The People’s Movement

That is what it will take to change government of, by, and for Corporations into a government of, by, and for The People of America.

And the People’s Movement must have two ultimate goals. Public (The People) Financing of Elections and the end to Corporate Personhood. Only The People are persons in a democracy.

And a good Public Financing law will make moot the SCOTUS’s recent debacle of a ruling.

Lakoff says in his piece at Daily Kos

In the emerging Obama mythology, this is the question attributed to President Obama whenever he is asked to take the lead on a progressive issue.  It is not an idle question. Leaders can only lead if there is a pre-existing movement for them to get in front of.

Moreover, there are other conditions. The idea behind a movement, and the language expressing its goals, must also pre-exist in public discourse. In other words, the movement must already have:

• a popular base;

• organizing tools;

• a generally accepted morally-based conceptual framing;

• an overall narrative, with heroes, victims, and villains;

• a readily recognizable, well-understood language;

• funding sources;

• and a national communication system set up for both leaders and ordinary citizens to use.

The base is there, waiting for something worth getting behind. The organizing tools are there. The rest is not there.

Yes, yes it is there. At least the narrative and the villains part.

The narrative is The People vs The Corporations and the villains are obvious. The villains are the Insurance Corporations committing Murder by Spreadsheet and who just baldly and blatantly used their bought Senators to defeat Health Care Reform. The villains are the banking Corporations who ruined the kitchen table economy of The People…so that they could take huge risks with The People’s investments and retirement accounts out of pure unvarnished selfish greed. Their bought Senators are now bringing the same brand of “reform” to the banking industry as the brought to HCR.

The villains are the Military Industrial Corporations that use their bought Senators to keep Americas “defense” budget at ten times the rest of the worlds military spending combined. And the villains are the polluters. The Oil and Coal and Energy and Pollution Corporations that are using their bought Senators to block moving forward on Saving the Freaking Planet.

We do NOT have a leader. (Though we were told we were getting one, lol)

We do not have “a readily recognizable, well-understood language” to frame the struggle with. That is part of what we are working on here, I hope.

We do not have funding sources, though The People have proven through the money they spent on the Obama campaign to try to get a leader that they are willing to finance a Movement if it appears. And has goals and language they can relate to.

And like it or not….Us vs Them IS about the only language they can relate to.

Since the Them is so obviously screwing the Us.

The People’s Movement spreads across all CURRENT political ideologies, but there is a fundamental difference between The People’s Movement on the Left and The People’s Movement on the Right. The Teabaggers blame government as the obvious cause, without looking past the obvious to see who it is that has corrupted the government. Because of course, that would not serve their Corporate masters in the Republican Party and the Ruling Class.

So The People’s Movement of The People vs the Corporations has to come from the Left and hope that somewhere along the way the more intelligent folks from the Right will wake up and join. Because a true People’s Movement, to be truly effective, HAS to be seen as a  non-partisan Movement. Or else it will be co-opted or at least spun by the media and the heads of the two parties as support for “their side.”

Which is exactly what it isn’t.

What it is is a recognition by People from all sides that our government is corrupt and broken and no longer serves (and no longer even pretends to serve) the Interests of The People.

A representative democracy as opposed to a true democracy is designed to curb the worst instincts of “The Mob.” But when representative democracy no longer bears ANY resemblance to something that represents The People, only The Mob can rein it in.

We are there.

There are only two questions left. Can the Obama Administration sufficiently appease, and so co-opt, the nascent People’s Movement?

IF they adopt the narrative above, they might be able to. Whether that is a good or bad thing remains to be seen, IF it occurs. The Obama Admin may have already lost too many of The People by catering to the Corporate forces who have caused all of the problems we face. They will have to regain the trust of The People if they want to lead.

And the second question, if it can’t, what form will The People’s Movement take? I think the answer to that question relates directly to the first question, in so far as it will depend on who emerges to lead it.

The Dems are in the denial phase of grief over the Massachusetts election and the political reality it portends. The only thing that will ‘save’ them is moving in to the acceptance phase, Where they accept that things ARE going to change, one way or another. If they don’t return to being the Party of the Working Man and Woman, The People’s Party, then someone else WILL emerge to lead The People’s Movement.

Because The People want change, in our broken and corrupt system. And they are just going to keep “throwing the bums” out until they get it.

And if the Dems doesn’t lead it, and if the Left doesn’t lead it, then some Reaganesque demagogue from the Right will.

Because this, my friends and neighbors, is the reality that we face, and it is not going to go away. The People are revolting. And we have to do our best to make sure that the least revolting result results from the revolt.