Sadly, President Obama has demonstrated that he cannot or will not bring about the changes he promised during his election campaign. So be it. We must do it ourselves.
If we put the same energy, devotion and sheer hard work that we put into getting him elected into organizing with our neighbors into small community groups to make the changes we need, we could simultaneously help each other survive the economic crisis and work to create policies and programs that work for average Americans. This is a question of our basic survival, so we might call the groups Community Survival Councils.
Millions of folks are now unemployed, millions have lost or are losing their homes, millions don't have money for food to feed their families or even enough money to pay for internet access. We all need help and we can get it by joining together.
As long as folks are isolated from each other, nothing whatever will change.
For real change, we need many, many people -- but not as many as the 67 million who voted for President Obama. (We could start with as few as 3 to 9 people.)
This time we need to be working to help each other survive while joining together to share ideas on what kind of a society we need to create, joining together to take actions with thousands of other groups which can create a human society on a permanent, long-term basis.
To make real changes we need a strong movement, a sea of people, composed of small groups. A sea of people on general strike for an hour or a day would be a nice symbolic gesture, but it takes money out of the pockets of already stressed workers and doesn't touch the unemployed. A small, symbolic strike won't necessarily lead to long term changes in how our society is run. If we decide to strike, it must be a decision of millions and millions of Americans. For that, we need many, many organizations, all working on helping each other survive while joining together to share ideas on what kind of a society we need to create, joining together to take actions with thousands of other groups which can create a human society on a permanent, long-term basis.
The reason that unions succeeded in raising the standard of living for all Americans for many years was because initially people came together where they worked every day, where they could talk to each other, where they could plan actions to fight for what they needed. Then, those small shop floor "locals" joined with others into larger bodies where there actions had much more strength, but the basic unit was the local factory, the local shop, the local office. The unions made it possible for their members to take daring actions because they helped them survive while they were fighting for a honest share of the wealth they created.
Yes, many unions later became bureaucratized and undemocratic, making it easier for the corporations to defeat them. But, knowing that, we can guard against it, based on the principles of real grass roots democracy, person by person, vote by vote.
The unions created strike funds, shared food and drink, helped their members with their individual needs. They worked closely with local Democratic organizations to elect Dems who would carry out their policies. The unions and the Democratic mutually strengthened each other.
We need to do the same, starting with our neighbors. We could form neighborhood survival councils with a few as 3 to 9 people, where a food-buying cooperative could help feed people, a shared housing project could help house them, and a job information exchange could put people to work or connect them with needed social service organizations. An internet newsletter could put homeless people into an empty spare room or garage, could help people trade needed skills with their neighbors, and even provide cheap internet connections by pooling funds for a neighborhood wi-fi system. The possibilities are infinite.
You might start by knocking on a few neighbors'doors, and asking them what services they need, what skills they have to contribute, whether they would be interested in sharing survival ideas and actions with their neighbors. Two or three energetic folks could get this moving, nine would form a viable survival council, 30 or 40 or more families might pool funds to hire a doctor or dentist for a day a month. When people can be brought together to share their ideas and skills, the creativity can flow into amazing directions.
Once people have a way to talk to and work alongside their neighbors, once they have food to eat and a roof over their heads, then they can begin to develop strategies for making changes on a larger scale, joining together with other small groups to make their community government, state government and national government work for them, instead of against them.
Unfortunately all the fantastic energy we saw in the campaign to elect President Obama into office has been allowed to dissipate. I think this was a deliberate decision because millions of folks all working together to accomplish a goal was very, very threatening to the corporate leaders of the Democratic Party, of which President Obama was now the chief decision-maker.
It is time to stop pleading for President Obama to be tough, to carry out his campaign promises, to stop pandering to Republicans. We worked for him because we wanted to tear up the corporate corruption so deeply planted by the Republicans and their corporate owners. He isn't doing it, but is actively carrying out the same corporate-controlled policies. Ok, no more pleading. No more whining about what he is doing or isn't doing. That's a waste of our energy.
We must simply do it ourselves. We have to get back into action and organize to bring about the changes we need. It will be hard work -- and can be a great deal of fun -- joining together to make surviving easier while sharing ideas and actions to make our society human again.