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Where's the Protest at Home?
On Saturday, I crossed paths with a few hundred protesters marching from Cambridge to Boston to call for the resignation of Egyptian President Mubarak. By appearance, they were a mixture of Arab-Americans, locals, and people from assorted other backgrounds.
The loud, peaceful march was almost startling, because you hardly see street protests in America these days, even in liberal Massachusetts. The Boston Globe quoted one Egyptian-American woman saying that middle class anger in Egypt has swelled with unemployment and inflation.
"You can't live a fairly decent life without being rich," she said.
In 2011, you might say the same about downwardly mobile America.
But where are the protests in our country? Where is the leadership connecting the dots... between the financial meltdown, the record profits and bonuses on Wall Street, the continuing collapse of home equity, the joblessness, and the assault on public services in the name of budgetary prudence?
For the moment, the small amount of citizen protest seems to belong to the Tea Parties. However, the Republican responses to President Obama's State of the Union address showed a total vacuum of plausible remedies.
Obama's own address was a blend of this president at his best -- invoking the aspirations that we share as Americans, some very nimble packaging of progressive themes in unassailable patriotic language -- but combined with a fair amount of needless pandering to the right.
As strategist Drew Westen parsed the speech at a recent conference of progressive Democratic legislators, some passages seized the political high ground and then defined it in a progressive way.
We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It's how we make a living.Pitch perfect. What logically follows from the president's invoking of the history of American prosperity is a call for more public investment in 21st century infrastructure. This is not in-your-face partisanship, but the astute marketing of a progressive message and ideology that contrasts radically with the conservative one.Our free-enterprise system is what drives innovation. But because it's not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout history our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need. That's what planted the seeds for the Internet. That's what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS.
..... Our infrastructure used to be the best -- but our lead has slipped. South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do. Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports. Meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation's infrastructure, they gave us a "D."
We have to do better. America is the nation that built the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, and constructed the interstate highway system. The jobs created by these projects didn't just come from laying down tracks or pavement. They came from businesses that opened near a town's new train station or the new off-ramp.
But then the president said this:
Now that the worst of the recession is over, we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable. Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means. They deserve a government that does the same.My friend Westen was incredulous. Why would a Democrat give aid and comfort to a right wing ideology that is also wrongheaded economics? Why sacrifice Medicaid and programs for kids for the sins of the bankers? Why add fuel to the right's attack on public employees?So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. This would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we have frozen the salaries of hard-working federal employees for the next two years. I've proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs.
People watching the speech rightly wondered: How do you freeze domestic spending -- and also dramatically increase outlay on 21st Century infrastructure? How do you win public support for more desperately needed public investment when you brag that you will reduce domestic spending to its lowest share of the economy since the Eisenhower years?
In the 2008 election, people with incomes of under $50,000 supported Obama and the Democrats by wide margins. But the kind of mixed messaging in the president's State of the Union address reinforces political anomalies such as the 2010 mid-term election, where white working class voters supported Republican House and Senate candidates by a staggering margin of 30 points.
The administration's mixed signals on aid to Wall Street are so potent that in the 2010 election, a majority of voters who blamed the collapse on Wall Street nonetheless voted for a Republican candidate for Congress.
On January 17, the New York Times published a letter to the editor from a woman named Susan Kross, of upstate New York, praising governors for "reining in labor unions."
The shocker was her concluding paragraph. She wrote, "I was reared on a family farm where pennies were always pinched, every day was a workday, and there was no such thing as a pension or vacations, let alone paid ones."
Such is the state of ideological muddle and confused self-interest that a hard working rural, middle-class American could disdain pensions and paid vacations as unnecessary luxuries too good for working people. This woman's family farm, if it has truly been in her family for generations, probably survived thanks to the New Deal. She gets her crops to market thanks to government-subsidized highways, and uses modern farming methods thanks to USDA. Her parents and grandparents, who benefited from Social Security, most likely did not share her contempt for pensions and paid vacations.
This moment cries out for a combination of clear leadership and mass protest.
The protesters shaking the foundations of despotic regimes in the Middle East are a blend of people who want radical Islam in temporary coalition with those who want western-style tolerance, democracy, and a semblance of honest and competent government. They are united only by their disgust with the corrupt status quo. But you have to admire them for acting on their frustrations.
This wave of citizen protest is a reminder that insurgent moments can break out and spread with little warning. But you never know whether a genuine revolution from below leads to a Jefferson, a Mandela, a Havel, a Roosevelt -- or a Hitler, Mussolini, or in current circumstances radical Islamists who reject everything secular, tolerant, and democratic about the Enlightenment.
