We need to reach out to one another as much as possible. Unity of a rising working class globally is part of a solution.
It's difficult, but it is doable.
We need new strategies. Too many organizations keep the same hierarchical structures (top down) as our societal structures. Different tactical means are necessary. Why? Because we the people have allowed the elites to dominate every sphere in the country.
Camera surveillance, militarized police, continued election manipulation/fraud, the authority of the stacked supreme creeps, voting for the duopoly are the worst abuses we face.
Had we acted years ago consistently, our condition could be very different. New strategies and tactics plus unity will be required.
May the new year bring massive resistance against our oppressors! ✌️
Agreed JC. I have posted this before, but if you missed it it is worth reading: "'If We Burn': The limits of mass protest w/Vincent Bevins | The Chris Hedges Report"
"The 2010s were a decade of revolt. From Athens to Atlanta, Santiago to Seoul, a global wave of protest brought masses of people into confrontation with the status quo, demanding an end to neoliberalism, racism, climate change, and more. Yet despite this upswell of grassroots political activity, little lasting, positive change followed. What sparked the past decade of mass protest? Why didn't it result in political transformation? Vincent Bevins, author of 'If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution', joins The Chris Hedges Report for a retrospective on the decade that set the world on fire, and how to adapt its lessons for the challenges ahead."
I used to watch this Hedges show. I missed this one.
Thanks, Mark.
There is always more to think about in planning, executing, and succeeding with demands for a mass movement. What result do we require? How does such a movement absorb and integrate big numbers. Then what? It requires ethics and a solid plan to succeed.
Have you ever read Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer."
OMG, Eric Hoffer! I have not read the book and had completely forgotten about him. I haven't seen any mention of him in decades. He's what the times call for, a working man intellectual.
I attended college in the late 1960s. I thought Hoffer was a jerk. Kind of like Milton Friedman. But he was certainly read by the conservative students at my college.
I remember when JOE BIDEN went out to support the Unions. HE hated the Unions but they capitulated because he was the President. Biden knew what he was doing at that moment.
When you have a UNION it means only ONE thing (to us in Europe) it does NOT take political sides.
Yes. All of you come out and refute this in the USA.
The same is happening here in Europe. BUT the 'farmers Union' is still fighting. They use their tractors and farm equipment to choke the roads and freeways.
ANY refrigerated truck that comes in from another country ie Morrocco gets searched.
IF there are Tomato's (in the middle of Winter) they are either sent back or destroyed.
In Winter: Root vegetables are there for a purpose. Nature knows better than us what we should be eating in Winter and it is NOT salad.
I just talked to a very good friend of mine in California: She was so proud of her salad!
When greed or power are abused they create the ultimate addiction. We know that for abusers a little is too much and too much is never enough. They need outside help to save them from destroying themselves and all life on earth as collateral damage. Healthy people are capable of moderation. Dangerous addicts are not.
We must find a way to securely separate them from their poison (excess wealth and power) before they destroy themselves and the whole world.
Great illustration, Mark! However, you forgot to picture me holding my AK47😉
If anyone can tell me the last time a nonviolent (successful) revolution has occurred, I’m all ears. Was the Amerikkkan Revolution peaceful? How about the French? The latter knew how to do it up right! Hubby’s a talented builder: I need to find plans for a guillotine 😁
Until there is an independent press in this country very little will change. Notice how completely dropped any mention of Luigi Mangione has been? One crisis after another will keep him permanently off the front page until he can be thrown in solitary forever.
Elon Musk is biding his time until his easily controlled buddy takes office and then the Twitter accounts will be shadowbanned and censored with no “savior” in sight. Don’t forget within the first few weeks of the Gaza genocide he flew to Israel to apologize in person to Netanyahu for annoying him. His billions come from government contracts and we’ll be paying for his trip to Mars, just like he planned it. The
What’s the answer? Stop buying crap for starters especially off Amazon. Christmas is over and today — if I keep any resolution at all this year — let it be this one. All they understand is money and the less they get, the less they’ll like it.
