|
Edited on Tue Jan-31-06 07:08 PM by Selatius
I'm pointing my finger at each and every one of you, and I include myself in it as well. What caused me to start this thread is a question I saw here: "Who is our leader?" That was the question that started me. If democracy is the name of the game, then each of us, in a collective fashion, ought to hold the majority of the responsibility for how this country is run.
Stop blaming Reid or Dean over what just happened. Stop blaming Democrats or Republicans. Just stop it, and forget the notion of those two parties. Don't blame anybody. If you want to save each other, then stop waiting for the hero to come from beyond the horizon to lead you toward salvation. It's not going to work. It didn't work in the 1960s, and it will not work again, and if you keep on deferring to some vague hero or savior, you're going to set yourself up for the same heartbreak you suffered after you watched Bobby, Kennedy, and Martin die at the point of an assassin's bullet. You're going to see all the dreams and hopes you rested on the shoulders of those great men fall and shatter when they are felled by their enemies.
Is that what you want? A movement of followers and a few leaders? If that's what you collectively decide, then you may as well have ignored what happened to this country the last time it was in upheaval, and you may as well re-experience Kennedy getting gunned down in Dallas.
If you want to build a movement for change that is everlasting, that is engrained at the base instead of at the top, then instead of clinging to the notion of electing a few people and hoping they will listen to you instead of listening to the wallet of big business, you should turn to your neighbors, your friends, and members of your family. Turn to each other, organize, collectivize, educate, and execute a strategy--collectively, hand-in-hand with your fellow person--to achieve the ideals for which you wish to struggle. They may be able to murder a few leaders, but they cannot murder a movement of leaders, an entire army of ordinary people who became leaders hand-in-hand.
I'm not saying not to participate in government. If one wants to do so, then the decision to vote is up to you, but don't just sit back and let the elected politicians you helped put into power come to help you when you need help or do all the work for you. You need to also act as if they are going to forget you and act as if they will not represent you not just out of pure cynicism. No, you need to act in that fashion because when they do fail you, you will have a safety net to fall back upon: An organized, active safety net of your fellow countrymen, members of your family, and close friends all working for the mutual survival of each other. If not, you will be left to starve and die and weather the hurricane all alone if the government forgets you and if people do not come together and fight for mutual survival.
When I speak of nations, I don't talk of its leaders. I don't talk of its bureaucracy, it's military, it's infrastructure. I don't talk of its foreign policy or its trade policy or anything of that sort. I don't talk about inhuman and impersonal measures of a nation as GDP, a number that ignores the life and vitality of the people, their dreams and hopes. I talk about the people. It's the people in the end that make a nation, and it is the people who built that nation.
So many people have become so dependent upon a corrupt system that when it abuses them, neglects them, and forgets them, they sit around and hope it will come back and help them, but it doesn't have to be that way. Why should the wife come back to the husband who beats her mercilessly each night and terrorizes her and says she can't survive without him? A true democracy would never do such a thing to its own citizens, and if one argues the system we currently have is representative of the will of the people yet continues to do things despite the will of the people, then what does that say about the process people have come to tolerate with respect to ordered change? Not too damn much.
The government you have now has forgotten you. You still have each other, and in the end, that's everything because people are everything. Instead of letting the government that doesn't really represent you and the capitalist system you have known your whole life blast you apart and force you to compete against each other for limited resources, to charge each other rent, to charge each other interest on top of interest, to charge each other for basic necessities such as food and water, and forces you to kill your fellow human being on some distant battlefield, stop the fighting and come together and tear down the old system.
I cannot fathom supporting any system that would allow one to profit off human misery and suffering through building the machines and bombs of war, machines fueled by the suffering souls of those forced to fight wars for the war-profiteer, the oil-man, the businessman, or the banker.
I cannot fathom supporting any system that says one should pay the owner--the wealthy master, the shareholder sitting on the board--money for the mere privilege and not the inalienable right to medical care for one's well-being, nor could I support a system that forces the elderly to choose between food and pills at the end of each month.
And I cannot fathom supporting a federal government that budgets 400+ billion on turning people into soldiers and barely 40 billion on the K-12 schools to give them a chance to make something of themselves. Nevermind the fact that we cut Pell Grants and student loans. Does anybody see something wrong with this arrangement? Why am I not shocked anymore at the notion that my own government has become the greatest perveyor of violence in the world today with its defense budgets, arms sales, and wars?
Ultimately, the only thing stopping people from collectively changing course is fear of change and the unknown. If everybody tomorrow suddenly decided they have had enough of our own government's barbarism against the world and against its own citizens and decided they would simply strike, march, protest, and cooperate and collectivize for mutual aid, then nothing could stand in the way of such a revolution, an American revolution.
To do such extraordinary things is frightening. It's full of danger. It's easier to simply sit at one's desk and continue to file paperwork and go about one's daily life as if nothing is wrong, but you will never gain anything if you don't stand up and put your trust in your fellow person and make yourself heard. It's frightening to trust somebody to cover your back in a system that teaches us to be suspicious of each other. It is a scary thought, but people will not free themselves if they don't rely on each other for support.
I believe in voluntary collectivism, and I believe in the inherent goodness of people. People can collectively save each other if they choose. That is the power of choice, something many are trying to limit and take away.
I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I lead you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.
-- Eugene Debs
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
