"... she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

[jtuck004]

40. As I said in my other post, it doesn't mean not try, though that's one

Last edited Fri Jan 10, 2014, 01:25 AM - Edit history (1)

fine way to duck responsibility, to pretend that one's effort must take so long the effect can't be seen. That sounds like something Wally in the Dilbert cartoon would say to his boss.

People shouldn't mistake busy work for effective effort, because if it doesn't result in change it didn't work. One can make noise, be noticed, bring awareness, but unless it freakin' moves something, it's mostly just about their ego.

I fervently believe It's Quixotic to expect change from today's efforts, where a few thousands of people march in the streets, pat themselves on the back for their effort, talk about how scared the wealthy must be. ALL the black and white numbers tell us that inequality and poverty continue to worsen, that not a fucking thing is changing except for the growing bank accounts of the wealthy and the slowly diminishing ones of everyone else. What if those who want change just keep at it, and their efforts are totally inadequate to the task? How will they ever know as long as their answer is "none of this is going to happen quickly". What if they are wrong? How would they know?

I heard much of this same shit back during Jimmy Carter's presidency. He even came out and told us how we could heal ourselves, fix our economy, make ourselves stronger.

Then the people voted for Reagan. And now we have a president who admires Reagan, wants to be like him.

From one of his speeches...

"I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

There was a time in this country when hundreds were going to prison, when there were pitched battles in the street, when they were marching hungry children past the White House, when organizers were actively carrying the battle to the bastards,and some were murdered. But for a time they won much greater victories. And then the government allied with business and the business unions to put a stop to it, and the people sat down. Maybe they were tired, maybe they lost hope, I don't know.

But I do know that, despite all that effort, damn little has changed in roughly 150 years.

One should always have hope! But they shouldn't substitute that for asking hard, probing questions and evaluating the real impact that organizing work is having on people's lives ('cause that's what we are talking about) and insisting that, if they are going to do it, that it have a plan that will effect change. Else it's just feel good busywork, something people can occupy themselves with while others die.

On edit - Speaking of things that can be measured, and numbers that can be verified... I am a big fan of what Occupy COULD be, (or perhaps could have been, we will see). I went out to hold signs and talk to people at our local one a few times. But what I find it interesting that every day we were "encamping" we lost 15 manufacturing businesses in the U.S. Every single freakin' day. Did that every day in 2012 as well, which means that we lost 64,087 manufacturing PLANTS in the past 12 years, according to the stats at the Federal Reserve Research Center.

That doesn't count the roughly 2 million families that were foreclosed on and thrown into the street over the past 2-3 years, the students that took on debt that will follow them to the grave, the businesses that were allowed to walk away from debt when it became too onerous, the banks that have avoided investigation and prosecution while being given $1.2 trillion this past year to take profit from...

It's like a nightmare version of "It's a Wonderful Life" where in "every time a protester waves his sign, a bankster gets a grand..."