Sit down and hold on…but don’t panic or despair! I am about to throw the ice water of gloom and doom all over you. If you are not in the mood, allow me to redirect you …here.
BUT
Doom and Gloom is not reason for despair! Perhaps. Perhaps…it is the beginning of something new. Change, after all, is not like turning on a flashlight and changing darkness into light. REAL change (as most of us have suspected all along) will take the building of a new kind of light. A very very new kind of very very powerful light. And that will take time. And a distinct lack of despair.
On to the ice water.
(Note, this is complex, so please read closely and don’t jump to conclusions….stick with me through the end, or bail right now!)
We will see if The Generals win on Afghanistan.
Other than that, it looks like after nine months of gestation, the evidence is in. Okay that is overstating it…The TRENDS are in.
And so far, all the trends are really bad. The Financial sector, where the Recession has been declared over…for the Banksters…while we still have out of control unemployment for The People.
The Democrats won’t help and Obama is looking powerless.
The Ruling Class wins, The People lose.
Health care, where the ConservaDems had to expose themselves to do it, but the corruption and Class War is on Naked Display. The good Dems are too few….and it looks like Obama is powerless to stop the bad ones.
The Ruling Class wins, The People lose.
The apparent impunity of The Torturers to the Rule of Law…and the far reaching and scary implications of that for a populace trying to rein in the Ruling Classes political minions.
The Ruling Class wins, The People lose.
From the action on Climate Change, it is apparent that NO ONE even wants to squarely face what is actually happening.
The Ruling Class wins, The People lose.
The Congress is too corrupt, the media is too complicit in the corruption and while Obama IS a significant change….compared to Bush….It is obvious that he cannot, or will not, do very much about it.
The Blogosphere and MSNBC has significant enough power to influence the conversation, but not to change it…or change the framing of it.
And….if we DID go into the streets, we would be treated as Enemies of the State and gassed and sound cannoned and almost certainly, if the protests got large enough, Microwaved and rubber bulleted.
If the Generals get their Afghanistan surge, if Obama (the last hope) doesn’t step in and insist on a REAL Public Option, if he doesn’t somehow force through meaningful Financial Regs, if he doesn’t fire up the Anti-trust machinery on the InsCo and the Banksters, and if he doesn’t make a BIG statement on Climate Change and then follow through to at least get the Kerry/Boxer Bill through in a relative clean form…
Then the writing is on the wall.
If Obama is NOT a savior…we will not be saved….this time. I think he has really tried…in his way. He is the only one left who can really change the game. The best hope is that he takes these early defeats and changes his way.
Whatever you think of him… he is the only one in the drama to have NOT YET been proven corrupt. It is still possible that he is trying….in his way…to overcome the corruption. It is possible that he will see the futility of his way when faced with such huge odds. It is even still possible that his way will work, and that he WILL turn out to be a savior after all.
But
That would be miraculous.
Fortunately, we are due for a miracle.
But
..
..
I think it is more likely that the miracle will be us, The People….
Somehow.
The only way I can see through this swamp is failure, leading to success.
There are really only two scenarios (and as always, the Middle Way between them:
Some kind of miraculous turn around led by Obama saying Enough! and flexing his power in a take no prisoners, “I welcome their hatred” kind of way….
(Read that speech btw! The parallels are amazing!)
…and using the relatively small amount of us as allies to PUSH through change as FDR did.
Or
Enough of a victory on all fronts by The Ruling Class that a goodly enough number of American CitizensConsumers are finally roused from their slumber….enough of them really see what is happening and don;t just…as is ther wont….shrug and go back to sleep.
And WE find a new way to lead US out of the Corporate Wasteland that The Ruling Class are imposing upon us…..as they kill the planet.
A New Way.
The kind of New Way that has happened before, when things get bad enough to make people care.
Right now we are facing a grim reality of Corporate Control of every aspect of our lives. A control just BARELY tolerable enough to keep The People from acting.
But
If enough People stay unemployed while the rich grow obscenely richer, if enough people (heh, over stepped a bit there Max!) face jail time for not buying Insurance from the Corporations, if enough People catch on to the fact that the Imperial Wars are indeed nothing more than A Racket….
…and as Climate Change ratchets up and accelerates to the point where we can no longer pretend it doesn’t exist…
In other words when things get bad enough, and the causes (greed) get obvious enough…when there is enough Tragedy…humans…WE …will have to change. And WE will have to drive change.
Humans only ever REALLY change through tragedy.
We had hoped that that was no longer true, that the election of Obama would prove it untrue, that for the first time in history, humans COULD make real, intelligent changes…without having to suffer immense tragedies to spur them to it.
The trends look bad.
Enough of The People are still willing to accept the Corporate media narrative and be content with the Bread and Circuses. And the Path that that is leading us down is becoming all too apparent.
There IS still time for a miracle from Obama…but it is time to stop counting on it. It is time to start looking for a New Way.
No I don’t have the answer either! Yet.
But as more and more of The People who DID get involved in trying to change the System grow more and more disaffected with trying for change through the blatantly and nakedly corrupt, and now very much exposed, System, a System that even a transformative figure like Obama is proving to be powerless against (despite his good intentions) ….
