Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.
It’s been a while since I’ve said this, so here goes, in two parts. First, the Occupy movement is helping create space for vital public conversations. Second, the Two Party Front for the Oligarchy becomes more powerful with each passing election cycle. We have the opportunity / need to name the unclothed emperor, and learn again that “questioning authority” isn’t just for the young. Unless, maybe, we have delusions of actually being a part of 1% approved “authority.”
Both have everything to do with the 2012 elections. They have everything to do with childish campaign ads; with Citizens United, “social welfare” organizations and obscene amounts of money spent on political marketing, and with “swing states.” They have everything to do with austerity, unemployment, fracking and off-shore drilling, health care as a commodity, and financial institutions destroying, with impunity, the lives of millions. And we mut not forget the profits of war.
Chris Hedges has become one of the most widely recognized voices related to the Occupy movement. One recent example, How to Think, begins:
Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths. Artists, writers, poets, activists, journalists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, directors and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster. … They are dismissed, or labeled by the power elites as subversive … . They expose the ruling elites as hollow and corrupt. … They challenge the easy clichés we use to describe the nation—the land of the free, the greatest country on earth, the beacon of liberty—to expose our darkness, crimes and ignorance. They offer the possibility of a life of meaning and the capacity for transformation.
… if a culture loses its ability for thought and expression, if it effectively silences dissident voices, … it dies. It surrenders its internal mechanism for puncturing self-delusion.
We have options. Two of them: seize the public spaces for conversation, and help create “the capacity for transformation”; keep quiet about what the Oligarchy is doing, keep going in the direction which sees the tiny handful of people at the top continue to accumulate yet more wealth, while a growing number of people are forced to live (or not) on less and less – starting, of course, at the very bottom, but clearly moving “up” the economic ladder, submerging “working poor,” “lower middle class,” “middle class” …
Last week I quoted Jerome Roos, at Roar Mag, ‘Yo soy minero’: the miners light the way of the struggle. What he writes regarding the miners in Spain is relevant to us, to We the Electorate, who need to use opened spaces to recreate our We the People roles.
In the miners we see our … class consciousness that at some moment we lost or had taken away from us, the possibilities for collective struggle … .
Whilst we ‘set ablaze’ social networks, miners set real fire to barricades on the motorways. Whilst we call a strike every two years, with no great conviction and above all without continuity, the miners opt … for an indefinite strike lasting weeks. … Whilst we await the next anniversary to go back and take the squares, they set down in the Puerta del Sol after having made the squares of all those towns they passed through their own. …
Because of all this, the government cannot allow the miners to win this contest: because if they triumph, they will be giving a bad example to the rest of the workers … . Hence the immense police repression against the miners and their criminalisation in the media.
There is a great deal of such actions taking place, but of course we’ll never know it, dependent on the MSM. From Robert Hunziker, at Adbusters, “Capitalism in Crisis”:
The evidence is … hundreds of thousands of people in the streets chanting … ‘End the Oligarchy’ in NYC, ‘Democracy Not Corporatization’ in Paris, … ‘Fraud and Poverty’ in Madrid, ‘Hands Off Our Pensions’ in Athens, tens of thousands demonstrating in front of Indonesia’s presidential palace in Jakarta demanding a decent living wage, tens of thousands of students in Santiago protesting the profiteering in the state educational system, hundreds of Malaysian lawyers staging street protests opposed to governmental plans to ban street rallies … .
And from the “Red Square” protests in Quebec, via The CLASSE Manifesto:
Democracy, as viewed by the other side, is tagged as « representative »… . This brand of « democracy » comes up for air once every four years, for a game of musical chairs. While elections come and go, decisions remain unchanged, serving the same interests: those of leaders who prefer the murmurs of lobbyists to the clanging of pots and pans. Each time the people raises its voice in discontent, on comes the answer: emergency laws, with riot sticks, pepper spray, tear gas. When the elite feels threatened, no principle is sacred … : for them, democracy works only when we, the people keep our mouths shut.
It isn’t that we shouldn’t pay close attention to the 2012 elections. But if that’s all we pay attention to, we don’t know what’s going on. Not only does the Emperor have no clothes, neither does his (with the occasional “her”) court. Much of the national media and analysts not only fail to see the nakedness, they’re only scantily clothed themselves. And yet somehow We the Electorate talk about the great outfit My Guy is wearing and what a clown suit Not My Guy is wearing; and watch Generic Corporate News marketing / reporting without noticing the unclad or nearly naked condition of Emperor, court, “reporters” and “analysts.” Maybe before watching the “news” we should first take a look in the mirror?
(Declaration To Open Eyes poster via Occupy Pix)
Absolutely true, Joyce.
For me, it’s like the Super Bowl or World Series, even the college bowl games. No pays attention to the policies, but picks the Big Team in the Presidential Super Bowl.
Inconsistencies and out right lies and bad policies matter hardly at all. “My team” must beat “Your Team” becomes the battle cry!
“‘My team” must beat ‘Your team’” about sums it up. Unfortunately.
I saw Hedges on Bill Moyer’s show over the weekend, he’s even more depressing than I am. He pretty much suggested that America was on the way to becoming a corporate slave state and it was almost to late to stop it. He did not stop there; he went on to talk about corporate globalism and how this had set them free from the confines of nationhood. They are now well positioned to abuse international populations, to mix and match if you will, to get the desired output for the desired cost structure.
A few weeks ago there was a piece on Truthdig in which the author compared the U.S. to the Weimar Republic. He suggested that Weimar was not brought down so much by the depression and inflation but by corporate titans and their wealthy investors who did not think democracy served their purposes. Thus they came up with a plan to undermine the government with right wing extremist groups both inside and outside the government. Koch brothers and the Tea Party anyone?
