Saturday Music Hall: People Have the Power

This is a rendition of Patti Smith's tune People Have the Power performed by many musicians who participated in the nationwide Vote for Change tour in support of Kerry in the last days of the 2004 presidential campaign. The players and singers include Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, REM, the Dixie Chicks, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Pearl Jam, John Fogerty, Steve Earle, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Baby Face and others.

Call me corny, but I get chills every time I hear this song, regardless of who's doing it. To me it expresses the core of Democratic values -- or at least what we once believed the Democrats stood for and defended at any cost. People have the power. Not the corporations. Not the "free" traders. Not the bankers. Not the media conglomerates. Not the pollsters. Not the cronies of corrupt politicians. Not the wealthy elites. Not the lobbyists. Not the developers or Wall Street or the investor class. PEOPLE have the power.

The Republican Party is about private property, individual power and wealth, government out of the way. But the Democratic Party, when it was at its peak of political strength and moral power, was all about representing the common good, the common person, the working stiff, the underdog. For a fair shake, for nurturing the middle class, for economic and social mobility. For down home democracy. To win again I strongly believe we must return to this focus, to this populism, to this struggle for equal rights under the law, justice for every citizen and a level playing field for all. To reassert the people's priorities and reconfigure a government that follows the rule of law.

When I watched this video it brought back all the excitement, zeal, passion, hopes, dreams, comaraderie, unity and hard work that characterized the run-up to the November 04 election. There were literally mobs of people from all walks of life and every economic, social, racial and gender sector volunteering for the Kerry campaign and other get out the vote efforts here and everywhere. The internet was awash in activism and energy, the crowds at Kerry events were humongous and we KNEW we were going to win.

Kerry and The Boss in Madison right before election day

And damn it, we DID WIN. We know that now for a fact. Exit polls results are just one source of evidence. Exit polls don't lie. Exit polls have been used all over the world to check the honesty of elections. Exits polls across the nation clearly demonstrated that Kerry was the winner in 2004. And yet when the official results were posted there were suspicious shifts in the vote count to Bush. Every shift that occurred, occurred to benefit Bush. Could this possibly be a coincidence? Other data and respected studies say no. Resoundingly.

So we also know for a fact that winning wasn't enough, not when Bush and his Rovian criminals were so successfully stealing votes and stopping Dems from voting in many key states using a myriad of methods. This bunch will stop at nothing --NOTHING -- to win. By now, this stealth campaign against democracy has been well documented by serious analyses by experts of many disciplines, of many poltical stripes. The lastest, of course, was the four month study performed by Rolling Stone and reported in detail by Robert Kennedy, Jr., no less. You'd think by now that the mainstream media would be inundated with coverage and that Democrats in positions to make a difference would be focusing like a laser on making sure it doesn't happen again. For a third time. But you'd be wrong.

Election fraud is still largely viewed, illogically, as some kind of tin foil hat hobby of conspiracy theorists, as a sideshow without merit, as the last resort of sore losers. Could anything be further from the truth? The data piles up in an irrefutable argument that proves that our votes were destroyed, ignored, prevented and distorted where they were needed most -- in the states that made the difference between a second term for The Lying Decider and a fresh start with one of our own. 

Where does that leave us? Still stuck in the middle of a critical, difficult and frustrating push toward a tipping point in our Party and in our nation. When I get down about our prospects, I listen to songs like People Have the Power; I recall my memories of what it feels like when our people are motivated to collective action; I remember that to abandon the fight is to abandon a sustainable future for all of us, and for the planet itself. Then I pick up my tools, stoke my energy and get back to work. And I'll keep doing that until we win the victory we actually won twice before. If we don't, who will?

How about you? After all, as Howard Dean chanted many times, YOU'VE GOT THE POWER. Come on, I know you believe it in your heart. We've got the power If we use it. If we don't give up. If we cultivate patience. If we use our creativity, and work together, and keep it up. And keep believing that PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER, even if everything we see and hear and read on any given day tells us otherwise...