'the fact of the matter is that we are having a hell of a time building any significant progressive movement in America–because we just can't get along. Why is that?'

virginia lockett's answer is to move to vietman.

Well spoken, JBS. When the going gets tough, the tough - get going.

Sad, how typically narrow minded dwatkins and jbs are. Blame the messenger instead of trying to learn something new. Even if that something new comes from a foreign country. America needs all the help it can get to get back on track.
Hoa binh

since1492 - I agree. Also, at a certain point, can't we do more from the outside than the inside? We're leaving hopefully in January for Norway. For me it's a matter of saving my daughter from having to endure the fascism that appears to be descending upon this land.

Most American working-class people could use a prolonged stint in a foreign country, just for a reality trip, that is, if they have the time and the money any more. They will find that their counterparts in most any other country are better-educated, better-informed and have an attention span of more than six minutes. Most any taxi driver in Buenos Aires can hold a more interesting and sincere conversation than the overwhelming majority of anyone I ever met in the Green Party, for instance. After watching forty years of constant political regression and growth of the police state, with little working-class resistence, I can only admire Ms. Lockett's escape to a place where it is possible for her to fully express her humanity. Anyway, it's a small world.

What I see, at least on the columns posted here, is often a lack of positive ideas--except for national health care. We're always reacting to the latest outrage of the moneyed and political elites. The Iraq War is a case in point. Yes, it's terrible and we should bring the troops home, but after this war, just as after Vietnam, those same elites will come up with another outrage ten or twenty years later--if not sooner in the case of Iran. We need to create a better international order that protects the US and respects other countries' rights at the same time. For a start we could insist on full compliance with the UN Charter, a document little discussed before and during our Iraq occupation. We could make the UN better reflect the changing balance of power by replacing permanent membership with a small council of five whose membership will depend on raw political power--probably a mixture of population and GDP. Obviously, agreeing on a mixture would be difficult: 50/50? 60/40? 30/70? Democratic principles and China and India would like population, Japan and the US would prefer GDP. France, Britain and Russia would hate this proposal because they would lose their seats. An equally tough sell would be replacing the single-power with a two-power veto. That would force the US to have at least one solid ally (not lapdog Britain under my previous suggestion) to block UN condemnation of the next US outrage. The same would be true of other great powers. Enforcing any of this with military power is another question, of course.

My underlying point is liberals have to try to find more ways of making the world better, not just preventing it from getting worse.

Ms. Lockett attributes the failure of the US progressives to engage in a united front and be more effective as some kind of collective emotional hangover: we are "bummed out..." she says.

Though now a resident of Vietnam, this is a pecularly US perspective: she attributes political failure to personal miasma and emotional letdown.

The problem here is one that plagues liberals, progressives and other leftists in the US. We get caught up in analyses such as Ms. Lockett's when we should be clarifying our different interests and internally be negotiating around these interests so that we can move forward together, if not in a united manner.

Liberals especially have fundamentally different interests than the rest of the left and are the haziest on where they stand in actually acquiring enough power to effect substantitve change.

If we cannot clarify and distinguish economics, power, politics, strategies and tactics, it doesn't matter one nose hair how we feel -- collectively or individually. We'll all end up a bunch of bums watching the world from the street, no matter the size of our hearts.

Tony and Marikken restore some of my faith in Americans. They aren't afraid to admit that maybe America could learn something from outside its borders. Or that life outside our borders can be exciting and rewarding. No one said the American Dream had to take place in America. It's great to want to be number one, but it can't be at any cost. How you get there is more important than getting there.
Hoa binh

since1492 - full disclosure: I was born to Norwegian immigrant parents in the US and have citizenship in both the US and Norway. I've been here 30 years, and thought I would stay, but I'm afraid of where we are heading here. Plus, my daughter can go to the university there for free! And get a free laptop! And go on exchange programs to other countries paid for by the government!

Dear tj, I believe that what Ms. Lockett attributes left political failure to is a lack of genuine solidarity among individuals who would mainly benefit from a social state, the wage-earning majority. This solidarity was natural on the assembly lines and sweatshops of the past but in our post-industrial world, we have a vacuum when it come to common purpose. We have been played neatly off, one against the other, black against white, union member against non-union, hunter against liberal, feminist against Joe six-pack, Christian against athiest, everyone against the welfare recipients, on and on, until the toxic stew of our public discourse drives everyone into his own head and the alienation manifest everywhere in our chuckle-headed society drives off people like Ms. Lockett. By the way, quoting George Carlin, "You can't believe in the American Dream unless you're asleep."

tj says:

"Liberals especially have fundamentally different interests than the rest of the left and are the haziest on where they stand in actually acquiring enough power to effect substantitve change."

