Badabing wrote a fine, honest, scorching and to the point diary about how, as she says,
"there is no such thing as a 'Tipping Point' in our nation, because regardless of how monumental the event or catastrophe, Americans (unlike our own ancestors) are not willing to March by the Millions into Washington DC, and make that 'Tipping Point' happen, by suiting up, and showing up."
Why is that so?
Why is it that so many Americans believe the the critical Seven Untrue Things Most Americans Believe that keep us enslaved and prevent us from reaching a tipping point of demanding change in the class war of the oligarchy raiding our last resources of the middle and working classes?
Why is that most Americans put up with being SCREWED! Forty Years of Corruption and 'Conservatism' Come Home to Roost? Why don't we "crash the gates for real" as OPOL insists we must?
I think the answers are quite simple. We have been so conditioned to accept our fate as Americans. The French hit the streets because they have large union membership ready to strike at a moment's notice. French students hit the streets, and have the mentality to fight for their rights in a collective manner, as well as as individuals, if their education benefits are threatened just a bit. When students hit the streets, or one union does, another might join in solidarity. That is a rare event in the U.S. Why?
Because we have been systematically aneasthetized, demoralized, individualized, propagandized, fragmented and conditioned to be solitary individuals or haphazard chaotic coalitions that do not endure well to fight for our rights when threatened. The result is most of us are overwhelmed by the attacks on our rights and benefits and for survival's sake, and so it is easier to surrender. This occurs both by historic plan and design as well as by accident of circumstances of time and era.
So what is the answer to this predicament? I give the banal answer, the cliches, the yawner: organize, inform, agitate. Never accept the unacceptable, be outraged and raise hell. Hit the streets outside the system, march and take over buildings peacefully. And also work within the system to elect better democrats-- to each their own as fits each's talents and personality best, for some it is outside the system and for some it is inside, for some it is using art and for another it is science, business and innovation that is the way of creating change that they are best suited to and no one can tell you to be who you are not. Stirring up our outrage in rec list diaries is a great contribution, for who knows what one thing may lead to for another... but--- what is it that does take hold in the ethers of the collective consciousness to manifest a large uprising?
There is no one way to force that, but every effort helps-- how did Martin Luther King march on Washington? How did the anti Vietnam War movement "succeed"? Neither did in a sudden moment but rather through a long series of efforts, ups and downs, joinings and quitings, until the sociopolitical environment became absolutely unsustainable for the status quo, and that was the tipping point.
Happy 4th of July, everyone. And may we prevail by endless vigilance. And I must add that any act of self and collectivity that is inspired, kind, thoughtful, helpful, resourceful and dynamic is a blow against the dying evil empire and in fact a contribution to ending the aneasthetisizing of our selves in America that has made tipping points unreachable.