…we will need to find a New Way to affect Change.
Without results, without real victories…and The Ruling Class doesn’t seem inclined to allow us any….The People are going to give up on achieving Change through the System. They WILL go back to feeling powerless.
And they will cede the field to The Ruling Class.
We…the few, the proud, the One Eyed Wo/Men in the Land of the Blind, we who DO see what is happening simply have to find that New Way and spread it to the rest of The People.
Because…SO FAR…this way just isn’t working.
Take a minute and really think about where the current trends are leading us. Take a minute and try to see a way through this mess to a good, prosperous, peaceful future for We The People…in the face of such naked aggression from The Ruling Class. Where is it leading? How can we change where it is leading? Or must we merely accept the world on the horizon that the Trends are leading us to?
Yeah…Doom and Gloom and no solutions.
Sorry.
But at least I am still holding out hope for a miracle!
As we look a decidedly non gift horse reality squarely in the mouth.
Obama himself has said it is up to us.
But even with everything that is going on…most of us, most of our nation’s People and The People of the world are still sleeping contentedly as our world changes around us. Most still feel powerless. most are still accepting the grim reality as it is, instead of rising up and flexing OUR power against the world that The Ruling Class has decreed for us.
How bad will it have to get?
How far down the slippery slopes will we have to slide?
Or do we HAVE to really hit bottom first?
For our purposes, it makes no difference.
We need to find…we need to BE the New Way no matter which scenario comes about.
And so far, we only have one clue in finding this Grail-like new way. We KNOW that it cannot be based on fear, greed, corruption and hate.
That is what got us to this brink we are standing on now.
We need to base this New Way…whatever it turns out to be, on the opposite of that.
And the opposite of that is….Love.
And in order to do that….no matter how bad things get, no matter how much tragedy we have to endure before there is a critical mass achieved amongst the people to produce a New Way based on Love.
We CANNOT, under ANY circumstances, surrender to apathy and despair.
It is still early, there is still a chance….but it is not too early to start to think of and act on a New Way of Changing the World if working through The System fails.
We simply cannot afford, the future cannot afford us to….lose this fight.
And the best way to lose is to surrender the new found power we have to apathy and despair.
Keep Fighting. No matter what.
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I’m in!
^^
OO
I didnt have to compose that email I was thinking about.
Just had to think it.
Cool.
Lighting the Way :
(Click on image for larger view)
changing things. But power has a way of stifling people, such as the Native Americans. They hit rock bottom and surely had enough of that, but couldn’t fight against that power. Same with slavery, four hundred years of it (modern slavery anyway). You couldn’t say that back then, that if only more of the slaves would have woken up to what was happening to them.
Great essay tho, very thought provoking, those are just some thots.
I love ya, man.
pudding they say. This is one God awful pudding, and the chief chef is MIA. He is a pol and that means he is not a savior, he is the devil we don’t quite know. Personally anybody who tells me the CEO’s of extortion are good people and in the next breath tells me I’m irresponsible because I can’t afford to pay the vig to the extortion industry that demands 1/3 of my income or I will die (not likely I’ll take my chances with real health not chemical and ping machines of fear) is not going to save anything but his bosses asses, and that sure as hell isn’t we the people…
Were just left of the left and as if to prove a point they are going to make the corporations people too so that we the people will all have to incorporate to be considered rel people and not just fringe trouble makers who get in the way of progress, defined as more useless profits for the Vandals who long ago stole all the handles. There is only one party now as far as I’m concerned and why would I support it’s fascist agenda?
Sorry to rave here but if I believed this was change I would be in despair, I’m not I’m simply done they broke the deal as Obama said when he like the weasel he is voted for FISA. Now I’m just pissed and determined not to let them get away with this bs diguised as a representative government and politics (fictional politics at that). The man is not powerless for Christ sake he’s the duly elected head of the country who swore to uphold the Law. I’m just not going to participate in democracy’s demise via despair or the insane facade our government has become, right and left.
In what way is he better then Bush besides being articulate and using his gift to speak with a forked tongue? We already lost this particular path of the fight. Me I’ll look else where and put my energy into coalitions that actually are we the people…. Hard to work for the entities you hope will keel right over as they are too big not to fall.
Says that Obama’s cabinet is full of those globo-corp-rats namely the Trilateral Commission so change does indeed lie in the complete fall of the empire.
While her version is a bit more of a rave, I think that Shaharazade has it about right. The President has quite a bit of control over certain matters,yet has consistently not delivered on his promises. In fact, the legal actions taken by Obama’s Justice Department, as everyone here knows, are in line with Bush’s and have seriously solidified the Bush positions on Presidential powers and many other things. Regardless of what he does or does not deliver on health care, we remain a country that is quite happy to ignore the rule of law when convenient.
