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Hope, Real Hope, Is About Doing Something
On Dec. 16 I will join Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern and several military veteran activists outside the White House to protest the futile and endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us will, after our rally in Lafayette Park, attempt to chain ourselves to the fence outside the White House. It is a pretty good bet we will all spend a night in jail. Hope, from now on, will look like this.
Hope is not trusting in the ultimate goodness of Barack Obama, who, like Herod of old, sold out his people. It is not having a positive attitude or pretending that happy thoughts and false optimism will make the world better. Hope is not about chanting packaged campaign slogans or trusting in the better nature of the Democratic Party. Hope does not mean that our protests will suddenly awaken the dead consciences, the atrophied souls, of the plutocrats running Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil or the government.
Hope does not mean we will halt the firing in Afghanistan of the next Hellfire missile, whose explosive blast sucks the oxygen out of the air and leaves the dead, including children, scattered like limp rag dolls on the ground. Hope does not mean we will reform Wall Street swindlers and speculators, or halt the pillaging of our economy as we print $600 billion in new money with the desperation of all collapsing states. Hope does not mean that the nation's ministers and rabbis, who know the words of the great Hebrew prophets, will leave their houses of worship to practice the religious beliefs they preach. Most clerics like fine, abstract words about justice and full collection plates, but know little of real hope.
Hope knows that unless we physically defy government control we are complicit in the violence of the state. All who resist keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become enemies of hope. They become, in their passivity, agents of injustice. If the enemies of hope are finally victorious, the poison of violence will become not only the language of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist with nonviolence are in times like these the thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration.
Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. Hope does not come with the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is an action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and the more potent hope becomes. Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope does not believe in force. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on us all. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope's power and it is why it can never finally be defeated. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face.
Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful. Hope is what the corporate state, which saturates our airwaves with lies, seeks to obliterate. Hope is what our corporate overlords are determined to crush. Be afraid, they tell us. Surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror. Don't resist. Embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity. Buy our products. Without them you are worthless. Become our brands. Do not look up from your electronic hallucinations to think. No. Above all do not think. Obey.
W.H. Auden wrote:
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The powerful do not understand hope. Hope is not part of their vocabulary. They speak in the cold, dead words of national security, global markets, electoral strategy, staying on message, image and money. The powerful protect their own. They divide the world into the damned and the blessed, the patriots and the enemy, the rich and the poor. They insist that extinguishing lives in foreign wars or in our prison complexes is a form of human progress. They cannot see that the suffering of a child in Gaza or a child in the blighted pockets of Washington, D.C., diminishes and impoverishes us all. They are deaf, dumb and blind to hope. Those addicted to power, blinded by self-exaltation, cannot decipher the words of hope any more than most of us can decipher hieroglyphics. Hope to Wall Street bankers and politicians, to the masters of war and commerce, is not practical. It is gibberish. It means nothing.
I cannot promise you fine weather or an easy time. I cannot assure you that thousands will converge on Lafayette Park in solidarity. I cannot pretend that being handcuffed is pleasant. I cannot say that anyone in Congress or the White House, anyone in the boardrooms of the corporations that cannibalize our nation, will be moved by pity to act for the common good. I cannot tell you these wars will end or the hungry will be fed. I cannot say that justice will roll down like a mighty wave and restore our nation to sanity. But I can say this: If we resist and carry out acts, no matter how small, of open defiance, hope will not be extinguished. If all we accomplish is to assure a grieving mother in Baghdad or Afghanistan, a young man or woman crippled physically and emotionally by the hammer blows of war, that he or she is not alone, our resistance will be successful. Hope cannot be sustained if it cannot be seen.
Any act of rebellion, any physical defiance of those who make war, of those who perpetuate corporate greed and are responsible for state crimes, anything that seeks to draw the good to the good, nourishes our souls and holds out the possibility that we can touch and transform the souls of others. Hope affirms that which we must affirm. And every act that imparts hope is a victory in itself.
Also from Auden:
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
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201 Comments so far
Show AllF*%&K hope! Let's build a guillotine at the Lincoln Memorial and give speedy trials to our criminals-in-high-places!
Only after fair trials, of course.
People who hang out inhere are way too decent to submit our criminal leaders to the rules THEY put in place... rendition, torture, military (kangooroo) tribunals, disappearances, drone/coward strikes, etc. Of course we'll give them fair trials.
But until they are made to pay for their crimes, they have no incentive to stop committing and benefiting greatly from them.
