I am looking for positive things to put up here, and scanning the political horizon, there is not much. But there are protests going on, and that is a good thing.
We live in a thought-controlled culture, so that protests are usually seen by the mainstream as aberrant or even goofy. The media adds to this perception by showing the freakiest elements they can find. There are only two ways to keep those who have broken free of thought control in check – marginalization, and violence. The New York police Department, which is protecting criminals inside the buildings of Wall Street from protesters outside, seems aware that violence only feeds the movement.
The complaint most often voiced about Occupy Wall Street and it’s offshoots is that it is mere free-floating anger without an agenda or objective. That is a valid point, but the absence of an agenda should be expected in a nascent movement. If it is going to amount to anything, coalitions must form, leaders must emerge, and thinkers must start forming blueprints. But for now, just the overcoming inertia and breaking free of thought control is a big step.
Movement politics is the only thing that ever produces change. We were just discussing our old home state of Montana today. In that state there is a decades-old battle between corporations that want to exploit public lands, and well-organized and effective environmental groups who know the law and legal procedures. The powerful corporations have been stopped time and again by lawsuits and other legal maneuvers. They exert their influence through bought politicians like Senator Max Baucus and former Senator Conrad Burns. Jon Tester replaced Conrad Burns in the Senate, but nothing changed – that is, the corporations are now working through him instead of Burns to achieve the same objectives.
The point is that elections come and go, faces change, but the real action is not played out in electoral poltics. It is done by organized and educated groups. The distaste often expressed against environmental groups (“whackos”, etc) is merely anger at their effectiveness.
People remember the 1960’s as a decade of turmoil where there were large protests against the Vietnam War. That is true, but those protests were not effective. The war continued until April of 1975. Popular power could not defeat the military-industrial complex. It merely drove it to alternative tactics, causing them to shift from ground action using human fodder to carpet bombing. The toll on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos was devastating, so in that sense it could be said that the protests cost millions of lives.
The real and fruitful action of that era was organization in civil rights, women’s rights, environmental protection, workplace safety, consumer and pension protection and better Social Security benefits. It all played out beneath our sight lines. The president who signed most of that legislation was Richard Nixon. He was no progressive. He simply understood power. Vetos would do no good.
It’s mostly undone now, and the population that has come of age since that time is atomized and poorly informed. It’s hard to get a movement going when most people cannot even guess the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. A great deal of the action of the 1960’s was not in carrying signs, but rather meeting and learning about issues and how to be effective in getting things done.
That has to be done again. It’s a huge task. But we seem to have a beginning. It’s a long road ahead, but signs on the ground are positive. Free-floating anger is beginning to coalesce and focus.
Piece of Mindful 
The French revolutionary, Georges Danton, observed: “La révolution dévore ses enfants,” before he fell victim to the axe.
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Finding and mending souls in a sea of greed, fear and violence is tough work, but it has begun. Soon, we may demand to see that our politicians have a soul. First, we must be kind to each other long enough for souls to mend. If Vietman and Cambodia can do it, so can we.
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Why the assumption that your political opponents have been co-opted by corporate interests?
Why the assumption that corporate interests are different from individual interests?
Why the assumption that environmentalist haven’t been co-opted by the same corporate interests?
Example: One of the most popular pickup truck engines was the Ford 7.3 liter diesel. Alas, pollution controls of a marginal nature chased it out of the market. Its replacement, the 6.0 and 6.4, were major duds with many unhappy customers. Who wins here? Seems the winners are the permanent bureaucracy promulgating such rules and Ford’s competitors who used the regulations to gain market share. Customers are screwed.
The real and fruitful action of that era was organization in civil rights, women’s rights, environmental protection, workplace safety, consumer and pension protection and better Social Security benefits.
Were these really “wins”, and if they could not be sustained, maybe it speaks to a deeper problem.
Civil rights, women’s rights, workplace safety, and consumer protection look largely like a lawsuit generating industry with the result being simple wealth transfer. Better SS benefits? Just paying ourselves more with added fraud in SSI.
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That our political opponents have been co-opted by the corporate interests is not speculation or
assimilationassumption, Fred.There are mountains of evidence to that effect. And corporate interests are very different from individual interests – corporations are non-democratic institutions that exist, by law, solely to make money for their stockholders.And you are right that some environmental groups have been co-opted by corporate interests. Much of that has been done by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the legacy of an oil millionaire. Montana Wilderness Association went down under that money, and is cooperating now with Tester.
But I agree with you that the fine lines I cut in my writing are far more blurred, as you continually point out to me, and that’s fair.
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Corporations are non-democratic institutions that exist solely to make money for their shareholders
Some corporations are better than others. The better ones are sensitive to customer needs, since in the long run satisfied customers usually wins out over upset, angry customers.
Feedback in gov’t agencies is often less customer friendly than in corporations. And the worst is a corporation backstopped by gov’t. Thus Goldman Sachs actively screwing its customers. Amazing.
Anyway, we’ve got a world that is organized to benefit the high bidder and the low bidder, and often the most ruthless rise to the top. I’m not sure what to do about this. I’m open to the idea of more gov’t control, but this often puts another kind of ruthless person in power.
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Of course some are better than others, but you limit your concerns to customers. There are others involved – the public, employees, government, all of whom are affected by corporate activities. Externalities matter.
And let’s separate public companies from privately held ones, and mom and pops, who are indeed more likely to reflect their owners. Every quarter publicly traded corporations have to have a telephone conference with bankers and research people about their activities, and the pressure is applied to maximize earnings. It may be that the CEO of GE may be a nice guy who loves his family, but under that pressure, he will send whatever jobs he can overseas. Otherwise he is out of work.
That’s why corporations are different from individuals.
Odd thing – government externalities often work to our benefit – infrastructure and schooling without private profit, where private externalities work to our disadvantage, pollution and failure to pay fair share of taxes.
That’s how I see it, and once again, for your and my purposes, these are sharp lines even though I know the world is more blurry.
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the pressure is applied to maximize earnings.
Isn’t everybody under this pressure, all the time, in ways real and metaphorical? Just because bankers and researchers call and want stuff, why should they get it? What do they know? Outsourcing has destroyed wealth in many cases, and we’re seeing those jobs come back.
government externalities often work to our benefit – infrastructure and schooling without private profit
The problem is that infrastructure and schooling tends to get over built/over funded once gov’t gets their hooks into the enterprise. Thus young people are in school half their life at inflated costs and we repave good roads for no gain on the pretext of creating jobs.
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Deeper problem? Ya’ think? Contentment seldom comes from a better truck engine. For those few, more power to them. Perhaps we are greater beings than the consumer box in which we’ve been imprisoned for so long. It takes prisoners of all kind time to adjust to freedom. Give them time to mend and they will choose freedom and maintain freedom. Some souls will “choose” to remain in the box longer than others. Some will never leave. I’m betting on new-found freedom from corporate/state abuse for hundreds of millions — then billions.
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