Liberals aren't interested in acquiring power. If we were, we would be conservatives.

"Travel is the best antidote for bigotry" Mark Twain

Conservatives should get out more... way out.

I know of at least 10 people who are in the process of moving their homes and businesses abroad.

The majority feel like the Jews who left Germany in 1932-33, while they could. Who's to say that all of our border controls and 'No-Fly' lists are keep us here, not protect us as has been stated?

I ask this as a senior citizen who is subjected to semi-strip searches in front of bemused onlookers evrytime I board a plane. Beware the 'Quad S'(SSSS) if it appears on your boarding pass.

I'm getting tired of defending myself to a bunch of yahoos whenever I criticize the current administration.
I hav had people interrupt me from adjacent tables and tell me to leave if I don't like it.

I am seriously considering doing so. Everywhere I have traveled in the world since 9/11 contains people who are compassionate, neighborly, welcoming. It is a tempting thought.

All that is keeping me back is the idea I do not want to be a burden wherever I relocate.

curmudgeon99 I can relate to the SSSS screenings. I travel frequently to the Middle East for work and my passport is full of Arabic stamps so they always pull me aside even though I am a little petite blonde lady! I've been thinking of leaving also as the idea of not being able to travel and interact with people from other countries, hear their perspectives is the one thing I love more than anything, and losing that privilage to hear the views of others and their dreams terrifies me.

Siouxrose I love waking up to the call for prayer also its a great comfort. I've also had the opportunity to observe Buddhist at prayer in Tibet and have visited the Vatican before also. The heart of true religion is spiritual peace.

curmudgeon - I have been told to leave many times too. The funniest time was when my neighbor told me to go "back to Czechoslovakia." That country of course doesn't exist anymore, but is the Czech Republic and Slovakia now, and I'm from Norway. Must suck to be so transparently a fool.

Now I am finally leaving and I AM worried about those no-fly lists since I have been actively protesting the government's policies for several years. I won't feel safe until we're out of the country. And then I'll start worrying about global warming, but not till we get settled in.

Best wishes to you and your daughter Marikken. I think you are doing the right thing.

I forgot - the other thing keeping me here: devalued dollar; my pension may not be worth anything thanks to Georgie. BTW, nobody, and I mean nobody, will argue about the failled economics of the Bushcos.

Am I bummed out, well, yes, but I am also excited to live during this point in history. There will be a moment when I will know what to do, and why I am doing it. Until then I am subversive, and I tell as many kids as I can...be prepared.

I am staying. I have traveled, and I am aware of what people outside the US are about. I have not lost hope that things here can be changed to more resemble the outside world.

I am staying, because my ancestors, both red and white died here. I am staying because I am and always have been a rebel. I am staying to form an underground if needed, to coordinate against this increasingly criminal Empire.

I will continue to speak up and out. I listen to my poor, economically suppressed highschool students tell me how awful the government has become, and I listen to their fears about the future and what will happen to them. They are worth me staying around and fighting the good fight on whatever level I can.

TPTB will do what they want, let them. Watch them drive that cart right into the ditch.
If you need to leave, go ahead and know that I will miss you, please help how and when you can.

I ain't going nowhere, so let me know if you are staying and need help. I'll be here, listening, doing small things, and waiting.

Dear curmudgeon, With you one hundred percent, and thanks for the SSSS tip. Regarding your worries about the ever-growing police state here, please go to today's "Democracy Now" (Pacifica Radio) broadcast and hear the report on "The Violent Radicalization and the Homegrown Prevention of Terrorism Act". Blurring the difference between foreign terrorism and the more militant American left movements, it passed the house last month by a four hundred to six margin, Kucinich voting against. Getting almost no media coverage, it is expected to easily pass in the Senate. Marikken, you have the possibility of a Norwegian passport and you're still here? Don't worry about the winters, everyone that works gets at least a month vacation, spend February in Mallorca. With Kroner in your pocket, you'll be able to afford it. I'm stuck with Czech heritage, no law of return there.

ggpearl, thanks for sharing your beliefs and the service you are providing to your students and your 'rebelistsic' intentions for the future.

