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TechnoratiYou can't expect a chicken to produce a duck egg - Malcolm X
Thank God, there are people willing go to jail in obedience to a higher law in protesting, say, the continued occupation of Iraq. It's inspiring.
What's discouraging, though, is the possibility that there's not enough activists and/or movement organization in the U.S. right now to make a lasting difference on a whole host of foreign and domestic policy issues.
Because the pollsters don't ask about people's willingness to take part in civil disobedience, I have no way of knowing for sure. I just hope my sense of it all is waaaaay off. But, it feels like most disaffected Americans - profoundly disturbed with the State of the Union, in particular; and the State of the World, in general - have deceived themselves into thinking that electing the "right" person to government office is going to change things; that if only we get-out-the-vote, write even more letters, and create yet another blog. . . I'm not saying it's trivial to do such things, but if folks think that's enough, then we're in trouble.
Think about it.
The Republicans got spanked during the mid-term elections in what was billed as a referendum on Bush's Mess-in-Potamia and just as I predicted in this very column immediately following "the thumpin'", Bush interpreted the election results - not as a call for an exit strategy - but as a plea for better war management. And what have the Democrats done?
Maybe the conventional wisdom, inside-politics view is that the Dems still don't have enough power to end the occupation of Iraq, or they're just "playing politics" by exploiting the now popular anti-this-war momentum, while not wanting to be seen as being "weak on defense" or "soft on terror."
When even Lee Iacocca is writing: "Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind....but instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.' Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic" - you know it's "fill-the-jails" time, to borrow from Gandhi's tactical playbook.
America's Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., touched on the idea in his celebrated Letter From Birmingham Jail.
"Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn't negotiation a better path? You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue so that it can no longer be ignored."
King wasn't talking about holding peace vigils or media-staged protest marches. He was talking about MASSIVE direct action - the kind that brings together huge numbers of disciplined, committed people, in a key location (or several strategic locations at once) to cause the political-economic system to grind to a screeching halt until the matter is resolved, or negotiated.
King was talking about gumming up the gears of the system - fill the jails - to the point of gridlock. That - or the very real threat of that - is what brought progressive victories and is the reason why King was such a powerful and dangerous man in the eyes of his opponents.
It wasn't the moving pep talk rallies and Negro spirituals that did it. It was the "true power" Hannah Arendt talked about: Power, she said, is "created not when some people coerce others but when they willingly take action together in support of a common purpose. Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert." That's the kind of power King wielded - a lesson completely lost on those who think that "the best defense is a good (military) offense" football-ism is the same thing as sound military strategy. But I digress.
I also went back and re-read Stride Toward Freedom, which is King's account of the Montgomery bus desegregation campaign. He wrote about the sophisticated coordination of the campaign, the movement infrastructure, the car-pool network which assured the boycotters that "no bus" didn't mean "no way to get to work."
"Altogether the operation of the motor pool represented organization and coordination at their best. Reporters and visitors from all over the country looked upon the system as a unique accomplishment," King described the early workings of the Montgomery Improvement Association.
"But, the job took money. For a while the MIA had been able to carry on through local contributions ... But as the pool grew and other expenses mounted, it was evident that we needed additional funds to carry on ... Fortunately, the liberal coverage of the press had carried the word of our struggle across the world. Although we never made a public appeal for funds, contributions began to pour in from as far away as Tokyo."
How can there be a progressive movement in this country - an evolutionary leap forward in the way we relate to each other and the environment - without massive direct action?
And, if you're going to ask folks to be down with The Movement, where's the material support network for those people who want to "do something" but have to worry about not getting fired because they have kids to feed?
Or do you have to be independently wealthy, like Iacocca, to even think about getting involved?
Where's the fund for those who get caught up in the system, jailed and/or fined, because they were fighting for the cause?
