"They are trying to set a tone to chill further demos of
this nature, and I don't think it's going to work." This is my favorite line from an article I read about arrests after the Trump Inaugural. I unsubscribed to Truth-out a few years ago and joined Reader
Supported News RSN, the break-away faction of the service. In media controlled
U.S., contributing to fear is the most common way to instill it, not that this
didn't happen but the author admits the mass arrests are nothing new. I was
"kettled" with a few thousand in RFK stadium at the first Moratorium Day
in 1970, scary for a sixteen year old, but we partied all night and the
pigs released us, without charges, in the morning. As FDR said, "The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself."
My only news is chosen Facebook pages and a
few seconds of international news on Taiwan TV. I hardly even read the Taipei
Times (and can't get the China Post) except for articles on labor. Remember
that one of the last actions of Obama was to sign the "Ministry of
Information" Act, and refuse to pardon Edward Snowden, a whistleblower. The "coup" was complete when Bush
beat Gore; this is only hammering in a few loose nails. Correct reaction to it
has always been the same: non-complicity, boycott, general strike, but who was
organizing it and who was listening. As the frog boiled slowly, unaware of
it being killed, so did Capitalism learn how to neutralize the opposition? The
only thing to do now is the same as it always has been, to work in the
community where you live assisting less fortunate folk and helping workers to
organize unions.
This is an opportunity the progressive movement hasn't had
since Nixon’s involvement in Vietnam made it obvious. So long as millions of
people continue going out in the streets, over-stuffing the prison system and
bogging it down, organizing in their communities when they get home, this gift
from the fascist hell of capitalism will be doomed because the people, united,
can never be defeated.
The typical liberal American refuses to realize what s/he hasn’t done that deserves this. It would destroy one’s whole worldview, that
things suck for one, personally and for Americans in general because one and all
are too selfish and self absorbed to reach out and get involved with community
organizing, too lazy to pick up a picket sign or start a workers’ union. Instead
the divide and conquer tactics of the state prevail. Look at liberal Americans;
arguing about what we need to make the future better; complaining that
socialists are living in the past. Perhaps one realize it is too late for one to
do anything meaningful to help one’s neighbors or, worse still, choosing to
live in a neighborhood with people who don’t warrant help; the toothless wonders opposed to universal health care. How pathetic one is living amongst people one doesn’t like, or perhaps it
is one’s lead balloon that keeps one down and gives one a chance to complain and
make excuses about one’s lack of progressive life. One can't change one’s past but one can
change one’s future. One can start
Is Trump’s Mexican wall to not let people in or to keep
Americans from getting out? Why people from these countries would want to go to
the US or NATO countries beat me; it's cold, uncaring, racist, and boring.
I like the old Wobbly joke about what the worker says when his boss
angrily threatens to throw him out the window: “Before you can throw me
out the window, I'm walking out the door."
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