The United States may possess more than half of the world's arms, but it is powerless to control this kind of popular uprising. As protest spreads and regimes that America propped up are toppled, we don't know whether the successor governments will be pluralist Muslim democracies like Turkey and Indonesia, radical fundamentalist states like Iran, or military dictatorships.
But half a century of American investment in strongmen like Mubarak to contain popular unrest is collapsing along with his regime, and US influence in the Middle East is very likely to decline.
President Obama took office with more good will in the Middle East than any recent president, just as he kindled a new generation of hope at home. It remains to be seen whether his administration can credibly identify the United States with the aspirations of hundreds of millions of ordinary Arabs, and thereby nudge a turbulent region in the direction of tolerant democracy rather than fundamentalist rage.
It also remains to be seen whether Obama can finally be the ally of drastic reform at home. If not, the domestic rage about the economy will continue to belong to the far right.
It's great to see Americans demonstrating in solidarity with ordinary Egyptians. But the next time I cross paths with a robust protest march, I'd like to see citizens protesting the wreckage of American prosperity by Wall Street and the too feeble response by our government.
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129 Comments so far
Show Allwait until there are mile-long lines for soup-kitchens.
Yes, now that recent college grads still can't get jobs after three years, many Americans' unemployment insurance benefits are ending, and more Americans will be evicted from their homes in 2011 than any other year in history, lets hope the US working class wakes up in 2011 and realizes that economic conditions for them will improve in spite of the Democratic and Republican Party actions, not because of any those parties' actions.
For those who are down and out, don't expect any help. The various statistic data will improve and Obama will be reelected in 2012. However, the pain and suffering will continue for the previous forgotten ones but, also for the newcomers. Welcome to the Americans Dreams. It is truly a dream.
The reason there are no protests is because we have become complacent with the internet. We send around brilliant emails that are totally useless, such as the popular one about making Congress live on the same terms as the rest of us. Who in their right mind believes that Congress will do this to themselves? It will only happen by petition - OR - protest. But we have become a bunch of easy chair internet junkies, feeding our minds with all that is good and bad, yet never getting out of our chair and actually doing something about it.
I am an old hippie, very familiar with the riots and protests of the late 60's early 70's. Where are the students? Where is the anger with the system? We are the biggest bunch of pussies on this planet because everything is handed to us on a platter, we are totally consumers, and nothing will change as long as we are satisfied to sit in our comfy computer chairs and write emails and blogs and comments on articles. Washington DC laughs at us.
Petition or protest. Take your pick. I suggest petition. The Constitution put it into place and nobody, not Congress or the Presidential veto, can stop it. Otherwise we are just a bunch of whiners.
NPR noted a phrase new to me yesterday, "slacker activism". Those who think politics is posting. The trend towards such as Twitter and Facebook finds its results being the isolation of us all and the inability to actually meet face to face and plan, organize and activate.
Perhaps this was the plan all along?
Protests that we have are mostly wasted on making life easier for illegals, to take what jobs we have left.
>^^<
I will not pretend that I have a clue as to what you mean. I do not. Neither, I suspect, do you.
If you fear the lines of a soup kitchen ,maybe we should be preparing ourselves, putting up food stores so that we do not have to sit with our hands out in line waiting and begging assistance from some Government agency to help us? Or worst starve because there is nothing left in the stores.
Yes, good point. Let's all grow our own food in our spare time. And stockpile canned goods like the fallout shelter enthusiasts did in the 50s. Seriously, we are in one boat on this and much else. Social problems require social solutions not marginal back to basics nonsense.
HERE IS WHERE ONE PROTEST IS>>>>>>>>>>
Friends- Detroit (Michigan, USA) area demonstration and public forum on the Middle East uprisings - David Sole
1. RALLY & MARCH IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT
Saturday, Feb. 5th, 2011 at 2:00PM
Meet at Dearborn City Hall at 13615 Michigan Ave. (Michigan Ave. and Schaefer Rd.) to demonstrate in solidarity with the people's movements in Egypt and across the Middle East.
* Solidarity with the popular uprising in Egypt calling for the ouster of the US backed dictatorship.
* End US military aid to Egypt and Israel, and end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
* End FBI repression against peace and justice activists and the Muslim communities.
bagenal, you must be very young and fairly well employed. As for non-existent overpaid non-profit social solutions...I asked a 'client/volunteer' at the local soup kitchen if he was planting a garden on his newly acquired land by gift, suggesting he could grow produce for the soup kitchen. His comment was "why should I do that work for food when I can just eat free at the soup kitchen." So much for a social solution.