I'm sure that we all will be operating sub rosa to ensure our future. It's exciting and challenging to think of getting off our duffs to reinvigorate our society, especially if we have to be clandestine about it.

Aaah, TonyVodvarka,

I'm well aware of the act you mention. My Congressional Rep, Zoe Lofgren, was one of the cosponsors. If you haven't done so, read the act as it went to the Senate. Use the act # - HR 1955. It's easier to look up.

The promised protections pale when you include the MCA which allows Bush to declare any citizen an enemy combatant.

Alos, think about last week, when only public outrage caused the City and County of L.A. to drop a plan that was already in effect to map the Muslim population to prevent possible homegrown terrorism.

Good luck Marikken. Wish I was going with you. But like gg, I am staying in the belly of the beast. Stay in touch.
ezeflyer

Thank you for well wishes. I'll see if I can't visit CD when I'm over there. We have our Norwegian passports, but there are other practical matters, such as it took a lot of convincing my daughter's father to let her go since she's not yet 18, and he is one of those Democrats who thinks the government is simply "incompetent" and the next election will fix everything. We couldn't start planning in earnest until we got his agreement.

In the past 4 years I've been to Mexico, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Nepal. When peoples' lives are not entirely caught up in the struggle for their daily bread, they are capable of so much! I was profoundly in awe of the levels of intelligence and spiritual grace I encountered in some of those nations. In contrast, too many Americans felt dumbed down by gross materialism.

I led a meditation with a Buddhist monk friend of mine that saw Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists PRAY together. When I had the privilege of spending several days in the huge rain forest preserve, its row of lovely cabins just above the river, the majority of the guests there were Muslim. I LOVED (and my ethnicity is Jewish) waking up to the incredibly beautiful sound of Muslim prayer as it echoed throughout the resort. I looked forward to it every sunrise (and I am NOT a morning person!). Were it not for the way hatreds are fomented, we human beings would easily get along. We were made in the image and likeness of love, an essence that knows no boundaries; not in the image and likeness of an angry white guy posing as god to the much deluded, historically chained.

>curmudgeon99
Great connection with the flight of the intellectuals from Germany in the 30's.... especially in light of the members of code pink being refused entry into Canada (on the FBI list). Might want to get out while you can...

TonyVodvarka maybe the key, related to what you suggest, is just to find some way to get conservatives out of the country for a few years while they are young and still capable of learning. We could create a Bush Youth program (with billions from Warren Buffet) and award "fellowships" to the applicants who show the most signs of being narrow self righteous bigots, sending them to Africa or Southeast Asia for a year of Spreading Democracy and Freedom. They would come back much the wiser.

Let's see if I can boil down the author's main intent without interjecting
any of my own bias.

The intent is to take action. She didn't say ignore or pretend, nor
did she employ the tyranny of should. She didn't even say
one's action would stop "corporatocracy". She said let's take
action rather than get on each other's nerves, and later maybe attempt
to find common ground.

She said, here's an idea: get a hobby and act on it.

What a perfectly simple message

A very interesting article and discussion. Please let me inject my experience of growing up in a small community in the mountains of N. Calif who's conservative, nose-to-the-grindstone collective mentality was shaken by the sudden appearance of a "hippie commune" on the edge of town.

It was 1970, and nothing of importance had happened in that community since the gold rush ended. People grew up there, most left, some stayed ~ people grew old there and eventually died there. Still going on to this day. But in 1970, a 60 acre plot of land became the seed of "Rainbow", who's genesis is unknown to history, but who's growth was phenominal. Bus loads of long haired, strange looking, and generally interesting folks showed up on our quiet little town. They brought crafts, they brought music, they brought ecclectic dress, but mostly they brought change.

Since I was a young, impressionable lad of 12 years, I thought they were cool. I liked the change, and I liked the music, and I liked the infusion of difference that Rainbow presented to the community. I was in the minority. Some teens, and most 20's joined them and danced. Most folks over 30 polietly tolerated them and kept a wary eye, and all folks over 40 hated them and wanted them gone.

