This season there is something big attempting to take shape in the national consciousness. It stems from a long developing sense that we, not only as a nation, but as a society and a culture, have become disconnected to something intuitively essential, something truly important.
We look at Egypt with a sense of pride and a bit of envy. We look at what's happening now in Madison Wisconsin and ask - is this a flash in the pan or a harbinger of a wider movement? Will it have staying power, or will the necessity of returning to making a living cause the energy to dwindle and peter out. It takes a tremendous amount of conviction and collective effort to overcome the entropy of the status quo.
People taking to the streets is, in fact, the last resort of political expression. It's what happens when other forms of political speech are thwarted. It's what happens when people can no longer abide the big disconnect, and say, "enough is enough". They go outside with their signs and banners, and are reminded that they are not alone.
In late 2002 the Bush Administration was banging the drumbeat of war with Iraq - it utilized the full apparatus of modern communications/marketing strategy to align public opinion to its agenda. Then despite this, on February 15th, 2003 there was a well coordinated anti-war demonstration across the globe. It was the largest public demonstration in history with 10-30 million people taking to the streets in sixty countries. One would think that this historic event would have gotten significant media coverage, but it did not. Shockingly the New York Times relegated it to a small story buried deep in the paper, with no other follow up. Other papers and TV outlets barely covered it at all. Now I know what the expression "the revolution will not be televised" really means.
And this non-coverage was not the result of overt government censorship. There was no explicit conspiracy to "disappear" this story. There was and is a subtler unspoken self-censorship on the part of the corporate media. This story fell outside the narrow bandwidth of "acceptable" public discourse post-9/11, so it was deemed NOT newsworthy.
Despite Bush's departure, the ethos that gave rise to that self censorship is alive and well and still defining what is "newsworthy" in the media. But look what's happening, not just in Wisconsin, but all over the place. The Depression of 2008 - 201X has taken a deep toll on peoples' well being, and there is much suffering. Right after the extension of the Bush era tax cuts for millionaires, the national dialogue turns to cutting entitlements of all sorts. Cutting health care, cutting pensions, cutting heat for the poor in the winter, cutting school lunches, cuts, cuts cuts. Governments are near bankrupt and we must cut! Deficits too high. Nevermind that corporate tax rates are the lowest in modern US history, that's a given and not spoken of... just cut! The media depict these economic sacrifices with a fatalistic passivity. We (somehow) cannot afford to take care of our own people!
The same folks who deemed the worldwide anti-war demonstration not newsworthy are quietly framing what passes for public debate on these economic trade-offs. They are defining the terms of debate about where we as a society should be drawing the line between, for instance, taxing millionaires versus providing health care for the poor. And just as they had an interest in supporting the drumbeat of war in 2003, they have an interest in reversing and de-funding public pensions, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Aid for Families with Dependent Children, public sector unions, and on and on.
The biggest entitlement of all is to be connected - connected to those who represent us in government, and connected to each other. It was this connection that gave rise to the Commons - the public programs that most Americans benefit from in one way or another. It was this connection that gave rise to a free press. This connection has atrophied, and we lose it at our peril. Our elected representatives no longer represent real people. Our media no longer reflect the concerns and aspirations of real people.
There is something big attempting to take shape in the national consciousness. The country is ripe for a Howard Beal "Network" moment. The country is ripe for the Joe McCarthy "Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last?" moment. The country is ripe to re-connect with a sense of public compassion. Turn off the television. There are more of us out there than you think.
Sometimes you can only see the tipping point in the rear view mirror.