Yes, a principled commitment to non-violence is deeply frustrating to all the bored-to-tears agents provocateurs hanging out here trying vainly to incite some violence and who disdain all progressive ideals -ESPECIALLY peaceful ideals.
Too bad. Here's a tip for all you bored FBI agents growing moss waiting for a bunch of pansy lefties to blow something up: head over to the many right wing sites just a google search away and there you'll find violent threats and assassination vows all day and night 24x7x365.
nice FF 8:18
Not all progressives/enviros are committed to non-violence. There are some pretty big names calling for us to do "whatever is appropriate" to save ourselves and our children. One of them is Derrick Jensen:
AMY GOODMAN: Derrick Jensen, we let people know that I was going to be interviewing you, and a lot of people wrote in questions. And a few of them asked you to talk about what they call you advocating the use of violence. You have written, quote, "What I want is for all activists to act like they are serious about their resistance and that might include assassinations." What do you mean by that?
DERRICK JENSEN: The world is being killed. And if they were space aliens who had come down from outer space and they were systematically deforesting the planet and vacuuming the oceans and changing the climate, what would we do? There are two million dams in the United States. There’s about 70,000 dams over six-and-a-half-feet tall. And if we only took out one of those dams every day, it would take 200 years to take them all out.
And I want to be really clear that I don’t advocate violence any more than I advocate nonviolence. What I advocate is looking at the circumstances and deciding what would be the appropriate action, both personally and socially.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/26/author_and_activist_derrick_jensen_the
------
And who among us hasn't thought along the same lines. Perhaps not of assassination, but along the lines of what it might come down to as things keep getting worse, as they assuredly will. What actions will we have to resort to to try to stop this wholesale slaughter of our world?
Perhaps Ernest Callenbach had a good idea in his book "Ecotopia", some 35 years ago.
Thanks Ted for the great post. Outside of a handful of comments, I was beginning to feel hopeless. Ole faker can call us CIA/FBI all she wants. The space alien analogy is a very good one and after reading all these comments, there are very few people who are willing to come to grips with this ugly reality. This is a tough row to hoe and independently wealthy people chaining themselves to fences does not represent any kind of solution.
I would offer my time and talent to help build a colossal, shining stainless-steel guillotine near the Capitol, with a 3-story blade, just as a visual reminder to our leaders of who's boss on their way to make decisions that will greatly affect our lives.
But the real medicine is to elect our politicians for ONE TERM ONLY, with PUBLICLY FUNDED ONLY campaigns where personal wealth is not allowed. You get to be mayor once. If you can't move up the ladder to something bigger, you drop out of politics.
Otherwise, they will continue to be owned by BIG MONEY and MEDIA CONTROL, the two forces most responsible for war and destruction on Planet Earth.
>>just as a visual reminder to our leaders of who's boss on their way to make decisions that will greatly affect our lives.
Tilting at windmills this fine morning? Visions of grandeur?
If we must have hope - and to take any action at all against a tyrannical regime looting and destroying the world so it can dominate it, means having hope that it can indeed be overcome, even overthrown - then this is what hope should look like.
I was thinking while playing MS Spider Solitaire, there must be a turning point where the mass will turn against the Obama's regime. Similar to the Vietnam war in the 60's. Maybe, a real brain out there can figure it out. As a start, I am wishing against something that will never happen, the DC Policemen refuse to arrest the protesters on December 16. If that happens, I too will go against all odd and live in the streets with everyone else.
Delete press twice.
Sure, i will no doubt be there as i have been doing for the past nine years. Getting arrested for a day.
So many have done it. Including the Republican convention in nyc in 2004. I am sorry Chris, but this one isn't original and the action has been going on forever. God, Cindy Sheehan does it weekly it seems.
In 2004, nyc, thousands were arrested and kept for days. It makes us feel good inside for a short time, but accomplished not a thing.
Time to get a little more creative. Everyone can bash me here, but this is just the same old thing. When someone has strong religious (as in organized) background, there is always a closed inner system that blocks thinking outside the box. Sorry, but i know too many that have done these things and he sounds as if this is original. Come on.....How is getting arrested for a day going to be comforting to a greiving mother in Baghdad, as he implies? Does he think she knows what he is doing in DC? The washington post won't even cover it. As anyone knows who has been there.
RTT 9:44 I guess your correct, I guess I was just having a good day,
Thanks for the icy bucket of water over the head,
You'r correct, creativity,wit, outside the box,
actions that insure results.
