Today, radical Republicans want monopoly power to influence the judiciary.  If Democrats were to yield in the face of this latest Republican power-grab, where will it lead?  To new and renewed limits on civil liberties?  To the termination of a women's constitutionally-guaranteed right to reproductive freedom?  To even more destructive budget deficits designed to undermine our government's capacity to do good?  To even more reckless foreign policy spending that addresses each and every global problem with a military response?  To permanent tax breaks for elitist campaign contributors and out-sourcing corporate cronies?

Destructive as the radical right's current agenda is, now imagine what tomorrow could bring if Democrats allow Republican consolidation of all power... Given Republican failures to safeguard our ports, chemical plants, waterways, and more, what happens when another terrorist attack occurs on American soil?  What further erosions may we anticipate for the U.S. Constitution?  Does our democracy give way entirely to a plutocracy, a theocracy, or another form of authoritarian rule?  Do we suspend elections in the name of "defending democracy"?  

As an historian, I consider the above scenario no reach at all when reflecting on modern times.  Given the fact that the last few centuries of Western history are littered with war-torn and bloody conflicts, one thought is never far from my mind: "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  

Within the American context, most of our descendents have been spared the worst outcomes with regard to executive, legislative, and/or judicial abuses of power.  Or, at least that is the case in the over the last fifty years or so.  Nevertheless, we must never forget the horrific consequences of unchecked power for Native-Americans (Trail of Tears), African-Americans (slavery and Jim Crow), Japanese-Americans (suspended rights and concentration camps), women (reproductive rights), workers (right to organize and collective bargaining), children (workplace abuses), and consumers (food, water, land), among others.

President Andrew Jackson defied the Supreme Court in driving American Indians from the Southeastern United States in the early nineteenth century; only a generation ago did black Americans overcame some 350 years of unchecked repression at all levels of government; our panic-stricken society's political leaders (Gov. Warren and Pres. Roosevelt) caved to public opinion in systematically denying due process to Americans of Japanese descents in World War II; a woman's right to safe and legal abortion rights (Roe v. Wade, 1973) arrived after generations of fighting for equal gender rights; until FDR signed the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Board) of 1935, American workers struggled mightily to achieve organizing and collective bargaining rights against an unchecked corporate-government collusion; children's and consumer's rights against corporate-government power were adopted during the early twentieth century Progressive Era, when citizens of good conscience protested for action at the local, state, and national levels of government.

It's vitally important to remind ourselves how far we have come and how much is at stake in the power struggles now unfolding in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in our great land.  

Rick Santorum and Bill Frist are the leaders of a dangerous attempt by far right ideologues to expand their power and impose their narrow religious-economic world view on all Americans.

The grassroots has done its part in defending the filibuster and minority rights, and overwhelming majority opinion.  We have attended rallies sponsored by MoveOn, written letters to the editor, and contacted more moderate and reasonable Republican Senators--Specter, McCain, Chaffee, Collins, Hagel, Lugar, Snowe, and Warner--to join with Senate Democrats and Independent Jim Jeffords in order to defend the checks and balances system that upholds the rights and liberties that Americans have struggled to achieve and preserve over the last 230 years.

Yours in solidarity,

Chuck Pennacchio

http://www.chuck2006.com