The drumbeat of bad economic tidings, both national and personal, is relentless. How much of it is the oligarch-owned "media" trying to make people throw the Democratic bums out in November is hard to determine. Some, definitely. But certainly not all, as anyone who's listened to a relative talk about their adult children having to move in with them because of lost jobs, lost homes, etc., knows. Or anyone who's talked to a bright, ambitious youngster who's heading for the military recruitment office because it's essentially that or burden already overburdened families--or starve.
And it's frustrating as hell to watch the guy we elected to make change pick his way with agonizing slowness through a minefield of partisan politics, oligarchy-owned media, and constantly materializing new crises, making little bureaucratic adjustments that might keep things from being a lot worse down the road but don't do diddly now. Even if we understand why, the misery all around us casts such careful incrementalism in a profoundly unsatisfying light.
Those of us who think in terms of political action, political solutions and strategies, are usually a minority. A frustrating fact which adds to our feelings of rage and impotence. The majority has always been difficult to gin up to the point where they can scare the oligarchs into allowing change, and those same oligarchs have been pouring billions into the effort to divide us to the point where it's even harder to imagine any kind of effective action bubbling up from the proletariat.
What are the reasons our fellow-citizens won't act? They are many. Here are only a few:
- "I'm too busy just trying to hold things together for my family. I don't have time to go to meetings or wave signs or whatever."
- "That kind of thing leads to violence. No matter how bad it is to be poor and hungry in a decaying neighborhood, it's worse to be poor and hungry in a BURNING decaying neighborhood where people are shooting or looting or whatever."
- "I don't want to make too much trouble because 'our guys' are in power and if I protest too much people will think I want the 'other guys' to be in power. Which I DON'T."
- "Yeah, I want jobs and decent schools and a way to provide for my family, but I don't believe in all that (fill in your choice of 'too far out for me' protest causes) stuff and those people always show up and hog the spotlight."
This makes strategizing any real kind of mass action difficult, to say the least. But we're not going to pry any meaningful change out of the oligarchs without it. And I, personally, would prefer it to be a kind of mass action that doesn't result in poor neighborhoods being trashed and burned and looted and a lot of innocent people killed.
So where does that leave us?
Well, these things take time. A long time, given where we are now. So I'm thinking about next summer. It will be an off year, harder to distract people with election-related promises of meaningless "change" tomorrow after our guys win, blah-blah-blah. A lot of people will be poorer, a lot of people will be even more angry and disappointed. Conditions might be right for successful mass action if:
A) It's the right KIND of action: Something everyone can do, something that involves some investment and a comparatively small element of risk, but isn't too scary or demanding.
B) It's removed from the partisan arena. This is tough, because we're so suspicious of each other that any kind of cooperation is, to say the least, unattractively scary for all concerned. Nevertheless, it has to include all parts of the spectrum and play on the things we CAN agree on: Jobs, dammit. Decent pay for decent work. No more corporate welfare at the expense of everyone else. That's all. If we try to load too much more onto it, or get dragged into the partisan quagmires of immigration, tax reform, etc., it'll fail. Keep it simple, keep it non-partisan. Don't let any of the high-profile demagogues on either side "own" it, until EVERYONE owns it.
C) It's non-violent, and planned/organized in such a way as to stymie the agents of the oligarchy in their usual attempts to smear, provoke, etc.
I'm thinking this: A NON-militant national strike. A three day period when, instead of showing up for work, everyone grabs an old blanket and some sandwiches and peacefully picnics on public property. No marching, no signs, no speeches. Just--no one shows up for work at the office, at the Mall, at the carpet-cleaning business or the dry cleaner or the summer school session or the motel. We're all just sitting peacefully in public spaces. Everywhere. In front of state houses, on the Capitol Mall, in parks, in schoolyards, everywhere that's not private property and doesn't obviously pose a hazard that would give the oligarchs a pseudo-legitimate excuse for suppression.
Three days when most people don't show up for work.
There WILL be incidents, of course, but the idea is to minimize them and to ensure that there is no shred of defensible legitimacy to actions by police, etc.
Yes, this will be an economic hardship for people who need every dime they earn at all three jobs every single day just to have a safe place to sleep. I wouldn't expect 100% solidarity. I wouldn't WANT 100% solidarity--EMTs, people who keep life-support systems running, etc., couldn't participate. Not the first time, anyway. But if even 60% of everyone who works at a job that isn't needed for immediate public safety or to support the life of a helpless person participate, it WILL stun the oligarchs and pry loose some change.
All we need is to get the momentum going. To reverse the crippling division, political infighting, depression and helplessness that keeps us docile.
I just put this out there. I don't expect anyone to do anything about it. It's just an idea, a possible plan. I'm not a great organizer, I have no connections or experience that would let me make it happen. But I'd happily commit to participating.
speculatively,
Bright
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