This country needs a lesson in conscience, a social consciousness that is capable of changing people's selfish ways. I think that was what Jesus tried to teach and so far...well,busted......
and if you don't know how to do some of the 'back to basics', then you'll be like that lady in tent city Sacramento wanting a mirror to help apply her lipstick, which probably cost more than 2 good meals at Applebee's. Taking care of yourselves and your families' needs is pretty damn basic. So good luck people.
http://www.citizen-soldier.org/
see for current US soldier efforts to right the wrongs
Cancel this Sunday's Super Bowl, and watch the Second American Revolution begin!
Strange, just a few months ago Kuttner was telling us all to STFU and accept Obamacare as the second coming of the New Deal.
Really, Common Dreams shames itself by reprinting the words of this Party hack.
Yes.
The problem with "Obama Care" is that it involves insurance companies. We're tired of paying for insurance executives golfing holidays in Hawaii, or their yachts in the Caribbean. All the American people deserve cradle to grave medicare and the way to accomplish that is to get the blood sucking insurance companies off our backs.
Grousefeather
One of my buttons affirms the validity of your insightful observation:
Universal Health Care: Putting People Before Profit
Excellent! I wish we could have your post read, verbatim, in Congress every time the subject of health care comes up.
You know that. I know that. Kuttner and his ilk have been telling us to STFU and like what our masters gave us.
The lessons of Egypt’s revolution are the same in virtually all revolutions. So long as there is a vibrant middle class, there is hope and stability. However, when the wealthy elite of any country destroys the middle class, its people are far more prone to violent revolutions.
In our own country, the wealthy 1-percent and the politicians who support them have stripped the middle class of their 401Ks and other pensions, foreclosed on their homes, sent their jobs overseas and are now threatening to eliminate social programs that put food on their tables. As our own aristocracy continues to destroy hope and stability by decimating the middle class, it is moving the flame closer and closer to the fuses that have ignited revolutions throughout world history.
Our political and business leaders should not be so sanquine as to think that American exceptionalism will protect them forever from the inevitable consequences of the political, economic and social injustices they have perpetrated on our own soil.
Old Guy
Nice points! And the "exceptionalism" of America which is nothing more that it has been as place where anyone could come and join the middle class or become an "elite" even if they came with nothing. But that opportunity is under attack by the very people "Old Guy" names.
Revolutions are historically bloody and usually resolved by the military, lets hope we never see that in our country.
Yet the absence of protest in this country seems to almost assure that, as the wealthiest continue to steal everything not nailed down, as things get increasingly harder for the majority of us, violent revolution will occur.
Anyone who thinks the Power of non-violent revolution that is happening in the Middle East will stay there, is in serious denial. Non violent revolution IS coming to amerika!
I fervently hope you are correct.
As do I. It is way past time. Kuttner sounds like he's really out of touch. There are vigils and demonstrations regarding various issues in Seattle, Portland and other West Coast cities and towns. Unfortunately not enough people are willing to get off their butts and out into the streets yet. It needs to happen soon. Perhaps on March 19th....
Old Guy
There were millions homes’ foreclosure in 2010, projected 25% more than last year. Family continues to struggle on. I guess the "middle class" (Dem) still hope for a turn around. I was recently attacked bluntly in CD when a poster said:
"As someone who has experienced low income life under Dems & Repubs, I can assure you that it is a little easier to be poor under the Dems."
My reply: "The Dem gave you crumbs and you are thankful? Get real will you?"
We will have to move on with the Law makers and people inactions. While the FATS cat’s Blankfein "his bonus increased by $3.6 million. ”Fat cats" continuation to plunder. We are a nation of looser and sheep. In 2012 the middle class will feel much better and vote Obama as the lesser of the two evils.
This is America, we the people create much of the problems but failed miserably to take corrective action. The MSM did an excellent job creating the illusion of the "American Dreams.”
It would be much easier for the poor, and almost everyone else, with a Green government. Why vote for any kind of evil?
Mr. Kuttner's nostalgia for "protest march's" is endearing. His rememberence of it's effects in our own country during the sixties inflated and his call for march's now misguided.
In the Middle East these people are in the streets because they have been living under oppresive government's OR there is high unemployment OR little expectation of upward mobility OR lack of food and necessities OR all of the above.
Trying to compare citizens of the US to this frame is a fool's ploy. If we faced the same circumstances, we would be in the streets and probably sooner than these folks were, but we are not in that situation or even in the neighborhood.