Voting, letter-writing, blogging, vigils and speeches are necessary and can even be honorably courageous. But history says it ain't enough - if we're talking about real social evolution. Shit, fill-the-jails may not be enough, at this point
The way I see it: those who fear real change have nothing to fear and far too many of those who desire real change are expecting a chicken to produce a duck egg.
Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and syndicated columnist. E-mail him at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com
41 Comments so far
Show All25 years ago, back in the good ole days of Iran- Contra and ketchup as a vegetable for children, my former spouse, a Brit, used to refer to the US as "The Great Marshmallow". You could poke it all you wanted and it just plumped out again without effect.
For a decade now I have seen not 'reform' but collapse as the most likely result here. That view has solidified over the last 10 years and the behavior of the Democrats today, locks that view in concrete. They have no intention of changing anything here. Nothing. They are in office to profit from the System. It's their career. They work for the corporations who pay them. I call them Overseers On Master's Plantation, deliberately.
Regarding mass demonstrations as a means of changing government policy, the cops know that they have total impunity to punish any 'protester' of any age or ethnicity in any way they see fit for the Crime of exercising 1st Amendment rights. Hysterical violence by cops is not new.
From "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965 on the Edmund Winton Pettus Bridge to MacArthur Park Los Angeles in 2007, hysterical violence by cops is not new or an understatement - they are bred for it. "Escalate any situation and respond with overwhelming force", SOP. These guys have moved into the paramilitary world big-time over the last 40 years. You'd think you were in Bogota. These guys work protests to punish you, brutally. You are The Enemy.
Our guys now use SWAT teams to deliver subpoenas, sometimes killing people at the wrong address. I suspect they are itching to get their hands on the latest sonic and microwave weapons for use against civilians, if they haven't already got them from the Israeli's. Civilian control of cops is a joke. You'd have more luck reforming the Los Angeles Unified School District. Cops can kill us, torture us, maim us, and disappear us. They can do virtually anything to us that they want, with no comeback, except maybe much later, if we live, in some distant civil suit. This fact has not been lost on the American public over the last 40 years.
This is not my first rodeo, although it rhymes heavily, and unpleasantly. You are talking about taking power wealth and privilege away from Monsters who believe they are ordained to Rule you. There is no abomination they will not commit against you to hold their Power. They cavil at nothing. And our labor provides them the wealth they fashion into the chains of our subservience to them and theirs....America.
Peace.
Actually, what's missing is the willingness to do an ECONOMIC BOYCOTT! The tactic of filling the jails in this prison industrial complex + fascist regime would be a disaster.
How are these for ideas?
1. Don't Eat Meat for One Month (or some other appropriate time period)
2. Don't Drive Alone for xxxx Time Period (i.e., Carpools and Public Transport ONLY)
3. Don't Buy Anything at a Mall/Strip Mall for xxx Time Period
4. Don't Attend Movies (except perhaps documentaries) for xxx Time Period
those are just a few (small?) ways to start thinking outside the box to make our voices heard...and NO marching or demonstrating is necessary...just go about your daily life SANS one or more of these (well-publicized) guidelines.
Peace and Viva La Revolucion!
Although all this blue-collar, classism talk pulls on my emotions, I still can't help feel that it's just more excuses as to why we can't come together. How "blue-collar" do you think the African-Americans were that lead the civil rights movement? Yes, I understand, we're all working our asses off. Even those comfortable middle-class folks, they might not have two jobs, but the one they do have requires a 50-60 hour work week! People need to make the decision for themselves and no one said that change is easy, if anything, do it for your kids future; or better yet, do it to TEACH your kids how to stand for what's right. I don't agree with the "fill the jails" philosophy, that may have worked before they privatized the prison system, but I agree that we need activists in such great numbers that they can no longer ignore the will of the people.
Don't believe propaganda like; if everyone does what is in his own best interest that will produce a strong society. At the same time you can't argue the point; it's pointless.
