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I just read this comment on a fine post by Yves over at NakedCapitalism:
These are unarguably grotesquely huge hyper-fascist organizations that have utterly bought and paid for the entire global political control system. They have a stranglehold on the operating narrative myths of our entire civilization. They are now comfortably and confidently and permanently above the rule of law. The only question is when the supine, overworked, uninformed, jaded, hopeless, broke, beleaguered, cowed, and brainwashed public awakes from their slumber to do something, anything, about it. My guess is the first of never.
I have no argument at all with the characterization of TBTF banks like JPMorgan as “grotesquely huge hyper-fascist organizations that have utterly bought and paid for the entire global political control system.” Yet I would tell this despairing commenter that the “first of never” may be coming sooner than we think. I have noticed more and more average folks correctly analyzing the world situation as being made much worse by the corporate coup d’etat which has made a mockery of our supposedly “representative” politics. Now that folks understand the problem, maybe they’ll be open to real, revolutionary solutions? Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I do think it could happen!
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I highly recommend that everyone read Elliot’s post on the Senate JPMorgan Chase hearings today, here on FDL: http://my.firedoglake.com/elliott/2013/03/15/senate-investigates-jpmorgan-chases-london-whale-fail/
Hope y’all have a good Friday!
Thanks for the encouraging word. Some days it’s very hard not to despair… Rec’d
Dear cockeyed optimist,
Thank you for writing this post. Cynicism is highly over-rated.
I think we give up on ourselves too easily sometimes. When Frederick Douglass said “power concedes nothing without a demand” he was right! We have nothing to lose by strongly demanding a more just world, and refusing to sit down and shut up until we get it.
Pretty panglossian for an antipanglossian. ;~)
I guess you caught me
Although, Pangloss thought he was already living in the best of all possible worlds, whereas I think another, better world is possible. This post wasn’t so much aimed at Panglossian complacency as it was at nihilist despair…
Just havin’ some fun with your chosen screen name. For me, I have hope, but some days the size of what we’re up against is extremely daunting…and can be a bit depressing and enraging. Then…another day dawns to not give up the fight.
I go back and forth from optimism to despair.
When I remember history, and remember that this little play has happened dozens of times, and each time the people eventualy made things right, it makes me feel somewhat optimistic. “We” (the regular people) are undefeated over the long haul.
But then when I look at the technology today that makes the fascist grip on us ever tighter, along with the the technology of their weapons and the still amazing to me fact that the police appear more than ready to use them, I get deep in despair.
When I try and look at it with an open mind, I almost always end up believing that due to the technology that allows them to use propaganda more effectively than ever before and thus control us better, I just feel like this one is going to be our first defeat.
The country will likely collapse due to it’s complete overreach imperialistically (almost seems to me to look exactly like the Roman Empire) rather than having the people take it back and reform it.
What consoles me is that I’m wrong a lot. Often. Daily. All the time. But I still feel despair.
It seems to me that if we were to win this one, the number one most critical goal should be to do everything we can to make the police realize that they’re NOT part of the 1%, and never will be, and that they are one of us. Failing that, I dunno.
That would explain the rumors of Lunesta being mixed with Fluoride down at the water plant!
Rec’d
I think that would indeed be a great advance!
All I need is to know where to show up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We need to do that in order to win. But how?
The police union is quite strong, but union leaders are in the pocket of one Party or another and they have little use for what they consider “liberal elites.”
One definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results.
1/ Out of a total population of about 315 million adults and minors, L almost 127 million adults voted for either Obama or Romney.
All third parties combined, left and right, got 2.2 million votes.
That vote determined a good portion of our fate for the next four years.
That was less than six months ago.
2/ Talking and communicating via social media is fine and necessary. The Egyptian Spring demonstrated that. However, Egyptians used social media to spread the word about what action to take next.
3/ We need to use social media in a purposeful way to join forces across the country, maybe even internationally, to come up with a plan of action and ways of sustaining that plan.