Trying to connect the dot's to blame the US or Isreal or anyone else is foolish. If there were a Palestinian state today, and Israel had been crammed back into its pre-1967 borders, would this week’s street revolt in Cairo look any different? Does the US or Israel, really have anything to do with the price of bread in Tunis, the unemployment rate in Cairo or the prospects for economic growth in Yemen? Only in the rush to fit events to ideology.
"we don't know whether the successor governments will be pluralist Muslim democracies like Turkey and Indonesia, radical fundamentalist states like Iran, or military dictatorships"
He hit the nail on the head here. I suggest you be careful what you wish for, you may not like what you get.
By the way, all the complaints about the influence of the US and how it's used bears some justification but the replacement influence may not suit you half as well as you think if and when they come.
Please read: "Killing Hope - US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" by William Blum, and reconsider what you wrote above.
And sourely, you are aware that the post Bretton Woods global corproate economic regime supervised by the IMF and World Bank alre also largely a US-directed institution?
Which brings to mind another book you should read - "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins.
democrats and republicans = mubarek
kuttner gets thrown out with the rest of the dems
To extend and elaborate on a sentence from the article, why sacrifice Medicaid and programs for kids for the sins of the U.S. war machine?
politics is not worth a single breath...
certainly not 500, or 1000, words, day after day, month after month, year after year...
go outside, look to the sky above your head, the living world all around you, and the ground beneath your feet...
Nice thought but today as I look out my window I see a foot or so of snow, it's 10 degrees and the forecast is for a major storm tomorrow. Good recipe for sitting here at my computer with a cup of hot tea and seeing which one of you can stretch my mind...
Speak for yourself. Many realize that political discourse is increasingly necessary, and solutions must be found to our slide towards fascism.
If you truly believe politics to be unworthy then why on earth are you here?
doubledee
There are millions "generalcommentator" "middle classes" who feel good as they still can have a "with a cup of hot tea" in 10 degree temp, while many families struggle on without homes, jobs and etc. The day will come when disaster strikes, and I will not shred any tear for "middle class" Americans. This is truly amazing.
I think you find the wrong target for your wrath. The Middle Class has been under attack for over a decade, its numbers are shrinking dramatically as it is generally the place where revolution and change are fomented.
to eat, drink, sleep, play and fuck...
Ah, I see the problem.
You're looking for craigslist, not commondreams.
Most citizens have as a resourse for information their own deep inner sense of truth. When those with political agendas try to blame "Wallstree" for the wreck that America has become, most peole know deep inside that this is not true. The truth in America is that we are responsible for the wreck. That is the only truth a democracy may proclaim. The masses are beyond tyranny even if the leaders are not.
So the leaders, a small handful of us who may fallen prey to this disease, but the masses keep proving, by refusing to march against their own people, against the 'other' that they are in some deep and wise way changed forever. This change must be capitalized upon, not by blaming the other, but by encouraging common people to unite for good, ignoring all that may or may not be bad. As long as the masses do not turn against the other, and realise that a small handful of people have no power to a mass united, we have hope still. For those of us who can see this as an opportunity, we can start the spark that awaits to become a flame. Lets march if we must, but lets march for ourselves, for our future, for something greater and forsake all past behaviours for what we now have within us. The power of good will that is over due to be birthed. A true day of wreckowning together and renewing together. Spring is here, time to grow, time to blooom.
Unbelievable.
Information is found inside of us?
As long as the people do not rise up there is hope?
The people rising up is "turning on each other?" (We would not want people to oppose Wall Street, you say. That would be "turning on each other," I guess, eh?)
We have democracy here?
The general public is at fault, and not the rulers?
We can see the connection here between various progressive themes, and see how those themes support the rulers against the general public. They are the same themes that the upper class apologists for Mubarak are using.
1. "Truth is found inside each one of us as individuals, not by organizing and addressing conditions and talking collective action.
2. That then seamlessly leads into blaming the general public for the things the rulers have done - they are no doubt insufficiently enlightened, although you do think their passivity and compliance are good things, apparently.
3. Complicity and complacency are seen as "wisdom" and as rising above the fray and being a superior person.
4. While blaming the general public - the suffering subjects of the empire: "we are responsible for the wreck" and this is "the only truth a democracy may proclaim" at the same time you tell us NOT to blame Wall Street. Could there be a more clear declaration of allegiance to the rulers and opposition to the general public?
Two Americas, your unbelievable take on what I am saying is your unbelievable take on it. What is your purpose in proposing such nonsense?
