[Peace-discuss] In the streets

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

Which is why - despite it being a French saying - the saying "the more
things change the more they stay the same" has become an American
description.  Until the masses of ordinary people get off their asses and
take to the streets with a willingness to shut things down and prevent
business as usual even if it means their inconvenience and discomfort, there
will be no significant change in the US - only minor symbolic reforms at the
periphery.  Instead of the corporations and the establishment elite getting
3 trillion of the common person's money, the government will only give them
2 3/4 trillion; and instead of demanding final control and veto over the
operations of those corporations and the use of the money, the government
will get for the public only minor symbolic control which only those behind
the closed doors will be able to know about.  Indeed, the French
demonstrations have much more authority and impact than any placard carrying
or letter writing demonstrations that we have in the US will ever have.  Our
demonstrators do not even get off the sidewalks and block traffic for fear
of being called irresponsible and losing respectability, for fear of being
arrested and getting a record or having to pay a fine, or because they do
not want to be seen as being disruptive.

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G.
Estabrook
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 12:46 AM
To: peace-discuss
Subject: [Peace-discuss] In the streets

 

      Paris When it Sizzles:

      The French Say No to Fat-Cat Bailouts                 

 

You have to admire the French. The ordinary people there know how to stick
up  

for themselves - instead of meekly bowing down and accepting whatever bitter


gruel the elite tries to cram down their throats. And they don't just write
a 

few angry letters (or blog posts!), or send checks to some worthy
progressive 

organization to organize a few mildly admonishing ads or press releases on
their 

behalf. Hell no, they take to the streets, by the millions, they shut things


down, they make some noise, they put their time, their jobs, and their
bodies on 

the line.

 

Yesterday saw another remarkable display of this national trait, as an 

astonishingly broad spectrum of the French citizenry surged through the
streets 

of Paris to express their outrage at the government's response to the
economic 

crisis. This response has been the usual doling out of billions in public
money 

for the fat cats who caused the crisis, coupled with increasing demands for 

"sacrifice" from the hoi polloi: less pay, longer hours, fewer benefits, a 

bleaker life for you and your children while the elite party on.

 

But on Thursday, an estimated 2.5 million people - blue-collar workers and 

white-collar professionals, educators and students, doctors and train
drivers, 

native-born and immigrants - came out to tell the government: "We are not
going 

to pay for the greed and corruption of the elite! Find another way!" The 

contrast to the stunned, herd-like reaction of the American and British
publics 

to their governments' gorging of corrupt oligarchs with no-strings largess
could 

not be more striking...

 

Full article at <http://www.chris-floyd.com/>

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