Glenn, i didn't mean to dump cold water on your head ;-) as i hadn't read your post even. Sorry.......
It is just that he writes as if he is saying something new. I actually don't get it. I honestly think it sounds like he has been away for ten years.
peace,
rita
Hope is what is needed and Hedges article is terrific in the atmosphere it creates, essentially "do something"
But you are exactly correct. The old methods are exactly that...old and ineffective.
Does that not simply mean we have to develop new methods, methods that work, methods that will generate a path that people will actually follow?
Good intentions are not nearly enough. Good intentions can lead to horrible outcomes and the old "the end justifies the means"
Time to jettison old thinking, old methods and failed policies, failed theories.
I believe you and Hedges are both right.
RTT ---I know you had not yet read my post.
When people are unconscious they need a bucket of cold water!
Now how about a hot bath?
Two Americas is sooo wrong when he claims that the power of individual thoughts to effect the world is an identifyer of capiltalism when individual thought is the basis of creating your world/the world in Buddhist philosophy.
And as you may know the power of thought to alter the world has been shown to be true through credible experiments proving the power of thought on random numbers programs.
More interesting yet concentrating on positive or negative numbers after a program has already been run effects the program,
So thought actually supercedes the material and Time!
Physics is great! or was that Allah?
Sorry Glenn, but though IS time. Thought is also the product of mind which operates by way of a brain which is material. Thought as creative as it might be cannot exist outside the manifested realm of space and time. When its inherent limitations are kept in consideration thought can be extremely useful. But when such constraints are overlooked thought itself tends to distort rather enhance understanding.
If thought is time than thought may control time.
We see this daily. With time speeding or slowing according to our frame of mind.
And bonifide physics experiments with random numbers programs show that thought effects the outcome of the program. This is not conjecture. A person concentrating on either positive or negative numbers causing the program to produce the same a statistically valid number of times.
We know that brains usually have minds associated with them but logically speaking this does not prove that minds need brains.
Do ghosts or spirits have minds?
Furthermore even if minds were dependent on brains to exist that in no way determines to what extent minds can effect the material world.
Surely it is a least a loop where the thoughts change the brains chemistry just as chemistry gives rise to thoughts.
Do you not believe if you are struggling with depression that through sheer will power you may decide if that depression overcomes you or you throw it off?
And back to Hedges these thoughts generated by the mind then commands the brain to activate the body into actions which overcome the body/brain based depression.
One can not point to the begining of the loop therefore it can initiate operations at any point in the loop.
And again back to the thread Supporting the Democratic Party is supporting a party that has repeatly and constantly shown its self willing to commit criminal actions.
This is no question of Purity, These are Capital War Crimes, and economic and social crimes.
It is a matter of supporting a cabal of muderous criminals or not.
Where's the fine line or angst in that decision?
GF,
"And bonifide physics experiments with random numbers programs show that thought effects the outcome of the program. This is not conjecture."
Please reference said "bonifide physics experiments". I would be interested in reading them. Somehow it seems that there are probably major design flaws in said experiments. Without a reference to said experiment's results and peer review I would say that your statement appears only to reflect your opinion and world view and not "how" the world "is" (for most everyone else).
Thanks,
OYE
I would gladly research this. But since this gifted computer on dial up does not even run videos it is time consuming.
My information comes from a book on physics I read five or more years ago.
To find the experiment I would google Random Numbers Programs effected by Thoughts (or minds)
This book I believe also related the experiments, which I believe are fairly well known, done in Italy were two particles together are subjected with a certain force (gamma,or?)and then one particle is transported to a much distant lab and the first particle is again subjected to a certain force and the distant particle reacts the same even though no force has been applied. ( I just thought that this may be the effect that merely observing matter in an experiment influences the experiment which is bedrock quantum physics which proves my initial point). But if the observers in the second lab were not aware of what force was projected on the first particle then we may have a separate phenomenon than matter being effected by observation, which again is bedrock quantum physics and shows even when one is doing ones best not to effect matter, matter is effected. Physicists have not been able to control for this observation effect.
So you see, or at least 100% of quantum Physicists see that when one is merely observing matter one effects that matter and so far there is no remedy to that experiment control problem.
If you find that book it also relates fasinating properties of light.
Thanks for the reply! I've read of the particle experiments and the concept that observing a physical phenomena can affect it--not that I even begin to understand particle physics/quantum physics.