I read the transcript from the Moyer’s / Hedges conversation. And I’d have to join you in saying, about myself, that Hedges may be (I’m qualifying for myself, you notice) “more depressing than I am.” He’s absolutely relentless in pointing out the ways “corporate globalism” is becoming more and more dominant, the absolute necessity of challenging that, etc. I don’t always agree with him, but I do think he’s one of the very important voices right now.
And I read that Truthdig article, too, about the Weimar Republic. I don’t find it at all difficult to see similarities with what’s happening now, globally.
That sports analygy is so appropo here. I was thinking the same thing. That is what this all has come down to. And, we treat them the same at our peril as the political stakes are so critical to our very survival and sports are not.
Great post, Joyce.
It isn’t that we shouldn’t pay close attention to the 2012 elections. But if that’s all we pay attention to, we don’t know what’s going on.
Not only because we are not only lied to but omissions are made so that we don’t get or see the entire picture. Also, our own partisan prejudices oftentimes make us short sighted so that we don’t want to see the entire picture.
Not only does the Emperor have no clothes, neither does his (with the occasional “her”) court. Much of the national media and analysts not only fail to see the nakedness, they’re only scantily clothed themselves. And yet somehow We the Electorate talk about the great outfit My Guy is wearing and what a clown suit Not My Guy is wearing; and watch Generic Corporate News marketing / reporting without noticing the unclad or nearly naked condition of Emperor, court, “reporters” and “analysts.” Maybe before watching the “news” we should first take a look in the mirror?
It cannot be said better than this, Joyce.
Maybe before watching the “news” we should first take a look in the mirror?
Ouch.
That says it all right there. God forbid we use the same critical eye on our own selves, personal/political/social beliefs as we turn our eye on others and voice our criticisms. This is especially relevant for Americans because we fictionalize so much of whom and what we are as a people and country which cripples us to react to the intolerable. And, what has been happening to the 99% of us over the past 40 years is only now starting to shake and wake us up from our consumerist stupor and American fairy tale we needed to see and treat as intolerable. But, so far the majority of us haven’t.
Chris Hedges has become one of the most widely recognized voices related to the Occupy movement. One recent example, How to Think, begins:
Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths.
And, that laundry list of “American attributes” (you posted) we think of our country and ourselves as encompassing have been diminished (if even each of them were ever true) or have disappeared altogether like the positive side of the vision of a Robert Moses, for example.
We need to take a good look at ourselves not just in the personal but as to who we are in the greater scheme of things as Americans. Do we want to look inward or outward or both? Do we want to be a first world power? I honestly don’t even know if collectively we can say who we truly are as a people if we ever could although we keep yapping about it all the time.
I have numerous disagreements with Chris Hedges but I respect him. He’s not just an academic breathing that rarefied air. He’s a person who’s gone out in the world and put his life on the line and gone beyond the duty of a journalist.
Bill Moyers interviewed Hedges on Moyers and Company Sunday here: http://tinyurl.com/c75gx2n For those who didn’t see it, it’s worth a look.
“what has been happening to the 99% of us over the past 40 years is only now starting to shake and wake us up from our consumerist stupor and American fairy tale we needed to see and treat as intolerable”
There is some shaking and waking going on, definitely. One way of knowing that is looking at the militarized police crackdowns on Occupy. Along with the dismissive and derisive labels applied.
I don’t always agree with Hedges, either, but with you, I respect him. And I think he’s one of the people providing another way to open the public spaces to something different, something other than the familiar and comfortable stories we tell ourselves.
Are there actually people in America who think we have a good-quality rail system? Hard to believe that one, because we’ve been behind Europe and Japan in the quality of our passenger rail service for decades.
Anyway, as we used to say, it’s time to think outside the box when it comes to politics. Yet all the attention on the largely meaningless horse race of 2012 makes it pretty clear that not enough of us are doing that.
I think the list includes a number of things that aren’t likely believed by most people, but I’m also fairly certain that as a whole, the list would have lots of believers.
I also think you’re correct, that “not enough of us” are yet ready to exit the box that’s build by unquestioned acceptance of that list that tells us “we’re number one!” And that gets me back to something we’ve talked about before: what will it take?
“FOCUS…FOCUS…FOCUS”!!
Evening Joyce
The spirit and concern is far reaching, and global…miners in Spain, protesters in Jakarta…Santiago…Occupy in NY. When we think of the fanancial and demoralizing state of our present social and economic situation we realize that all of these events are linked together, the entire economy now is global…the powers that be have made it so. There are still heavy death tolls in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the out sourcing of jobs, to my knowledge, are still on the rise!
I have always considered this time (election) to be the most distracting and confusing times to the American public…the worshiping of the most prestigious CEO position in America,and the erasing of any logical thinking of every American “voter”.
Richard Wolf, Naomi Klein, John Perkins, along with Tavis Smiley and Amy Goodman
are among the writers I read most…they all speak of the global “FOCUS” that we are forced to be aware of.
I appreciate these types of mediums that give unherd voices an opportunity to share with one another which corporate owned media has all but destroyed in our country.
Doesn’t that make you feel just a “little” revolutionary?
Hi Antonio.
“The spirit and concern is far reaching” — oh yes it is. World wide. And yet we hear next to nothing about most it, even when it’s happening in the U.S. Obviously I don’t think that’s an accident.
I very much like the people in your list of “writers I read most.” I’m actually sometimes rather amazed at how much very good thinking, conversing, analyzing, as well as planning and strategizing of activists, is going on. And I’m frequently rather frustrated at how unknown this is because, of course, the MSM is so very tied into the corporate elections / governance systems.
“Doesn’t that make you feel just a ‘little’ revolutionary?” More than a little, actually