Well said. The numbers from Oxfam don't lie--the billionaires are killing the planet and everyone on it (eventually killing themselves in the process) with their pollution and hoarding behaviors. That's insanity in a nutshell. We don't need more insane people ruling the roost and suiciding themselves and our planet--we need to lock them up pronto before they can do any more damage. #FreeLuigi
The emotion of hate/anger is a neutral form of energy, just like a gallon of gasoline is a neutral form of energy. One could take a gallon of gasoline and pour it across the living room floor and burn one's house down or put it to use to power a chainsaw to cut enough firewood to heat that home for a long winter. One is negative, the other positive. The gasoline alone is neutral.
One of the main things lacking in the leftist world these days is energy. There's no spark. People are collapsed. Like domestic violence victims, they have given up and internalized the hate of the abuser; being complicit in their abuse.
This is particularly dangerous given the ruling corporate cabal from United(W)ealthcare to Congress to Wall Street to CIA/Deep State to the War Dept and beyond is absolutely pathologically evil. They literally are out to kill off not just our financial security and opportunity, they are out to kill us and our children through a variety of immediate and long-term methods.
Joel, you ain't gonna win them over with love. That would be like trying to persuade Hitler to be nice to Jews with a gift of Girl Scout cookies.
We need to get serious about the very real immediate and long-term threat we face from this cold-blooded predator class. They hate me and all I hold dear and I hate the bastards back. I hate Netanyahu and the US officials funding and arming the genocide. I hate the Israeli snipers double tapping children with shots to head and chest. They are all evil. Period. NONE of them have any positive qualities. Every day they earn and deserve my hate.
In your second comment you say it doesn't help anything. I strongly disagree. It can provide the fuel needed to heat up opposition and resistance to the evil we face. You say overthrowing them is undoable. I, again, disagree, because to meekly accept that is to accept domination of evil; it is a suicidal mindset to conspire in one's enslavement and death.
F*ck that.
Will it be easy? No. As in all justice movements, it is an evolutionary process that grows and responds to changing situations. What needs to happen this time is to clearly see and accept the reality of the absolutely dark, soulless evil we face. It is possible to hold Hate and Love in one's heart. Given what we are facing, to not have the former will kill the later.
Now, I completely agree we need to unite and help each other, in a spirit of love and compassion, but it is not a matter of either/or. It is yes and both at the same time. It is hate of those who are out to kill off all love in the world and in the process to not lose one's soul; to find a balance of Yin and Yang.
To confront and defeat what threatens us all will take a lot of energy. We need to channel the justifiable emotional fuel of hate/anger into constructive things like supporting labor unions and strikes, participating in boycotts and protests, community mutual aid work etc.
Hate of the rich needs to be expressed not in violence but truth expressed through mocking derision, humor, satire, shunning and any other way to push the bastards into irrelevance.
Mark, I never mentioned winning them (the enemy, the psychopaths) over with love. I specifically named ”abandoning them”. Fuck these deranged greed-diseased servants of Mammon. All this energy directed towards opposing, resisting and overthrowing the rulers of the prevailing order is misdirected. We must use our energy —and love— to help, support, educate, and unite the people. Period.
”Everyone doing what they can is enough to to everything that needs to be done.” Dartwill Aquila
I hear you, but just don't see it as either/or. Resistance -- be it a finger in the face of the rulers or helping your community -- needs to be on both fronts; literally destruction and construction at the same time ... one supports the other.
As Malcom X said, “In order for non-violence to work the enemy must have a conscience.” Billionaires, by definition, are psychopaths - no conscience, no empathy. While we must understand the enemy in order to defeat them, part of that is understanding that they are different than most people, they are psychopaths. I think the message is that showing the masses why they should hate the billionaires (and their enablers) instead of those who are most vulnerable, why they should attack psychopaths rather than those who look different or those the psychopaths say we should hate, is a first step to understanding. That is the first step to over-throwing them, one way or another.
I don’t claim that we shouldn’t hate, but that it doesn’t accomplish anything. In other words, what can we do about our hate. Yes, our enemies are psychopaths, but aiming to overthrow them, although desirable, is hardly doable. It’s a gut reaction, but a faulty strategy. We need to unite with the people by solving the problems they are burdened with. Should we wait until we’ve overthrown the psychopaths before caring for the health of the people? Must we overthrow our enemies before educating the people about truths of life and love and community struggles?