Please see: http://www.skepdic.com/pear.html for the debunking of the Random Numbers Programs/Generators.
The Dancing Wu Li Masters / An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav may help you.
Well I went and registered on Physicsforum.com and am awaiting my instructions so I can ask the question concerning random numbers and thought.
Since the book I read was a popular laymens book authored by well known accredited physicists I doubt the study is anything other than valid.
But i will ask the question, when allowed, on Physics Forum and see what the other professionals have to say.
Link to a double blind peer reviewed study please?
All the evidence I know of says effects like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle only obtain at the subatomic level. Misapplications of scientific concepts in the service of mysticism does nothing but muddle our thoughts leaving us confused and easier prey for concentrated wealth and power.
"A large (bigger than a handful of molecules anyway) object travelling in sunlight over a piece of paper will have its speed constantly affected by the bombardment of photons and air resistance. It is possible to measure the position and speed of its shadow without actually adding any additional energy to the object. Therefore the matter wave isn't absorbed in the error in measurement because it never interacts with the object. Given an error free measurement device (which may be impractical but probably not impossible) one would have the position of the object. Two such measurements over a short distance would at the second measurement give the speed and position at the time the speed was recorded. Therefore it is *possible* to accurately measure the speed and location of a large object without affecting either."
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?HeisenbergUncertaintyPrinciple
I appreciate Hedges call for resistance but also agree with those saying thus far it hasn't accomplished much. Neither has bitching on the internet. Ideas for effective change, is it really down to individuals unplugging from the empire and not being dependent on its goods and services? Is that fast enough and enough effect to head off the Juggernaut?
I was not purposely misapplying anything to service anything it just did not pass through my mind that HUP only applied to sub atomic.
So now we're back to the random numbers program.
I will attempt to find it.
But the mind affecting numbers in quantum mysticism pseudo science theory is tied into Heisenberg in that in their interpretation it is the mind effecting the measurement of the subatomic particles (wrong) and then they go on to misapply that already error to the macro level.
G 7:18 "They" are only responsible for some the rest is running through my never having taken a physics course mind and few years old memories.
I am researching the Random numbers( if that exists) which my coursery glance at the google sites seems to have alot of discussion and thought influence.
If I am wrong I will sue the publisher of that book for the pain of Grand Embarrassment, not.
While your at it can you comment on the Italian experiment of the twin particles, is that also hocus pocus?
Quantum entanglement is real, but again a subatomic phenomena, to apply it to the macro level of our day to day lives is over reaching the data we have IMO. Note that I am *not* physicist but someone with an undergraduate degree in environmental studies with an emphasis in biology. I do know how the scientific method works though, and have a 20 year plus string laymans interest in these sorts of things.
Anyway, I'd rather talk about blocking up the highways and a general strike!
"All the evidence I know of says effects like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle only obtain at the subatomic level."
I thought that was why Schroedinger came up with his famous cat analogy, to demonstrate that quantum uncertainty could conceivably have macroworld effects. I ain't no physicists, though, just a guy who likes to read about this stuff.
Now back to politics...
Schrodinger's cat is actually a reducto ab absurdum thought experiment attack on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics FYI. Sadly it has been picked up by a lot of pseudo scientist quantum mystics as something real
Never seen "mind", never seen "time", never seen "space"; change happens, but thoughts which are abstractions(mental pictures) of the perceived attempt to replicate that which was observed for utilitarian reasons but in no means are the actual observation because by the time a moment is thought about it has changed into something else. Like a very fast computer thoughts project space and past and future unto the irretrievable "seen". Quantum physics alludes to this somewhat through the "uncertainty principle" and the "measurement problem". We perceive the objective world through the lense of our measuring instrument which is ultimately our nervous system. Because appearance is spontaneously occuring moment to moment and not "coming from somewhere else" there is no such thing as volition or pre-determination and thus "uncertain". Now what is certain? That which is seeing. Look without assumption directly into what you are looking out of. The seen is ultimately understood in terms of That which sees it.
Hope is relational to the "hoper" and entails acting in a manner to bring a desired result. Every person has hope. What hope will come about? The bankers hope, the laborers hope, the tigers hope, the antelopes hope? I like the German philosopher who said, (not exact quote) "Knowing deep down there is no choice concerning outcome, act as if there is."
*As any Vipassana meditator will affirm, thoughts spontaneously occur and the strongest one compells action or in terms of the imagined individual is "chosen".
