It's been happening more and more lately. Or maybe I've just noticed it more. Either way, to me, the grumblings are becoming more and more pronounced: What do we do? Nothing seems to work! We can't even trust the politicians on our own team. It's all so hopeless. We're screwed. What are we doing wrong?
A quick note before I begin: This diary is neither intended to point or shake any fingers nor chide, nor scold. To despair is human. It happens to us all, and we all therefore need the occasional lift. Speaking of which, that is the intent of this diary.
At times, the class war/culture war seems so lopsided and decidedly in the bag for the plutocrat/theocrat faction that it's hard to remember the last time the rest of us won anything. More to the point, it wears on our collective determination to see the depravity of the oligarchs go unchecked while their holy warriors engage us on the ground. Regressive taxation, wealth transfer, erosion of civil rights, infringement by the religious extremists on everything from separation of church and state to control of women's bodies, xenphobia, homophobia, this list goes on, and in every category, the bad guys have made strides.
What's to hope for? How is it getting any better? The answer(s) are all around us (not that you'd notice, if the bought priesthood of the modern media is anything to go by).
When I was in high school, we had an Art teacher who was a walking, talking cliché. He was the "cool guy". The ex-hippy. The buddy-teacher who went by a nickname rather than his given name, because he was just too cool for society's rules. Unfortunately, he was also the living example of everything irritating and detestable about his generation. He would constantly wax philosophical about his generation and ours, reminiscing in long-winded and condescending stories of how the boomers Took No Shit™. He decried the new spirit of the age, and he never missed an opportunity to wag a disappointed finger at today's Americans, because No One Does It Like We Did It In The Sixties™. This sort of thinking is pretty common, even in the left and especially as you move rightward across the political spectrum. People - like my old Art teacher - tend to think we are less involved, less active.
The trouble was, this was the eighties, the birth of the American Solidarity Movement. Reagan's not-so-clandestine war of aggression against Nicaragua (under the guise of a War On Terror™, if that sounds familiar) was resisted in a way and on a scale that had never been done before (at least, not by US citizens): tens - maybe hundreds - of thousands of US citizens visited Nicaragua, living with the Nicaraguans as part of an initiative to stop the slaughter. The Solidarity Movement channeled an estimated $250 million to Nicaragua every year from 1985 to 1989, and it has lived on even today, as citizens arrived in solidarity with Afghans and Iraqis almost as soon as the troops went in.
Why is this important (other than the obvious reason of raising awareness and resisting international aggression)? Because it was unprecedented, and it lends credibility to something I've believed for years: That the people of the United States of America have grown more and more civilized over the history of this country, and we don't give ourselves enough credit.
Take for instance the difference in public reaction to the Vietnam War and the the father-and-son, tag-team Bushwhacking of the Middle East, Iraq in particular. In the case of Vietnam, US "military advisers" were being sent as early as 1950, and major operations began around 1960, with US troop levels tripling in 1961 and then tripling again in 1962. In 1964, the first US protests began, with 700 people marching in San Francisco as a typical example of the size of the protest. 1965 kicked off the major protest and resistance, where rallies began to number in the thousands. In November, 40,000 people surrounded the White House in protest. Eventually demonstration sizes grew until they reached a peak of 250,000 in Washington, DC in 1969. And rightly so.
But contrast this with the reaction to the Bush family's crusade against Iraq. Protest was immediate, and in the case of His Shrubbiness, Jr's holy war, the protest in New York City was in the 300,000 to 400,000 range - before the bombing began. The preemptive (if you'll pardon the word) nature and massive scale of the protest is believed by many to have kept the first President Bush out of Iraq and the second from widening the scope of the imperial conquest.
As the above examples show, We The People have actually become more involved and active, not less.
Now take the goings on in Wisconsin and around the country in response to the anti-democracy, anti-middle class/poor push by Republican hit men, and compare that to the mid-90's Caterpillar strike. The UAW went on strike for 17 months between 1994-95, rejecting the wage and benefit decreases in the contract offered by Caterpillar. Caterpillar responded the way most corporations have been responding since the inception of the Mohawk Valley Formula, with a few added twists. Caterpillar illegally fired many workers, kept up production in non-union facilities all over the world, and hired permanent replacement workers, all of which resulted in record profits - during a strike. The latter three tactics were of course illegal, but ever since the Reagan Administration publicly demonstrated their contempt for laws protecting labor by firing 11,345 people in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), the business class has felt free to violate the law whenever it suits them. Not only did Reagan fire the workers, he banned them from ever again working as air traffic controllers in the federal system. The intended chilling effect was obvious - and just as obvious (to corporations) was that the US Government had chosen a side. Theirs.
What the workers in the Caterpillar strike did not have was any widespread or significant public support, nor the support of other unions beyond nonmaterial, with-you-in-spirit support. Of course, so far there hasn't been a real strike in the ongoing fight for state workers' rights in Wisconsin (which is probably a good thing, considering the unfettered lawlessness that has taken hold), but there has been something that was missing from labor and union struggles over the past few decades: lots and lots and LOTS of support. From the neighboring communities. From around the state, the country, and even the world. Also, the response (as in the case of the Iraq occupation) preceded the event. (Granted, these two cases have many differences, but the similarities they should have shared probably would have made a difference, and the Caterpillar corporation's successful strike-breaking efforts may not have gone down as one of the most significant blows to organized labor in the history of the United States.)
I like to remind myself of these examples whenever I start to wonder why it's as bad as it is these days. Because to me, the simple conclusion is that it is as bad as it is these days because We The People are more civilized, engaged, active, and involved. The more we stand up for ourselves, the harder they have to come down on everybody in order to maintain control. In fact, I believe that the extremist and blatant attempt to sever the American people from the reins of power completely is compelling evidence that we are winning in many respects.
You are not alone. The country The people aren't getting worse but better. More and more Americans are waking up and joining in. We The People are not asleep at the wheel.
So what should we do? We're already doing it. It's hard, frustrating, and slow, but it is what has worked for us since the founding of this country. Activism, resistance, participation. March with the protesters. Write and call your representatives. Start, help circulate, and/or just sign a petition. Donate time, money, and/or other resources. Et cetera, and so on, and so forth...
Every freedom, privilege, right, benefit, or just plain good thing not already enshrined in the Constitution that we enjoy has been the result of popular struggle. The very things we're doing now, and the very things we need to keep doing more and more. As Aldous Huxley said, "Liberties are not given. They are taken."
Kudos to all of you. Keep up the good work.