I mostly lurk here and on Kos, and suspect that Buhdy is very soft on the President’s record to avoid too much upset on Kos. I don’t think this is productive in the long run. Obama will probably deliver something, sooner or later which makes Progressives happy, but his overall track record has done as much damage as Bush, in some areas, by legitimizing the Imperial Presidency. If we truly want change, we need to base it on a firm set of principles, and President Obama has already violated some of those principles (actually quite a few). Just because he may throw the Liberals a bone at some point is no reason to hold him out as a beacon of hope. He has already locked himself into positions that are very detrimental to Progressive causes.
you know it stands as a question whether humanity can enact and embody a humane civilization at all….
and especially above a certian scale (slope of the function of what amounts to an evolutionarialy delivered human metric)……….
what evidence do you see for the actual presence of the ability for more than a tiny portion of humanity to actually embody and enact a human civilization……
this metric is the source of our soc dynamics……..
if it is a quantity that is too large…..
or changes to rapidly…….
or is too far away in time or space…….
or if it falls too far away from the familiar……
a majority of us can not accurately engage their reality as it arises……
maladaptive paterns of action are hypercyclic(give great advantage)so soc ensues……
what this says is if we want to actually be adaptive then we must prepare for impact…..
if we were in a vehicle rushing at a wall we would brace ourselves…..
well we are in a vehicle that went off of a cliff almost twenty years ago……
if we were prudent we might want to brace ourselves so to speak……
I really did have hope but now the realization that the corporate strangle hold on the country is mighty, the whole system may have to break.
It is unbelievable to me, with what the country is facing, that self interest still trumps over doing the right thing.
I personally feel helpless as the castle crumbles around us. I do see a light and yet a glimmer of hope, not just in Obama but in so many who do truly care about others and doing the right thing. I know together we will come through it to the other side but damn I hate that so many have to suffer from here to there!
and smell the Republican and blue dog bullshit. He needs to give up the delusion that there will be bipartisanship on his agenda, what ever that is. I get a little confused that a Constitutional lawyer is still not enforcing the law and going after the criminals, Bush and Cheney, full speed. The wimpy, compromised position on HCR is dooming any real reform of the insurance and the guarantee of universal public option available to everyone. Is he or isn’t he supporting a public option? That changes by the hour depending who in the government is asked. My message to Obama
he said, only half-jokingly …
and my diatribe on that Not-so-Free Market, from a few years ago:
Free Money … and the American Dream
by jamess – Oct 07, 2007
Basically People are MORE than our bank accounts —
How to get from here to there, is always the question, for any Society.
Meaningful Jobs, and good support systems, are always a good place to start.
Obama just helped ensure that there will be more Brazilian women on TV in 2016 than ever before in history.
He’s only one man.
…I’m praying to Darwin.
The first thing, as I’ve indicated in this discussion is to face the facts as best we can. This is shown by the evolution of consciousness that has gone on her at this blog since it started. We have a rough outline of what is the case about our political situation. We differ on the edges. Not everyone wants to face what actually happened on 9/11 or the strength of the “underworld” that includes organized crime, “intelligence” operatives and, increasingly, the international corporate elite. We are facing the world of Rogue Economics. Misha Glenni has shown us through his investigations that around 15% of the GDP of THE WORLD goes to what we might officially call organized crime. That includes the slave trade (much of it involving sex-slavery), drugs, illegal and counterfit items and money, and a panopoly of confidence games that go on every day.
We face a world, essentially, run by criminals who do not care if we or the world is destroyed. They identify with each other not their countries of origin. We don’t have “threats” to our national security because we have given up our security to international gangsters. Electoral politics is bullshit and it is or can be easily fixed. These rulers play rough. If threatened they will kill large populations and loot the Treasury to do so (Iraq War).
This is serious shit Buddhy, not solved by civics lessons or thinking Obama or anyone in office will look favorably on us. They are all the fucking enemy. Some of them are nice enemies and will not torture us if they capture us but that’s about it. And I don’t want to say that Obama is “bad” or any of them really. I lived in Washington for nearly three decades and got to know all kinds of people including those very close to power. These are nice people you can have dinner with, have a nice conversation with etc. But they work for The Man. When push comes to shove they do not bite the hand that feeds them. What else are they going to do?
I knew a lobbyist for the energy industry fairly well. He wanted out, he went through a personal crisis of looking in the mirror and wondering what the fuck he was doing with his life. But where could he go? What alternative did he have?
I am deeply ashamed of those of us in the sixties counter-culture that refused to build positive and lasting communities which many of us wanted. Reason: because we were more interested in indulging ourselves — of remaining children or joining the system to get more goodies, more women, more cocaine etc., etc., etc.
We need to build alternative institutions that support us and those who could come over to the other side. There are positive steps we can take that aren’t “flaky” or weird but take commitment and an ability to go back to America’s pragmatist roots. We have the potential to make change. We have access to tools like never before. We still have enought freedoms left that were a result of intense struggle by those that came before us on the left who actually accomplished powerful things (go back and read about it). We whine very well but fight very poorly.
for America today.
The people overwhelmingly want the public option, despite extraordinary efforts to convince us otherwise. Why? Because most people actually have bad experience with health insurance (not to even mention not having insurance). People know what they know. They know what they suffer. They know what they have lost. It is hard to fool them on such things.
And the reality of the other things you mention are now or soon to be undeniable–denial will no longer be an option.
It seems sad that people must suffer and lose to stand up. But, I agree, it appears it must be so.