Alot of people are acting, the thing is will it get
the corporate criminal/bankster robber employee
occupiers of OUR offices and buildings OUT? I
ask…What are we paying ALL of these reps, agencies,
judges, police, military etc. when they clearly DO
NOT represent the lifetime TAX PAYING AMERICAN
citizens? It is disgusting! Example: NYPD collects
pay checks, healthcare and pensions ( what might be
left)  from AMERICAN tax paying families, we pay for
all of their riot gear. Chase donated a big chunk of
change to some part of the NYPD agency, so now they
work for Chase! Example Two: We pay for police agencies to protect us and our rights, civil
liberties etc., yet they run around enforcing revenue
grubbing laws, draconian laws they know are wrong to
get inmates, fines so prisons can make profit off of
TAX PAYERS for each inmate and profit off of SLAVE
labor and unfair fines!
FDA, EPA,DEA,CIA,USDA,POLICE,MILITARY etc., etc. ALL
are serving the better interest for the corporate
criminals/bankster robbers. Oil corporations get TAX
subsidies, TAX breaks,  and we pay OUR military to
police ( develop, liberate, fight for OUR freedom for
oil, gold, any other resource they feel like, and
opium)  their agendas.
The daily running of OUR government is in the
interest of corporations and bankster robbers!Where
is OUR military that gets the lion’s share of our
budget, when these Anti-democracy occupiers Hi-Jacked
OUR offices and buildings?  They also are using OUR
tax dollars for their profit, earth destroying,
enslavement and world domination agendas. They would
like it if we just shut our mouth GAVE them EVERY
single penny, or work for free, for nothing, they
want it ALL and their employees are in OUR offices
manipulating, changing, implementing to ensure their
bosses get all the help they need!
Democracy and Capitalism cannot work together unless
BOTH are kept in check! It is OUR responsibility and
our duty ( inspite of what the police or patriot acts
and homeland security tell you) to ENSURE ” The
American People’s government is run BY the people, of
the people, for the people” NOT soul-less entities
only for profit and of course SLAVES, whether grunt
labor, or economic
Sigh… What a mess! A lot of people also fought and
died for our freedoms that are very carefully
disappearing one by one. BOTH parties are employees
of corporate/bankster interests period! Too bad
TV/MEDIA sold out too! They ruined TV, they ruin
everything!

While this man is skilled at writing, the substance of what he says is about as confused as anything I’ve seen. And, I take particular issue with his “take” on the movements of the 1960’s. I was there, and he’s got it all wrong. My God, why would you publish something like this on your website? Unless you want to increase the high levels of anger and anxiety we already live in.

Thanks for the feedback, Gerard, and I basically agree with your points. I also think it’s tough, and maybe pointless, to try to rank the various factors—though the issues 5 & 6 you raised were along the lines of what I was thinking when I commented. But maybe that reflects the fact that I’m a student, and have way more (putting it mildly) free time and far fewer (again, a serious understatement) responsibilities than most people. But anyway it seems that one of the more serious tasks at this point is to articulate some sort of vision of a future society, in a way that resists mystification (e.g., history progressing in stages, perpetuating the “noble lie” of a general strike, etc.), and yet is still able to combat the TINA virus. Not that this is a novel concept, of course: flip through the pages of Alexander Berkman’s “The Blast!” (1916-1917) and you’ll find plenty of discussion of the importance of “vision,” and these days ZNet’s Michael Albert stresses it—and has developed, with Robin Hahnel, and alternative economic system called “Parecon.” Obviously this comment doesn’t address the other issues you appropriately raised, and it certainly isn’t intended to imply that we need to focus solely on “vision.” But at the same time it seems that, if a lot of time and energy is devoted simply to explaining how bad things are, when most people are already perfectly aware of this situation, then a shift of focus may be required.

The title is ironic… Come on people.

Great piece though, many provocative points.

Nice swipe at generational analysis here. Where’s the Thomas Szasz, though? On a more serious note, I’d be curious to read more of what you have to say on what it means to be atomized/apolitical today versus, say, fifty years ago, if you have any thoughts on that. Do you think activists face the same challenges today in terms of mobilizing people as they did in previous generations? Is this more worthless generational analysis? Or is there something worth noticing in the fact that, say, while in 1964 we could help take down Brazil’s elected President Joao Goulart, and nobody would blink, in June 2009 when Honduras’ Zelaya was flown out of the country there was immediately an outcry, followed by serious efforts to figure out how exactly the US influenced the coup? Does this greater awareness of what the US is up to in the world seem to generalize across the population? Or does it at least seem like the terrible effects of US policies would come as less of a surprise to people today than they would have to people 50 years ago, who I imagine would have been appalled to know the US bombed most of Japan’s cities well before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ruined? Do the abysmal approval ratings of Congress—ranging from 10% all the way up to 15%—tell us anything? What about the fact that 2/3 of Americans believe government policies overwhelmingly benefit the rich? In a nutshell what I’m asking is: What sort of apathy is it when people are already opposed to US policies (majority of Americans oppose US presence in Afghanistan, for example)? What sort of apathy is it when people have a general sense of whose interests the govt. serves? What’s preventing these people from acting?

just as every child born has equal access to heaven, every child born has equal access to the gifts here on earth, we have equal access to all natural resources and essential services.
it is foolish for a community to allow private ownership of natural resources or essential services.

the mind without a heart is a calculator.  god need not apply.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION CALENDAR

“The calendar consisted of 12 months of 30 days each, with 5 extra days (6 in a leap year) at the end to match the solar year. Instead of seven-days weeks, the months were divided on three ten-days weeks called décades. This decimal system established thus a much more regular and organized calendar.

The calendar was adopted of 24 October 1793, but the start of it was fixed on 22 september 1792, that was both the day the French Republic was proclaimed and that year’s autumn equinox in Paris. Years were counted from 1792 and written in Roman numerals.:”

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/jlmartinmas/repcalendar/calendar.html

reality

The commentary quite well expresses the betrayal of the middle class by the wealthy.  In their greedy quest to increase their already unspendable wealth, they have taken away the American Dream.  The kids today (excuse me, I am over 60 and lived through the Sixties; we have seen this before, maybe not so bad) are right to feel betrayed.  They have been betrayed by the tax-cutters, by the free-traders and by the super-wealthy generally (other than a few like Warren Buffet).  The rules are not fair, what rules there are, are not evenly and fairly applied.  The government has been bought by the big corporations. The only way out of this is by a ground swell of the people, the 99% who have lost during the time that the 1%, and especially the 0.1%, have so richly profited from our loss.

This article, quite brilliantly, flips the argument on
the liberal narrative that “status anxiety” drives
people right. With this generation it seems to be doing
the opposite.