The youth in me enjoyed their presence, but the social observer in me noted many inconsistancies. They shunned consumption, yet needed goods and services. They abhorred those with money, yet needed money to exist. They expoused free expression and openness, yet were cautious and wary of those who weren't like them.

As I matured and grew, so did Rainbow. In the 10 years I experienced their transformation, I too transformed from a child to an adult. What Rainbow transformed into was from an open, free love, free thinking, let it all hang out kind of youthful utopia to the kind of one-minded stalag that imploded of it's own inability to adapt. The parallels to Orwell's 1984 were just amazing. No longer was everything tolerated, but it was controlled and directed. You fit in or you were banned. No longer was the ideas of everyone open to discussion and debate, but rigid rules and directives were adopted.

By 1980, Rainbow had collapsed of it's own inconsistancies. It's false promise of no rules and no boundries had fractionalized it's membership and following to the point where they knew not what they stood for or wanted to acheive. In the end, they all went their seperate ways.

The biggest lesson I learned from Rainbow was that those with the money in hand to create and grow an enterprise will control that enterprise, always. No matter how much they say and swear that they are for the people's wishes, they will inevitably pull all the strings, and that power will eventually corrupt those in power, always.

You give a person positional, financial, spiritual or political power, and they will always use that power for self-serving purposes. Always.

Those few at the spearhead of the Progressive movement powerbase are not immune to this. They weild their power, and no matter the stated benevolent intent we can see evidence of the very same self-serving "I know better" mentality.

You people SCARE me! All this talk of leaving reminds me of the pre-WWII era when Hitler was making himself obnoxious and deadly! I'm afraid the writing is on the wall and my only hope is that they have already decided that 'old' people just have to be 'waited out.' They'll not be around too much longer to bother anyone, so why make an issue of it?

But now, here's a question....'How will we know that they have begun to round people up?' The media won't report it and if you live in a rural area as I do, your neighbors aren't nearby to notice!! Should we feel safe til the declaration of martial law? Or will they just drag us out in the early hours of the morning and remove us to some local large facility where they will gas us all? Or could they just unloose the dogs with rifles and shoot us through lighted night windows? I think on that one each night when I close the curtains!

There was a time when people protested LOUDLY BEFORE it got so bad that they had these kinds of worries. The system had a way of self-righting itself, just as the article says.

Can you believe that we're fearing such things in THIS COUNTRY? I'm awake and frightened! Terrorists! What are TERRORISTS? I'm afraid of foreign ones and DOMESTIC ones! Some of us get it from both directions!

PDF: It is very dangerous and limiting to make suppositions about what people will always do when said individuals are themselves the product of a top-down hierarchical culture! The same argument in favor of inborn aggression was made by and through the chilling novel, LORD OF THE FLIES.

We are conditioned animals with potentials to live by higher spiritual creeds. FEW times in human history has this potential been allowed, no less nurtured!

DC BELTWAY said, "The heart of true religion is spiritual peace." I believe this is the IDEAL behind religion. Unfortunately, current events show the degree to which it's been inverted to serve the dark gods of greed, fear, war and division.

Siouxrose ~ What I feel inside is agreement with your beliefs, what I see with my eyes contradicts both.

It's not right, but it is what it is. Feelings cannot make it otherwise.

Peace ~ PDF

pdf,

I hope you are aware of Lord Acton's famous dictum: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." That applies to individuals regardless of political or religious affiliation, and it appears to apply to entire nations as well. It is the most accurate succinct description of human nature I have ever found.

To be "corrupted," is to be transformed into one that behaves in a manner inconsistent with the general welfare (of whatever group the behavior is being analyzed in reference to). And it follows logically that power would corrupt, as it reduces (absolute power removes) the pressure to conform behavior in regard to the interests of others, and so behavior only responds to pressure from inside to pursue one's own interests, and that is unlikely to be completely consistent with the general welfare.

kivals ~ agreed, but problems multiply when that "behavior inconsistant" concept is less objective and more subjective. How can I, as "Lord Master Supreme" for example, be able to look at my own actions and motivations, and be able to be rational with my own self-evaluation? I might see myself as completely benevolent and acting in the best motives for all, when in fact, I'm a self-serving meglomaniacal demon-wench? Heads of organizations need to be open to critisim and evaluation, and not demonize those who disagree with their views and actions.