I like the German philosopher who said, (not exact quote) "Knowing deep down there is no choice concerning outcome, act as if there is."
My personal corollary has been, "I don't get what I want, but I find way to want what I've got."
Yes, My Friend, thought walks on the other side of the veil and where two are gathered together...Sound comes forth.
I went back over the piece, and I don't see a single claim for originality, even implicit. What am I missing?
When someone writes something well, it tends to look new because one finds new aspects of old events or experience. Could that be it?
Writing well is not the same as stopping a war, but it could get you some company in the next cell.
In reference to your previous post, above, I do not think the peace movements and protests have failed to do anything, not at all. "Failure" in such events is exactly as relative and problematic as "victory." Success and particularly partial success is particularly difficult to measure when you are trying to *stop* something from happening. It would be past uncharacteristic for the government to phone you and say they killed fewer civilians because you chained yourself to a fence. But if you doubt your partial success yourself, ask yourself why the government isn't carpet-bombing. I mean, it is not for a lack of equipment or because it abuses their sense of aesthetics, is it? And it's not like the US gov has decided to rely on psyops; I mean, here we hear a lot of drivel about hearts and minds here in the States, but if you were running an ad campaign, you wouldn't blow apart people's homes and wedding parties, would you? The US gov't still wants to finesse Americans, Europeans, and probably the monied Chinese, but not Iraqis or Afghans.
I will grant that stopping a larger attack is little consolation to the mothers of DU-impaired infants or the survivors of well over a million beloved and dead Middle Easterners. But It is very, very good news to they millions of others who have been saved, at least for the moment.
We do not and will not know who they are. But have a look at the people around you, and remember that it could have been and could still be any one.
I went back over the piece, and I don't see a single claim for originality, even implicit. What am I missing?
When someone writes something well, it tends to look new because one finds new aspects of old events or experience. Could that be it?
Writing well is not the same as stopping a war, but it could get you some company in the next cell.
In reference to your previous post, above, I do not think the peace movements and protests have failed to do anything, not at all. "Failure" in such events is exactly as relative and problematic as "victory." Success and particularly partial success is particularly difficult to measure when you are trying to *stop* something from happening. It would be past uncharacteristic for the government to phone you and say they killed fewer civilians because you chained yourself to a fence. But if you doubt your partial success yourself, ask yourself why the government isn't carpet-bombing. I mean, it is not for a lack of equipment or because it abuses their sense of aesthetics, is it? And it's not like the US gov has decided to rely on psyops; I mean, here we hear a lot of drivel about hearts and minds here in the States, but if you were running an ad campaign, you wouldn't blow apart people's homes and wedding parties, would you? The US gov't still wants to finesse Americans, Europeans, and probably the monied Chinese, but not Iraqis or Afghans.
I will grant that stopping a larger attack is little consolation to the mothers of DU-impaired infants or the survivors of well over a million beloved and dead Middle Easterners. But It is very, very good news to they millions of others who have been saved, at least for the moment.
We do not and will not know who they are. But have a look at the people around you, and remember that it could have been and could still be any one.
Is there any champion of progressive causes in this country, Hedges or perhaps Michael Moore, that is safe from attack by supposed fellows of the "left" because they are ten degrees to left or right, or because of some variance in method, or because the critic wants to publicly demonstrate his personal purity and virtue? Since the red scares of the forties and fifties, what remains of the left has been successfully fragmented, each of those fragments nipping at the heels of the other. Hell, a COINTELPRO is not necessary for us, we conduct our own program.
Tony Vodvarka
TV, your comment sadly is SOOOOOO onpoint..... it so clearly comes true on the daily threads on this CD website....... the nitpicking and showing off, the overposting yet unrivaled erudition and cleverness of far too many well-read intellectuals and not so well read wannabees,--some of whom lack the tolerance or possess the empathy to recognize the essentiality of emphasizing our common dreams: our UNITY over our piddling differences!
I see Chris Hedges as the supreme phamphleteer-essayist-journalist of our time of Growing Darkness, bar none!
I never wanted to get thrown into the sectarianism myself, but as soon as I arrive, proud Liberal that I am (with definite socialist leanings) I got pounced upon for being the facilitator of the imperialists, and the likely cause of a second rise of world fascism. No cointelpro needed indeed.
The fact that we're not meeting in person would proclude in my mind, the jumping to quick conclusions as to where others are coming from, but not here.