4/ Whatever that plan is, it will take more than marching or demonstrating for a day or two. Citizens have turned out in significant numbers in several European countries without much to show for their efforts, except whatever pain their police and military inflicted on them.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/european-debt-crisis/what%E2%80%99s-europe-mass-protests-greece-and-spain
http://www.france24.com/en/20120814-amiens-riots-spark-fears-economic-unrest-france-police-unemployment-underprivileged
We have to be willing for concerted action by a good number of us for what may be a long time. Some heads might even get split in the process. IOW, it’s going to take real sacrifice, financial and physical.
Are we ready for that kind of sacrifice?
We have the OWS movement, but how many of us have really put our votes, our money and our bodies sacrificially where our mouths and keyboard have been?
That is a great question! I find inspiration in the example of my grandfather, who began pushing hard to end racial segregation in North Carolina shortly after his return from the war in Europe in 1946. He was still fighting for justice on this, and other issues, when he died in 1970. He was by no means satisfied with what had been done, but he was happy that some real progress had been made– because he and many others didn’t give up in the face of stiff, even violent resistance.
I also draw inspiration from my friend C., who is now in jail because of her civil disobedience outside the gates of Hancock AFB (from where drones that have killed children and other innocent civilians are controlled). Fired from her job because of her activism, she can take comfort in knowing there is a large network of friends who will happily help to support her upon her release.
My own fractured rib (courtesy of NYPD batons) is a very small price to pay for having had the joyful opportunity to speak truth to power on Rector Street in lower Manhattan. I’ll be back in the streets on May Day, and many other days, and I won’t stop coming until I’m six feet under!
No justice, no peace. No war but class war…
Please show up somewhere on May Day! You can find out from local labor leaders where…
I’ve felt for several months that things were starting to move in the manner of the 1960s. (It’s one of the reasons I got involved with FDL.) And I’m glad to see you stating it in so many words with this post, Apg.
What we need, aside from more concrete suggestions on how to move things along, is fewer FDL diaries which point out that some rightwing nut has said or done something nutty, followed by 50 comments to the effect that he or she is a nut, with no examination of what the nuttiness portends in its given context. I can get that by watching MSNBC. Let’s get serious.
The way the police and the military are treated by the PTB is a cause for long term hope, OFG. No revolution is successful without at least the abstention of people like that, and plenty are successful when they switch sides.
It’s happened before. It will happen again. And yes, it CAN happen in America. Those who denigrate all cops and soldiers as brainless automatons serve the interests of the ruling classes.
You’re right Ohio Barbarian! Even the pampered and privileged Praetorian guard ditched the Western Roman emperors, when the going got tough.
Well said EFB!! One group of folks doing something serious are the folks fighting Keystone XL. If you, or anyone you know, wants to get involved– next week provides many opportunities: http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/weekofaction/planned_actions/
That’s because they’ve been conditioned to accept the duopoly as The Only Reality. Many of them vote back and forth–they get pissed at the Republicans and vote in Democrats. Then they get pissed off at Democrats and vote Republican.
Many who don’t vote don’t because they don’t see the difference. Offer these people something else that is perceived to have a chance at success and many of them will get out and vote.
Or man the barricades. Kinda depends on the situation.
I think that the figure of third party votes was probably ten times higher. You know, like what happens at protests rallies – hundreds of thousands of people show up, and the Mainstream Media tells us that the crowd was only counted to be a total of 22,000 people.
I remember at one of the Bigger Anti Iraq Attack rallies, in San Francisco, a crowd-counting expert went up in a plane, and he stated there were 700,000 people there. One of the three Big Networks had its local newscasters mention his figures, but the other two didn’t.
Only way we will ever know is if we have people doing after the vote head counts, which is problematic, because sometimes people don’t want to tell anyone who they voted for.
Thanks, Apg, that is one impressive list and it’s going to be a good week!