This morning I saw this on the OccupyUSA blog.
Barbara Ehrenreich at Alternet: “How I discovered the truth about poverty.”
http://www.thenation.com/blog/166854/occupyusa-blog-friday-march-16-frequent-updates
I thought as I began to read this that we are being dragged backwards in history by the right wing who want to do nothing but scoff at the concerns of people for the dramtic increase in the number of poor in this country. And the so-called Progressives who want to cling to the idea that “American capitalism is the best system ever dvised”, as if making comparisons lets us off the hook for massive corporate oppression. It all boils down to hedonism. People who scoff zare those who have accedpted the blind allegiance to tghe idea that “it ain’t gonna get any better than this”.
Problem: if you want to claim that America is the best country ever, then to undertake the arguments of comparison is a pointless exercise. America is best because nobody else is better, and we’re better becuase look how bad off everyone else is. There is a clueless omission of exactly what constiutes a public life worthy of being considered just and cooperative and aimed toward the greatest good (to use the secular attempts to describe something that sounds good to us all). But the minute we get to particulars; of how to build “public good” and create spaces that reflect this, the very exploration of where it may be going wrong is considered un-American. The moment we move to identify where to improve, it is a “class war”, and to rise up and go to public spaces and stand and say to America “Wake Up! A and B and C are happening, and our political process is not only not doing anythig about it, it has let itself become DESIGNED by those who let it happen. When voting only serves to replace lobbyist lapdogs with other ones, then the people need to be awakened about this. It’s bullshit to say there is no clear message. This IS the message, and it can be articulated in MANY variations. But that IS it. So enough of the ignorant dittoes that OWS doesn’t have any demands. Do any of these people care to articulate for us what the demands of THEIR political alliances demand? Let them articulate THAT.
As this sickened, poisoned political system continues to grind on, there will be increasing numbers of people driven to exasperation, and coming around to this “Occupy Awareness”. Tea Partiers, you’re as vulnerable as those you think you’re opposing. Those “shiftless, jobless hippies” you see in Occupy are watching you fall lower into the 99% along with the rest of us. You think right wing Republicans are your friend on this? They are simply using you. They are articulating inane piety, while protecting their own from accountability for their own failures to come anywherew close to liove up to their inane moral superiority (eg. Santorum’s “warning and tipping off” and “helping to whitewash” Ensign’s disgusting marital infidilities). And George W.Bush? He said “sometimes you just got to set religion aisde when you got a job to do”. And when it came to actually funding his “Faith based initiatives”, Karl Rove told a Faith Based staffer when asked about simple operational support, “Just get me a “F***ing faith based thing, got it?”)
They’re about pleasing their donors. And it seems so are the Democrats. And so here we are. In need of accelerating the spread of an “Occupy Awareness”.