One word is enough for people to fill in all the gaps, and paste whatever caricature they prefer on others, assuming them opponents before they consider them comrades.
"the nitpicking and showing off, the overposting yet unrivaled erudition and cleverness of far too many well-read intellectuals and not so well read wannabees...."
Simonsez
"Since the red scares of the forties and fifties, what remains of the left has been successfully fragmented, each of those fragments nipping at the heels of the other..."
Tony Vodvarka
Ouch! I suspect we are all guilty of this variation of madness, after all, most of us are products of this hyper-capitalist and competitive culture.
Very perceptive and helpful comments Tony and Simonsez.
I'm keeping this short!
RTT,
This action isn't working becasue only a handful (and in a nation of 300 million, a few thosand is, indeed, an handful) are doing it.
But what if just 0.33 percent of the US population, about a million, sat down blocked every entrance to the White House, and refused to move - a 3/4 mile thick mass of people encircling the WH? Surely that would be effective, right?
So, the problem isn't the tactic itself, it is getting enough people to turn out to make it effective. The strategy to make it effective remains the same - organize, organize, organize! The discussion that is needed how we can most effetively organize.
This past long weekend, I have been combing through old e-mails going back to 1999, regarding my involvement in global-economic justice, anti-war, anti-Iraq sanctions, and the Green party/Nader campaigns. I have always fould that memory is not a particularly reliable thing and our memories of the past are often colored by the present. So, what what I found that I had forgetten was how, from 1999 until Sept. 12, 2001 all these movements (at least in Pennsylvania) were growing and working like a well-oiled machine, then, in the span of a few days, the wild, mass-paranoid war-drum-banging hysteria, starting on Sept 12, 2001 and onward, scattered these movements like a gale on a pile of fall leaves. What is important to note is that it wasn't the events of Sept 11, but the reaction afterward that did the damage. By Sept 16, a huge mass mobilization at the WB/IMF meeting in DC planned for Sept 30, bigger than the previous one on April 15, 2000 was cancelled without as much as an explanation from the organizers - the organization itself just sort of folded and vanished.
We are long overdue to get out of this funk.
I will point out one tactical thing related to the role of the internet that I discovered. I found, in those days before blogs were invented, that e-mail lists were far-more effective organizing tools in terms of getting interested and talented people to meetings and maintaining an action network. The next most effective tool were web forums which also are falling into disuse. In an e-mail list there isn't all this pernicious, destructive anomynity of the blogs - the persons on an e-mail list are real people in one's immediate community. Both of these have been largely replaced by anomynous random commenting on blogs or news sites that seem to be designed to lead to atomization rather than bringing poeple together.
One poster expat suggested everyone driving their cars to DC.
This would paralyse the city, even if one were stopped at checkpoints it would still bring paralysis until the dozers cleared the roads, but if done during commute alot of politicians cars would also be bulldozed.
This is the tactic often employed with Large Trucks or Farm equipment in France and it would be most beneficial to recruit Truck unions and Farmers.
Perhaps if everyone bought clunkers for this purpose.
For those who could not afford clunkers, we could have Clunkers for Freedom Fund Raisers.
See I just proved one need not possess a brain in order to have thoughts.
Whoa partner! Read 2:06 I am honoring your suggestion,you should be proud that your obviously ahead of your time.
Also think about how many can realisticly afford to abandon their primary vehicle?
Most are dependent on their vehicle to be able to earn a living.(very few USA places have decent mass transit).
And most cannot replace their primary vechicle.
Are we expected to bankrupt ourselves in one action?
Not very strategic.
Read I am talking about abandoning thousands of vehicles, no problema if you have access to mass transit but most likely bankruptcy if you have no job and are dependent on a vehicle for everything but air.
Read you're very trying.
You have no clue to my ethnicity. Or should I say the only clue is false.
Again foolishness is not a useful part of war, survival is as you well know.
And power is, as you also well know
One foolish action will not crumble the edifice, only many sustained wise actions.
One must retain ones power as one deminishes the others.
Try to hate without hurting yourself.
Not that, that is ultimate but it is a good starting place.
Read 8:16 OK OK Lots of thanks, we do not deserve it but appreciate your help immensely.
read 9:09 Hey that was sincere!
Are you planning on abandoning all thousands of cars Glenn? Or just "talking about" it?
"So, the problem isn't the tactic itself, it is getting enough people to turn out to make it effective."
Too true.
But how would a monster traffic jam help to get rid of the Congress?