Another article in the same light
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/were-better-off-than-egyp_b_816080.html?ref=email_share
We're Better off Than Egypt -- Right? Let's Take a Look.
It is heartening to see that many of us recognize the irony of this event. I find myself watching on Al-Jazeera and mentally imposing those images on DC, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, etc.
I was at the support demo in SF Saturday and felt the hope from the wide spectrum of Egyptian and other Middle Easterners of all persuasions - elderly, children, men, women.
More than a few of us looked longingly, wondering if and whenever we would have the intestinal fortitude to take on our lords and masters.
curmudgeon99
I am from the Bay areas. I feel much better that you were at the support demo in SF Saturday. You represent us who were unable to be there. We lost our home and everything, wife lost his job and managed to hang on a temp job, she now live with my kid (junior yr in Davis), while I (retired) moved temp oversea to stay off the streets in SF. I thank you, and please continue to do what you can.
Where's the protest at home, good question!
Well, the so-called self proclaimed "progressives" decided to stop protesting once GW Bush was done and Barack H. Obomber was sworn in as president. That's for sure.
All the anti-War left has basically disintegrated, since the Democrats are now in charge of the Wars.
in-fact, this article didn't even touch the wars, so much as it did the "domestic freeze" Obomber spoke of in his SOTU address.
The only major protests, which were correctly mentioned, in this nation are those of the tea-parties, unfortunately the original form of the tea party, led by Ron Paul and the Peace movement has been mostly converted to a status quo form of republicanism, but even so these protests only get bashed by the left, as racist, or whatever else - the very ones who seem to be doing nothing themselves.(meanwhile during the Bush years, the left were just as hard on Him as the Right is now on Obomber)
It seems like Americans would rather fight amongst themselves, Left vs Right, "Progressive" vs "Conservative" then actually standing together and saying, hey we are going to have our differences, and that is truly what makes this country great, but let's be realistic, those in charge are screwing all of us, regardless of party affiliation.
And if we want there to be some money to be spent on "domestic" issues, like infrastructure, etc., maybe we should demand an end to ALL The WARS over seas, the Closing of the 700+ Military bases around the Globe and ALL foreign aid should be cut off, especially to those WAR Nations, like Israel and others that might use the money for other reasons than humanitarian.
Maybe more people here should start listening to the words of Ron Paul.
But no, what will happen after all the whining that takes place, people are going to still vote for Barack H. Obomber, as he will be the lesser of the two Evils, or on the flipside, Mitt Romney or someone like that will be voted for - in the end life will only get worse, whichever team is in charge and the bickering will continue ... until eventually America will become like Egypt or Greece or other parts of the world where life has become so desperate the last resort is to chaos & Riots in the streets.
EAK: Your post is rich in platitudes. Try reading Chris Hedges' "American Fascists," and then see if you still want to play cheerleader for the "Let's All Get Along," meme. It sounds eerily Obama-esque. You think you can find an area of compromise with those that chant death to liberals and progressives, those who think solutions are found at the end of a loaded gun? Sure. The indoctrination levels are so thick these days, for true progressives to reach across the aisle is like speaking Swahili to an Eskimo.
Ron has a lot good points, like anti-war, anti-drug war, keep our money here at home, etc.. But his Catastrophic Climate Change denial and anti-choice stands won't endear him to many on this site. Or the fact that the president of the John Birch Society was a special guest speaker at Paul's 2008 Presidential primary campaign in Minnesota,and Paul was the keynote speaker at the JBS 50th anniversary party. They are deal-killers for me, just like the first drone strike authorized by Obomber. Thanks for prompting me to check him out,tho. I thought he was just another TeaPartier, but now I know he's only partly insane.
eaKristofer,
Yours is probably one of the best comments and most balanced on this forum except for not funding Israel because IMO they are the only nation surroundd by mmillions who would seek to eleminate them.
why aren't there protests?
any thinking individual will see that this sentence is nonsense...
"You can't live a fairly decent life without being rich," she said.
the only way to get rich is to destroy the living world...
they argue for a single, sumptuous, multi-course meal before premature suicide...
as does the British student decrying tuition raises...they claim they seek fairness while seeking exception...
why would I do that?
fight, rather, for the land, and feed yourself forward...
the window within which our world remains viable is closing...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...
La Ti Dah,
"We spend more than we take in". What present government in the entire world doesn't? It seems that the lot of governments of the world is to take more than they can collect.
We have lost all creditability because everything that governments do is for nothing.
Try doing something in Yemen for about 10 times less than the price of doing something in England. The Yemenis should get a PLUS value in the world economy...and it's about time.
We're at Costco