[lit-ideas] Re: 500,000

  • From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:59:42 -0500


US: There is something so dangerously wrong in your country. And the whirlwind you are allowing to be sown might blow us all away.

Last week, I watched a movie called "the Weather Underground" about a group of sixties radicals called 'the weathermen' (they didn't need to be told or tell people which way the wind blows -- from Dylan). Without getting into the details of the various battles they waged, or indeed, the possibly nefarious ways [depending on your political beliefs] in which they waged them, I have to say that the thought that recurred to me over and over was "it's EVEN WORSE now" and "there's certainly no movement to 'overthrow the US government' " at a time (now) when surely it needs overthrowing. Where are the balls of the American people? Aren't there ANY radicals out there? Why not? As Carol asked, why can't they march in groups of 500,000 for something other than the immigration rights? How about standing up for themselves?

But, in a nation as apparently 'mad' as it is, where are the Fred Hamptons, the David Gilberts, the Billy Ayers, the Naomi Jaffes, the Bernardine Dohrns?

I watched another documentary called "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices" and was astounded at the reports of the anti-union process that [allegedly] goes on in these stores. Numerous people mentioned being fired for talking to too many other employees when the management feared an orgainizing faction being set in motion. Do people have no imagination? In a time of unprecedented technical advances that allow almost completely covert action by ordinary citizens, why hasn't anyone successfully organized a union at Wal-mart? WHY is it [the kind of behaviour that is widely reported in Walmart management] allowed to continue?

When are "the people" going to really take it back to the streets? In some ways, this thirty years later bodes even worse for Americans. I think the difference between the 60s and now is that the FUNDAMENTAL sea-change that happened back then is that enough of WHITE America stood up and protested even though they weren't getting screwed by the system. Now... even white America IS getting screwed by the system, but it's almost as if there is a willing suspension of disbelief by the middle class, as they slip farther and farther into debt and miss more and more pay increases, that they ARE getting screwed. When will they wake up and smell the mochachino non-fat latte?*

Paul

*paraphrased (i.e.stolen) from Denis Leary

##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada 

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