Get people to realize the finiteness of the planet and it's resources. Use real examples in your community of the vanishing space and population growth.
Ask for answers!
Bring up the futility of bombing people to make them like us!
"It comes only out of intolerable life circumstances" That's what we are trying to head off. Instead of the Earth supporting us as in the past we are dependant on a global system dependant on gasoline.
We each make a difference, and I hope someone takes my ideas and runs with it, I make no claim to anything I write; ideas are meant to evolve. We need to touch the people around us and expect a ripple effect. Readers here go to other web sites with new ideas, and the case you make gets better as we practice exchanging ideas.
I have faith in kids these days, you can do well anything you really want to do. They just have never experienced the intolerable yet. I imagine someone is still supporting them!
may I do my part in standing for democracy not such much for myself but for the future of this country and for future generations. We must give our children a reason for being, instead we allow them to be manipulated by MTV, or the likes of these passive programs that give our future nothing to look forward too except more self- gratification. Change will require sacrifice we seen this in the civil rights movements. May we all see the light for nothing is impossible and God is always on the side of justice and truth. We the common man and woman of this country are the true voice of America!! We must speak our conscience and stand against the forces of darkness, light always dispels the dark. The question is how much light do we need to make the difference it will start one person at a time.
Ipenek has it right....Study Ella Baker from the 50's and 60's civil rights era...It so hard to believe what those people survived at the hands of those barbaric southern whites..she made the 60's happen...not King...not the beatles...Ms Baker was a genius at organization and getting people to overcome the fear and internalized oppression that normally prevents people from becoming active....If you feel like there is nothing you can do, thats exactly the way they want you!!!!!fatalism...starts in the mind bro...stand up and get busy...fuck them...they ain't shit.....
I am so glad there are actually people out there that share in their feelings of outrage. I agreed with most of the points, and was revitalized by simply reading the opinions of those that even care enough to comment.
I am part of the 'me' generation and I have often been told that I seem 'angry' at al the unbelievable atrocities that are occurring as we speak(write). What else matters? ... The earlier comments on the blue collar, working class situation were dead on.
I've often felt that we are so wrapped up in merely surviving, that it's hard to get/act courageous, even when it comes to our rights.
We are just comfortable enough that we do not revolt. ....
I'm all for civil disobedience but what about refusing to go to jail? Going to jail, and going on a hunger strike seem to me to be the two most ineffective forms of protest there are. What good are you in jail, or weak from hunger? I believe one must take care of one's own body and self first in order to be strong to help others. I participated in a civil disobedience action in D.C. a long time ago where there were so many people protesting that we couldn't fit in the city jails. So we didn't get arrested. We were just told to go home, which we refused to do so we were allowed to stay there indefinitely.
Kat and others,
I bet if there were a draft it would light a fire under their asses. I'm not saying that as a sadist, just using that to illustrate a point. As others have outlined the 60's were a completely different ball of wax. There was a draft. Students knew that someone somewhere could pick a ball out of a spinning cage and play bingo with their lives. Before that, in the civil rights sector, Blacks were fighting for the right to sit and drink where they wanted and to enjoy basic rights in society.
The widespread apathy in our society is because people either have nothing to lose or because their disenfranchisement is opaque to them and beyond their power to clearly identify.
Generally speaking humans don't DO "direct action". It comes only out of intolerable life circumstances. Even for those whose lives are now intolerable it's a case of the frog in gradually heating water. I think long before America jumps into action, we're going to be cooked.
As nature becomes extinct and the world burns, people just want to party. We are the ultimate hedonists, and Bu$h and Co. count on it. Let's go shopping.
Drex asked about why college students aren't in the forefront of the protest. I teach government in community college -- not an elite school by any means. These students represent millions of people their age around the country, and while they may be the most affected by what is happening now, they are the least likely to protest. Why? First of all most of them show up to college as if they dropped out of the womb -- no historical knowledge, no current knowledge, no analytical skills, no reading skills, and absolutely no idea of their position of disadvantage. They spend most of their time working, looking for an education to get a better job, raising young children, playing games, and partying. The majority (with a few dazzling exceptions) have never read a newspaper, and don't follow the news on the radio, television, or even the Internet. Some of them don't even use the Internet!
