I find his words to be inspirational in the song "We're Gonna Make It." Peace is in our midst, it is within an arm's reach...however, those of you who have not voted yet have done nothing for our cause. November 4th is the last day to make it known that it is peace that we want...and peace cannot be achieved by making war on other countries like it has been in the past in the United States. I want those of you who have not gone out to vote to know the truth of what the United States has done to our countries, particularly in Latin America, and why I want this legacy to STOP RIGHT NOW.

"Since it is September 11 that we're talking about, perhaps it's in the fitness of things that we remember what that date means, not only to those who lost their loved ones in America last year, but to those in other parts of the world to whom that date has long held significance. This historical dredging is not offered as an accusation or a provocation. But just to share the grief of history. To thin the mist a little. To say to the citizens of America, in the gentlest, most human way: welcome to the world.

Twenty-nine years ago, in Chile, on the September 11, 1973, General Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in a CIA-backed coup. 'Chile shouldn't be allowed to go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible', said Henry Kissinger, then President Nixon's national security adviser.

After the coup President Allende was found dead inside the presidential palace. Whether he was killed or whether he killed himself, we'll never know. In the regime of terror that ensued, thousands of people were killed. Many more simply 'disappeared'. Firing squads conducted public executions. Concentration camps and torture chambers were opened across the country. The dead were buried in mine shafts and unmarked graves. For 17 years the people of Chile lived in dread of the midnight knock, of routine 'disappearances', of sudden arrest and torture. Chileans tell the story of how the musician Victor Jara had his hands cut off in front of a crowd in the Santiago stadium. Before they shot him, Pinochet's soldiers threw his guitar at him and mockingly ordered him to play.

In 1999, following the arrest of General Pinochet in Britain, thousands of secret documents were declassified by the US government. They contain unequivocal evidence of the CIA's involvement in the coup as well as the fact that the US government had detailed information about the situation in Chile during General Pinochet's reign. Yet Kissinger assured the general of his support: 'In the United States as you know, we are sympathetic to what you are trying to do', he said, 'We wish your government well'.

Those of us who have only ever known life in a democracy, however flawed, would find it hard to imagine what living in a dictatorship and enduring the absolute loss of freedom really means. It isn't just those who Pinochet murdered, but the lives he stole from the living that must be accounted for, too.

Sadly, Chile was not the only country in South America to be singled out for the US government's attentions. Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico and Colombia; they've all been the playground for covert -- and overt -- operations by the CIA. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed, tortured or have simply disappeared under the despotic regimes and tin-pot dictators, drug runners and arms dealers that were propped up in their countries. (Many of them learned their craft in the infamous US government-funded School of Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, which has produced 60,000 graduates.) If this were not humiliation enough, the people of South America have had to bear the cross of being branded as a people who are incapable of democracy -- as if coups and massacres are somehow encrypted in their genes. "

-Arundhati Roy, Sydney Peace Prize winner, September 2002 from http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~peer/arundhatiRoy.html

I want those of you who have not voted yet to stop this legacy of fear, this legacy of intimidation, this legacy of utmost desecration of so-called énemies' of the United States. These people are not enemies, THEY ARE PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME.

Venezuela has recently obtained 1,000 troops, two fighter jets, and two warships AFTER EXPELLING THEIR U.S. AMBASSADORS.

Bolivia has followed in Venezuela's footsteps.

Let's sit back and think: Do we want world war III to happen? If so, BLOOD WILL BE SHED ON AMERICAN SOIL because there are people who do not want their assets to get stolen from them, namely oil.

I do not want to be a victim in another warmongering Republican's country. If McCain wins the election, I will leave this country not because of the hate that I have for him (I have none: in fact, I am apathetic to him), but for THE HATE THAT IS FELT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TOWARDS THE U.S.

People from Canada, Germany, England all ask me WHY?
Why did you elect George Bush? Why are you so stupid? Stupid Americans!

I'm sick of being a number! I want peace to consume this nation and all violent operations to cease in this country!

So, don't be another victim in their harmful game. GET UP, STAND UP, and VOTE! Change is a people's movement. Let's show John McCain that we want this violent past to be just that: A PAST! Keep in mind that it is not one politician that will bring change to this country...it is the PEOPLE!