Hence, my view that what is needed here is not "a hobby" but a reevaluation of purpose and direction. What is it the progressive movement is trying to accomplish and what is the plan for accomplishing it?

Otherwise, it's time to head off and blaze your own trails!

PDF: Your observation is accurate based on the givens. My point is the givens are themselves artificial human constructs. We must ask for whom (or whose benefit) were these constructed? There WERE matriarchal societies that predated patriarchy's 4000 year realm/rule. There have been indigenous societies that operated on the basis of more egalitarian social structures, and thus did not reflect the behaviors we in western culture PRESUME to be inborn. Do you remember an article posted on CD where at some resort in Kenya baboons foraged through the garbage out back? At one time the foods deposited there were tainted, and since the dominant male baboons ate first, they died! Instead of the remaining males following in the footsteps of these brutes, they designed a very different society ALONG WITH the females. Count me which societies in the modern era have allowed full female participation? Creator made two genders because the way to propogate the human race and ensure its continuity involved a rather aesthetic interchange; but beyond that, we are the twin strands of DNA. EACH is required not only to "make" life but to design it well! MUCH of the aggression we see, that has become epidemic and apparently endemic to the human experience is the result of too much input from the masculine side of life. I call it MARS rules because even you males suffer, you suffer in all those who's got the biggest dick pissing contests from day 1. And plenty of women/mothers support this paradigm, for it's all they know. Groomed to be warriors, to prove your prowess in sports that then lead to more bloody battles, it's all a tribute to testosterone, bloodshed and Mars. I argue often in this forum this is NOT the only archetype that is viable, nor does it speak for the TRUTH of human beings or the human condition. It is an aberrant spawn, that has been fed like a beast over the centuries, so much so, that the most blessed and rich nation on earth has just laid all its treasure before this un-holy one. And we, as a nation, will reap rewards for this misuse of Divine substance and idea(s). Now when we look in the mirror, its technological equivalent being our media, the vast majority of what we see is acts of violence.

I gave up TV a year ago, but I'm staying with friends in the Florida Keys and just felt like getting my old dose of Law & Order. I was appalled at the violence, now I feel sick when I look at it. Just as we become what we eat, our spirits become what we take in as reality... media is POISON! (95% of it, anyway)

In the world there are sentinel species, when environments change they are the first one effected and they show the first signs of the ability to adapt. Many sentinal species have disappeared from our observation so that ability to observe change is somewhat removed from our daily lives. We also forget to look or understand our relationship with the earth or it's vast resources. We should practice looking for our own information by direct observation instead of being told what and how to think about things.

There will always be a way to measure things. Native Americans are a measurement of democracy in the U.S. and there are others. Native Americans could not be overcome, so their way of life was destroyed first. Things they depended on for survival were removed first. I sometimes wish I had another country I could return to but I wonder where in the world you could go to leave this sorrow behind.

Generally I think the blame yourself perspective is a bunch of garbage. It's how to get Americans addicted to Prozac so they can spend all of their energy to keep up their careers, pay for big cars and feel happy and successful instead of tired and drained.

The truth is everything at this point is nearly completely out of our hands. Our food, our shelter, every single thing we need. When we find a way around it, that outlet is quickly snapped up by corporate interests and they sell it back to us. (i.e., we had an organic movement, now we have Whole Foods.) Short of revolution, which might not work either, we do not have much ability to stop it.

There is one way we are to blame and that is that in buying all our stuff from corporations -- we are paying the salaries of those who continually find new ways to oppress our bodies and spirits.

If we could only really, honestly, leave off living as per our conditioned cultural response of "I need everything to be mine, mine, mine" perhaps we could start to create a culture that is actually our own.

I have to add to that that the self-help blame yourself mentality is ultimately disempowering. One needs to accurately assess their situation if they are going to make changes to it. Blaming your own mood does not accurately describe a situation. This is a major problem with mainstream psychology in the U.S. today.

We have major, major corporate power over people's existences and we do not want to admit how far things have got out of our own control.

Of course we are responsible for trying to improve our situations. But if we are serious about really making things better for ourselves, we must recognise that problems and solutions extend beyond the individual.

Dear Tijuana, What you say is true, of course, but what I was trying to get at was not so much a comparison of taxi drivers internationally but that I believe that the working classes of most other countries are politically better informed, often better educated, enjoy conversation more and are less emotionally detached from others than their USA counterparts.