Remarks by Ronnie Dugger of the Alliance for Democracy, Jan. 20th, 2001, at 11:00 am at Dupont Circle in Wash. DC
"When Mr. Bush is sworn in at noon today the United States Government will be seized in a judicial coup d'etat. Congress and the Presidency have already been delegitimized across the past 20 years, among the American people, by the triumph of uncontrolled campaign finance corruption and bribery over the common good--the seizure of deciding power from the people by large corporations and the very rich. And now, in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court has delegitimized itself and the court system by stopping the vote counting in Florida and selecting the President. The corporate media will not record it, but let's say it together: When Mr. Bush is sworn in an hour from now by the Chief Justice who abused his power to select him, the government itself is being seized.
The only basis for democratic legitimacy is the consent of the governed. That was the deal. The Presidency has been seized. Today the government is seized. The covenant is broken. Mr. Bush is not the President--he is the Special Master appointed by the Supreme Court. After the secret four-month constitutional convention in Philadelphia, a matron of the city asked Benjamin Franklin what they had produced. "A Republic, if you can keep it,"
Franklin said. Well, we have not kept it--it has been seized from us--we have lost the Republic into a corporate oligarchy. And free Americans do not accept, and we do resist, a court-appointed Master as our President. This is no longer a respectable system of government.
We move on now, civilly, nonviolently, and with determination, to replace the American Republic, which is being taken from us at noon today, with a new American Democracy. For this nonideological, nonviolent rebellion to work, nothing is more necessary than closure and alliance between white Americans and the maximum victims of the American Republic, the blacks we enslaved and still cruelly oppress.
For our part, the Alliance for Democracy affinity group will be pulling away from this fine rally in about half an hour, getting on the Metro, and going to Union Station and Stanton Square, for the counter-inauguration being led by persons of color, including Al Sharpton, Ron Daniels, the National Action Network, and the Pro-Democracy Campaign, in a National Day of Resistance and Shadow Inauguration. In this special announcement authorized by the leaders of this Voter March, we invite you to join us in this act of solidarity--and in any case in your will to be in solidarity--with our black and brown brothers and sisters in a new democracy. Although whites and blacks and browns were not able to come together enough to heal the American Republic, we will all come together now in deepest equality to form the new American Democracy."
Speech by Ronnie Dugger, founder of Alliance for Democracy.
