For the first time in a long time -- at least in the dozen or so years I've been old enough to be politically aware -- a space has opened up for real radical change. The evidence is global -- panic on the streets of London, financial chickens coming home to roost in the USA, neo-fascism ascending in Hungary, protests across the globe, nuclear breakdown in Japan, the Maghreb overthrowing its despots, Israel engulfed by protests, Syria and Lebanon rocked by protesters. This is a global and world historical moment we're entering.
Yes, that sounds extreme, but look around -- the world is on fire right now, and not just because of climate change. People are rising up and standing for their rights against autocratic governments and multinational corporations. In the weeks and months to come, this fire will only spread. We're entering an era that, when historians deliver their verdict will resemble the 1960s in terms of global change. It's already beyond Obama, Cameron, Merkel, Jintao et al. This is an epistemic and economic break.
The question then, is whither the left? In the late 60s, the militant left won. We won. We put in motion concepts that resulted in expanded rights for African-Americans, women and LGBTs, we induced Richard fucking Nixon to sign into law the Clean Air Act, we defended the New Deal, and ended the tragedy that was Vietnam.
So now what? Now, we look at Wisconsin. We fight. We fight for unions, for the right to organize, we fight for laws that recognize that our environment is not a resource to be exploited, but rather the condition which guarantees our existence on this planet. We fight for the rights of the dispossessed, of the wrongly accused, of the incarcerated for reasons that a sane society would shrug at. We fight for a sane society.
We fight for real democracy, in which the people make the decisions, not the corporations, not the wealthy, not the powerful. We stand in solidarity with Wisconsinites, with Libyans, with Syrians, with Brits, with everyone and anyone who has the temerity to stand against power and say no. We fight not for an abstract concept, but for each other.
Yes, this has devolved into a rant, but the time for ranting is here. What happens now is in the air -- remaining passive only ensures that current power will win. Protest. March. Support those who are standing strong and stand strong. The left is prone to utopian ideas -- I myself am guilty of that, but this is not a utopian moment. This is a break of decades worth of epistemic and economic culture, and we need to make our voices, and the voices of those who have been denied voice, heard.
Solidarity sisters and brothers.