I just watched “‘V’ for Vendetta” yesterday and found the veiled references to the Bush Administration highly entertaining. The idea in the movie of hundreds of thousands of people marching to topple a corrupt government was very moving, and juxtaposed against the real protests in Los Angeles which are actually continuing today, I find it even haunting.

All sorts of crazy stuff is going to happen this election year, as Republicans who are trying to get re-elected are trying to placate their (often xenophobic and racist) base, and I wonder if they realize what sort of storm they are going to unleash. As many a tyrant throughout history has learned to their dismay, you push the people too hard, and eventually, they will push back.

And to all those doomsayers who believe that a totalitarian future is in the cards for us, their claims given credence by the fact that in five years the Bush Adminstration has successfully pissed on and made invalid large parts of our Constitution, I say, fuck that.

While it’s true that ignorance and a cowardly desire for security will have (and has had) a good number of people embrace the latent fascism of neoconservatism, I think recent history has too many examples illustrating that totalitarianism necessarily falls apart.

In my own lifetime, I have seen Ferdinand Marcos toppled by the unarmed masses clogging the streets in the People’s Power Revolution, the modern prototype of (relatively) peaceful revolution as willed by the People. I have seen the Berlin Wall fall. I have seen the Soviet Union collapse. There was a time during the Clinton Administration, however brief, when we were not at war. A veritable Pax Americana which I thought would last for at least a few more years, and which may have lasted if the Supreme Court had upheld the will of the people and selected Gore instead of W. (I can’t help but feel that September 11 would’ve gone down differently if we had real leaders at the helm instead of the bunch of incompetents we’ve got now.)

I remember the optimistic ebullience of the early years of the Clinton era, before the reactionaries used their dirty tricks to get back into power. That was hope, in 1992. I do not think it is coincidence that the dot-com boom and Information Revolution occurred during this era, and while people are more apt to remember the bust that followed, you cannot deny that that era has made a permanent mark on history. The World Wide Web was born, the Internet was made available to the masses. Google went online, revolutionizing the accessibility of information. And in this same era, the Human Genome was sequenced. We made new strides in controlling the scourge that is AIDS.

These are the fruits of Freedom, peace and prosperity, and I refuse to believe that we are so short-sighted that we do not remember history this recent.

Tyrants beware. History is on our side.

And I cannot for the life of me understand anyone who criticizes “‘V’ for Vendetta” for its political message. How in hell does an American, in good conscience, defend a fascist totalitarian regime, even a fictional one? How does an American not stay true to his Revolutionary roots, and recognize that tyranny must be overthrown?

I suppose the question lies in the balance between freedom and security. But the Founding Fathers of the United States made their stance on this explicit:

Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety. —Benjamin Franklin

The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither. —Thomas Jefferson

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. —Samuel Adams

Give me liberty or give me death! —Patrick Henry

I know whose side I’m on.