TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY DEMOCRACY
Without this tremendous pressure from below, we should not expect many of today’s nominal leaders—presidents and politicians, senators and central committee members—to challenge the very institutions that, no matter how obsolete, give them prestige, money, and the illusion, if not the reality, of power. Some unusual, far-seeing politicians or officials will lend their early support to the struggle for political transformation. But most will move only when the demands from outside are irresistible or when the crisis is already so advanced, and so close to violence, that they see no alternative.
The responsibility for change, therefore, lies with us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel, the surprising, the seemingly radical. This means fighting off the idea-assassins who rush forward to kill any new suggestion on grounds of its imprac-ticality, while defending whatever now_ exists as practical, no matter how absurd, oppressive, or unworkable it may be. It means fighting for freedom of expression—the right of people to voice their ideas, even if heretical.
Above all, it means starting this process of reconstruction now, before the further disintegration of existing political systems sends the forces of tyranny jackbooting through the streets, and makes impossible a peaceful transition to Twenty-first Century Democracy.
If we begin now, we and our children can take part in the exciting reconstitution not merely of our obsolete political structures, but of civilization itself.
Like the generation of the revolutionary dead, we have a destiny to create.
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