So I have to start teaching from scratch -- I can't assume they know anything. In a semester, how do you provide basic knowledge of how government works, move up the learning curve to understanding civil rights and civil liberties, and then get to the place where they actually see how the undermining of the Constitution by the Bush administration (which I can not directly state) affects them -- much less get them to a place where they put down the baby or the joystick and hit the streets (or the jail). They are already purposely underprivileged and undereducated, and it will take much more than instructors like me to change the structural inequities they don't believe exist. HELP!
PJD
Yes
Somehow Americans have believed these lies from the right wing and those lies have even been used to take away our rights, like the right to medical care.
There is also now a controversy concerning poisoned food materials coming out of China and being used in our processed foods. Some people seem to be responding by wanting isolationist practices used. But the corporations want to continue to use cheap food products from China even though some of those products are contaminated.
If the US joined with other nations to demand human rights for China that would help protect us too. But Americans seem only capable of thinking of their own individual rights and unable as a nation to unify for all our rights and to lead the world in demanding human rights internationally.
There is an underlying selfishness to a philosophy that is limiting the US.
"Greed is good" creates a society that will destroy itself imo. The right wing seems to believe that if everyone does what is in his own best interest that will produce a strong society . What this self interest and lack of concern for others is doing is leaving the weak in society vulnerable and weakening them further while moving large amounts of money into fewer and fewer hands. US society then becomes unstable imo when you have such large numbers of people unable to get health care.
So imo we do not need to break the law and fill the jails.
We need to wake people up to what is going on, and how their very lives are in jeopardy because of the greed of the corporations which have too much control over our political process.
Many are active in their local government, where we are face to face with neighbors who still think they are immune to being affected financially.
Organize locally where your local police are your public servants. No need to waste gas traveling to a place where you can't find a bathroom. Get rent a Jons! Get it approved! Make it Fun!
Getting approval is where the debate begins; and we know what's going on so don't be bullied. If your local paper does not support you; don't support them!
Health Care and Fuel prices will affect everybody, understand these and you have your talking points.
It's a changed world from the 1960s. The means for applying pressure will necessarily be different. What if progressives taught their children to become as computer-savvy and as Internet savvy as possible? What if progressives could start organizations of techies who had the ability and the desire to bring the entire economic system to a halt, if need be?
I think universal, government-administered health care insurance is, of course, a very important goal in itself. But also important is that the success of such a system would restore the public faith in the enactment of democratically conceived laws to address lots of other problems. This was taken for granted from the 1930's into the 1970's - but quite thoroughly dismantled through a very deliberate propaganda effort from Reagan onward.
For example, in the face of rapidly rising fuel costs, even something as obviously in the public interest as laws mandating energy efficiency of vehicles and buildings is regarded as impossibly "socialistic" - only "the market" should be allowed to do it - in spite of overwhelming evidence that these "markets" have been doing a terrible job at it.
Perhaps this is why they are trying to stop Moore's latest movie.
The criticism of prevailing USAn attitudes is not classist - the most prominent adherents of apathy are the comfortably middle-class.
The reason for the prevailing apathy is the capitalists' propaganda system has been stunningly successful in conveying to wage-earners that their misfortune is just a consequence of the natural way things are and fortune will only be obtained by purely individual, not collective effort. They view us activists as just fish protesting the viscosity of water.
Health Care Crisis
The Achille's heel in the lies that have been fed Americans is the health care system.
Americans have believed in large numbers that the US health care system is the best in the world and that "socialized " medicine does not provide good coverage. These lies are passed back and forth between people and are assumed then to be the truth, because so many people are saying them.
