[Peace-discuss] We can hope

[C. G. Estabrook]

"...It's a measure of how depoliticized we are that a speed bump like the 
Congressional rejection is viewed as the beginning of some kind of revolution. 
If liberals like William Greider and Al Giordano really believe that a 
game-changing populist shift is looming, they're either hallucinating or 
cynically yanking their readers. Because if a serious groundswell is about to 
erupt, where can it go? What will be its ultimate destination? There's no real 
alternative support network for such a thing. No opposition party which this 
energy and anger can animate and empower. There is only one route, and that is 
right back to the Democrats. And if you are at all conscious, you know exactly 
what that means.

"Too harsh? Think back to a real populist period, say the late-19th century, 
when massive strikes shut down industry, when millions of working people were 
politically active, published their own newspapers, and created their own 
grassroots power centers. The work required to organize and educate workers in 
those days was especially hard, given the lack of instantaneous technological 
outreach. Yet it happened, all across the country. The elites of that time did 
tremble, until they unleashed federal troops on strikers and marchers, mowing 
them down with gunfire and clubs, throwing organizers in jail, suppressing 
newspapers. This continued right through the Woodrow Wilson years, a Democrat 
whom I credit in "Savage Mules" with creating the first modern American police 
state model, a gift that subsequent elites modified and streamlined to this day. 
And all along the way, people's political power has been crushed, bought off, or 
simply steered into the corporate parties.

"...I don't see anything remotely approaching the collective activism of those 
earlier years..."

 From <http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/10/halluci-nation.html>.


C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>     Bailout Lesson: Capital Crisis Will Wreck Both Parties   
>     Wednesday, 01 October 2008
>     by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
> ...