In response to Chris Hedges' recent proposition that "serious revolt is the only option," my friend -- himself a tireless and courageous lifelong activist devoted to decent cause -- asks: "How do we get people into the streets?"
Firstly let's posit that Chris' statement is not only valid but predictive. Then the problem of why we can't get people into the streets is:
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(1) The most-afflicted by the system of contemporary America are too busy working two or three jobs to provide food and rent for their families,
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or (2) afraid their pitiful "social benefits" will be threatened,
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or (3) genuinely afraid that any protest no matter how passive will expose them to uniformed thuggery or imprisonment, they are understandably simply scared,
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or (4)protest flies against the "good citizenship" they are taught in school,
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or (5) their churches refuse to address "politics," the churches having become part of the system, and which incidentally also appear to exclude war from the admonition of the Sixth Commandment,
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or (6) protest can be considered "unpatriotic" and counter to the "Support Our Troops" propaganda and thereby to its sacrosanct agency, i.e. the federal government,
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or (7) which appears to be the largest factor: the dominant proportion of the active electorate is addicted to the partisan compulsion that -- all things considered -- "our guy" is better-than or lesser-evil than "their guy," and is the only moral and sensible choice, with the partisans usually in complete ignorance but at times in fierce opposition to the proposition that both "guys" are in fact indentured to the same masters, and will perform accordingly, with all genuine outcomes for the Republic and its People be damned!
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or (8) any combinations of any of the above.
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With all this, there is still hope. It's simply not the case that revolutions (Oops, the "R" word!) require massive public support. America's (Goodness, we actually had one?) first one was inspired by a meager bunch of criminal hotheads in Massachusetts, supported by some quite elegant and prosperous landowner gentry who gathered in Philadelphia, and maintained by a scruffy bunch of shoeless traitors led by a tall gentleman on a handsome horse in snowbound Valley Forge. Russia's revolution -- contrary to the manufactured but quite false Massive-Communist-Conspiracy construct -- was ignited by a single company of misbehaving cadets from the local naval academy. So there is hope after all.
Photo by Rob Kall
But what do we have going for us thus far in the face of meager public participation, self-destructive partisan zealotry, and our very government's indenture to exploitive masters? Our biggest advantage is that the masters are not satisfied, never will be, in fact are incapable of suppressing their lust for more riches and power, and therefore must successively wring out more from the people's ever shrinking portions of subsistence and decency of prospects -- so to more sweeten their Cayman accounts, add another wing to their Long Island mansion, a larger yacht, perhaps even a more glamorously crafted bedmate, expand their corporate land holdings by another thousand square miles (yes; thousand!) etc, ad infinitum. All this will proceed until we are forced by the escalation itself to decide upon stopping the treachery.
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In the interim, we have some outstanding help and leadership in the decent course by such as you, and perhaps the world's leading political writer and columnist in Chris Hedges, possibly the world's most prominent political scientist and voice for social justice in Noam Chomsky, and even an emerging political voice and third-party presidential candidate in Jill Stein, whom we must not denigrate but reflect upon the fact that most major parties in our history began no more respectfully than "third" in partisan support.
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But our biggest support for decent governance remains from those who cannot deny themselves escalating the treachery and thereby running awry the proposition: A people will revolt but only when their condition becomes absolutely intolerable.
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Yes, escalate their treachery they will, as they must. Then decent citizens will have their day. The people will indeed come into the streets. And they will take back the people's house. Then the world will gain one more decently governed nation -- ours! And humanity will rejoice to new hope for survival.
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