Moore's film, Sicko, will help educate people about the reality of America's health care system.
Alone among western wealthy nations the US is not giving universal health care to it's people.
Even when covered by private insurance, our medical plans are not protecting us, and sick people are being denied coverage even after being insured by fat cat insurance companies.
People are dying. All of us should start asking how well are we protected if we become ill.
This may be the issue that will finally resonate with all Americans. This may be the lie that will reveal all the lies being sold to Americans by the pr of the wealthy and their large corporations.
Health Care Crisis
Count me in, l don't have much but l'll send $5.00 toward your bail. You are in jail now or are you sitting at your desk tapping away on your computer expecting somebody else to do time ?
Fill the jails with poeple like Lee Iacocca.
Unplug the TV's and computer's and there will be millions in the streets, as if they had just awakened from the witches spell.
But the power never fails long enough, and the chemicals from those planes is having the desired results, eyes up for the chem trails....feeling tired, dizzy unfocused, headaches,slight cough or scratchy throat. my town has been sprayed for the last 4 days. and no reporters will even call me back. It must be a big story or am I crazy ( I wish I was) we gave them the power to spray us....baaaa baaaaa baaaaa
If you want bush impeached. If you want this war ended. If you want social justice.
Have 10000 people sit down in Washington DC. Another 10000 in NY. Another 10000 in LA. Etc. Have them stay there and in a week this country will change for the better.
peachmcd,
You're right in what you say and I'd like to respond to it because I feel I should have been more clear and because I made a leap in what I said that was unfair. Of course people who have to work for a living in blue collar jobs are exhausted when there are no systems of support and the minimum wage is disgustingly low and there is no universal system of health care. I didn't mean to marginalize working people at all. My point is that a culture is being created that discourages people from thinking, not that every working person doesn't think or care. My American Idol point was not to suggest stupidity but apathy. My point was that people are tuning out politically because they feel unrepresented and screwed by politicians lining their own pockets. You are absolutely right, I made unthinkingly classist assumptions. You have my apology.
The White House has leaders of the troops, Karl Rove has "talking points"
May I suggest a talking point for this week: Do something to talk to everybody about Gonzales and what he has done: walked into a hospital and tried to strong arm a signature out of a sick government official who had designated Jim Comey to speak for him.
This is a lot worse than Watergate!
This week the Congress will vote a no confidence on Gonzales and then we will go from there : MORE pressure- leading up to impeachment of Gonzales.
That will be a really nice thing: We can drink champagne: Finally to get rid of one person who has brought legalizing torture, Guantanamo, exporting torture to Itraq and Afghanistan, eliminating Habeus Corpus, redition, secret jails, holding people without a trial for years, eavesdropping, firing attorney generals in middle of cases and on and on.
Have hope- we will gang up on this guy: I understand that 55 Harvard graduates who went to school with Gonzales have taken out a newsletter ad in the Washington Post to urge the man to resign! ( I have not double checked this on google and hope it is so)
So be encouraged and do something to make this happen Call somebody in Washington at the capitol switch board at 202-225-3121 and yes we still have to have a life too- we do not want to rot in jail- everybody does just a little and we will lift the boats !!!
klever:
Thanks for kind words. No danger of me leaving this site, tho. It's where I get lots of my news.
But it's also where I send my co-workers when they want to know about current events, so I want commenters to know that the condescending tone of many of their comments is completely counter-constructive.
The 'Conspiracy of Dunces' mindset is a tempting one for any intelligent person. But succumb to that temptation and you're all alone - the only intelligent person in the universe. We'll never get any progressive work done if we all think everyone else is an idiot.
peachmcd:
Please don't abandon this site because of the attitudes of a few.Don't forget that these few may be intentionally trying to be mischevious.Most of the contributors here are well-intentioned.
You are right that not enough threads address blue-collar issues-but there are some. If enough people like you -and myself-stay involved-such concerns will at least get some attention.
The majority of Americans are clueless because their churches are clueless.
Folks on this site like to make generalizations about 'Americans' and the reasons they don't get active. I wish, before y'all start making these generalizations, you'd imagine the response of someone outside your choir reading them.
I'm a working class activist, and the 'too busy watching American Idol to vote' cliche is exactly the kind of bullshit condescension that drove a huge chunk of the working class into the fascist right.
Most of the people I work with are completely uninvolved and unaware of what they could be doing, but not because they don't know they're getting screwed. No - but YOU try raising two kids alone while working both a full time AND a part time job to get over and pay for child care. And God forbid anyone gets sick!
The great majority of the working class in the US today is SERVICE WORKERS who have no unions, no benefits, and shitty wages. Two jobs to make rent is the norm. You try it for 6 months and tell me what you want to do when you finally get home and eat some dinner. Laundry, housecleaning, and canvassing the neighbors about the MOVEMENT?
You want some folks on the front lines - focus your attention on a LIVING WAGE and UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. That's where my co-workers will all sign up, and that's one sweet inroad to educating them about the rest of the problem.
But PLEASE quit talking like classist doodooheads in case some "stupid" "sheeple" happen to tune in to see what's going on. They're not too stupid to find that shit offensive. They're just totally fucking exhausted and resigned... which was the opposition's goal from the start.
If y'all have the $$ and spare time to do activist work, consider yourselves lucky and duty-bound (as do I).
The jails are already filled-but FEMA has plans that could quickly expand capacity.
If the organized gangs could be encouraged to cooperate with each other and the peace movement at large changes can happen.Of course the majority of law enforcement would oppose such concerted action for numerous reasons.But all but the very worst of gangbangers have some positive qualities and united with the already active would be very powerful. Maybe the recent emphasis by Russell Simmons and others in the hip-hop community are signs of this.
Now for a bit of dark humor-for any mass demonstrations that include signs-there are so many illegal and immoral things to address electronic message boards with massive capacity are needed.Maybe naming rights as with publically financed stadia would equip all? The George Soros stomp for Solidarity?Not "Haliburton Hootenanny"for sure. Well at least I tried.
As long as the empire can field an army it will be an aggressor. Citizen action is not as effective as young men not serving in the military. Depleted force structure is what is keeping the US out of Iran. Note the frantic "be strong" army commercials, the plea for parents to talk their kids into joining. There is movement going on, getting a good private sector job, ironic that greed could save the world from US empire building. King's way was one way but there is more than one way to skin a cat. I say "Kids unite! go to the mall. Don't become patriotic cannon fodder dupes.
The kernal of truth in Sean Gonsalves' column is this: As long as business as usual can go on nothing will change.
When the bus company was finally on the verge of bankruptcy, the downtown merchants in danger of having to close their doors, and the better-off white folks unable to depend on their hired servants showing up, suddenly things changed.
But Black folks did not have the mesmerizing distraction of TV. They had the organizing principle of their churches, and the sense that enough was enough.
Observer just may be right--it could take a massive depression to bring about the revolution that will not be televised.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."--John F. Kennedy
Seems that the college kids were in the middle of the protest movement in the 60s as well as the civil rights protest in the South. I hear zip from this generation of college students, where the hell are they? It was in the Universities and colleges that idealism was advanced to the massive protest around the country. This is only partly true of the South as the blacks carried the lumber there but the white student activist were a significant part of the civil rights demonstrations in the South and many paid with their life.
Let us assume that this is a goal for a moment.
One must have an organization.
1. Organized people to take action. Non-violent training.
Then one must have an organization of support people.
2. Lawyers, doctors, nurses, childcare workers, cooks, cleaners, transport, etc.
Then what is the objective and how will we know when it is achieved.
3. A plan that in its internal workings had the ability to foresee the outcome.
Then the ability to call off the action when it is subverted from the peaceful non-violent action to a police riot.
4. Stop, look and listen.
Then the rank and file working and middle class must be educated to the goals and objectives of the plan and this must be supported through active interpersonal engagement
5. Every neighborhood has to have its precinct workers
Here are a few things to think about while you're on your way to Birmingham jail
While in jail it would be worthwhile to bring the works of Thoreau, Gandhi and King so that when you get out you can assess or evaluate what works and what does not work. Develop new strategies and tactic to help fortify the ones that were successful.
Remember that this is a journey of a thousand miles so be prepared to devote your life to it.
When one plans to fail, one fails to plan
Unfortunately people do NOT feel oppressed. Most just don't seem to care that their rights are being taken one by one, slowly. Most don't have a clue about habeas corpus. We live in a really ignorant society made up of people who see anyone who is different from themselves as the "other" who is to be feared. The mass media is being well used by the latest administration. Things have been going steadily downhill for the past 40 years, since Nixon was elected and then allowed to resign rather than be impeached and convicted.
I am afraid there are way too few who are willing to stand up to the government/fascists....
Filling private prisons has become a growth industry.
The people are too scared nowadays
(see frank 1569's comments for the reason why)
to organise in the numbers necessary to persuade these corporate psychos and their puppet government to change their
genocidal ways.
This is why W.E. have organized in secrecy for many years now.
W.E. are finally in place to implement the changes needed to ensure the survival of the human race.
Our secret labs have created a biologic device.
W.E. will release our biologic device at locations around the globe simultaneously on
June 21st.
The corporate psychos have sown the seed,
W.E. are calling in the Harvest.
You have been warned.
AND SO IT GOES....
I am afraid that frank1569 is right. I have seen beating of May Day demonstrators in LA. By some strange oversight couple red flags entered momentarily my TV screen. Then I learned that LAPD started investigation and that some police officers were suspended. Well being of those beaten people on the streets? Not a chance.
We got what we were paid for with bread and circuses; a lot of bread and a lot of sexy circus.
Rules of this country did their homework after Great Depression. 80% of Americans owe their houses and, thus, their owned by their mortgages. What will cleanse this country clean is the Tsunami of Depression that is coming.
Be prepared. Time for talk has long passed by.
Aside from the fact the "Me" generation raised a bunch of greedy, consumption-addicted self-servers, the real reason protests and non-violent direct actions are rare is that, for the first time in our history, we face an administration willing to do ANYTHING - disappearance, torture, false charges, detention without council, multiple agency harassment, career destruction, and worse - to crush dissent. They outed a CIA NOC agent for God's sake! They've killed and wounded over a million innocent Iraqis and American soldiers and contractors! Who, in their right mind, is prepared to deal with the consequences this gang of ruthless crazies is willing to pile on? Jail time? Are you f**king kidding? This fascist regime is prepared to "unleash the hounds" the moment the streets start to fill. No, my friend - protesting has become a dangerous option that may result in the literal and/or metaphorical end of your life. For what? To hold a sign no one reads?
In a country which would rather vote for American Idol than president, in a country where people care more about the lives of Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise and think that the Bible is a scientific reference book does anyone really think there's going to be any kind of effective mass movement to stop the Bushies? There are millions (tens of millions) of people who just don't give a damn. Good luck in getting any kind of mass movement going. People, apparently, don't feel oppressed enough to do anything about it.
I think you are right. It's going to take massive amounts of people stopping things in their tracks and gumming up the works of the neocon money machine to do it. Merry pranksters, anyone?
And we need to remember that we outnumber them by huge numbers. If we want to take our country back this is going to be the only way. And be aware that they are passing laws that make such things illegal even as we speak.
In my opinion, the "sheeple" referred to are not the working class, but the middle-to-upper middle class drones who are comfortable enough to think their lifestyle will never be threatened. They have a rude shock in store for them. The working class has always known the score.