”There is so much that must be done. That shouldn’t prevent us from doing what we can.” Hjalmar Montelius, Swedish priest and philosopher.
We need to reach out to one another as much as possible. Unity of a rising working class globally is part of a solution.
It's difficult, but it is doable.
We need new strategies. Too many organizations keep the same hierarchical structures (top down) as our societal structures. Different tactical means are necessary. Why? Because we the people have allowed the elites to dominate every sphere in the country.
Camera surveillance, militarized police, continued election manipulation/fraud, the authority of the stacked supreme creeps, voting for the duopoly are the worst abuses we face.
Had we acted years ago consistently, our condition could be very different. New strategies and tactics plus unity will be required.
May the new year bring massive resistance against our oppressors! ✌️
Agreed JC. I have posted this before, but if you missed it it is worth reading: "'If We Burn': The limits of mass protest w/Vincent Bevins | The Chris Hedges Report"
"The 2010s were a decade of revolt. From Athens to Atlanta, Santiago to Seoul, a global wave of protest brought masses of people into confrontation with the status quo, demanding an end to neoliberalism, racism, climate change, and more. Yet despite this upswell of grassroots political activity, little lasting, positive change followed. What sparked the past decade of mass protest? Why didn't it result in political transformation? Vincent Bevins, author of 'If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution', joins The Chris Hedges Report for a retrospective on the decade that set the world on fire, and how to adapt its lessons for the challenges ahead."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JothTrXIzRs
I used to watch this Hedges show. I missed this one.
Thanks, Mark.
There is always more to think about in planning, executing, and succeeding with demands for a mass movement. What result do we require? How does such a movement absorb and integrate big numbers. Then what? It requires ethics and a solid plan to succeed.
Have you ever read Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer."
I think I'll read his book.
Agreed.
OMG, Eric Hoffer! I have not read the book and had completely forgotten about him. I haven't seen any mention of him in decades. He's what the times call for, a working man intellectual.
Great bio on the Amazon page for the book, BTW.
( https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APSDOU/about )
I just ordered a copy of the book. Thanks, JC.
I have found it interesting over the years.
I attended college in the late 1960s. I thought Hoffer was a jerk. Kind of like Milton Friedman. But he was certainly read by the conservative students at my college.
More Unions which are not politicized.
I remember when JOE BIDEN went out to support the Unions. HE hated the Unions but they capitulated because he was the President. Biden knew what he was doing at that moment.
When you have a UNION it means only ONE thing (to us in Europe) it does NOT take political sides.
Yes. All of you come out and refute this in the USA.
The same is happening here in Europe. BUT the 'farmers Union' is still fighting. They use their tractors and farm equipment to choke the roads and freeways.
ANY refrigerated truck that comes in from another country ie Morrocco gets searched.
IF there are Tomato's (in the middle of Winter) they are either sent back or destroyed.
In Winter: Root vegetables are there for a purpose. Nature knows better than us what we should be eating in Winter and it is NOT salad.
I just talked to a very good friend of mine in California: She was so proud of her salad!
When greed or power are abused they create the ultimate addiction. We know that for abusers a little is too much and too much is never enough. They need outside help to save them from destroying themselves and all life on earth as collateral damage. Healthy people are capable of moderation. Dangerous addicts are not.
We must find a way to securely separate them from their poison (excess wealth and power) before they destroy themselves and the whole world.
Check into the Native American teachings of Wetiko.
Let's take all their money and see how they do.
Great illustration, Mark! However, you forgot to picture me holding my AK47😉
If anyone can tell me the last time a nonviolent (successful) revolution has occurred, I’m all ears. Was the Amerikkkan Revolution peaceful? How about the French? The latter knew how to do it up right! Hubby’s a talented builder: I need to find plans for a guillotine 😁
Make sure you keep the gears on that guillotine well oiled!
Mark, another of my many (😉) talents is basket-making. I’m currently working on a good sturdy one to hold the heads 😁
Well you better make a really big one for Elon's.
😂
Now that can be offset by the tea cup-sized basket needed for Trump's head ... once the orange grass is mowed off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkl5Nnt78Yc
Cornel West -- "Moments of Interruption"
Until there is an independent press in this country very little will change. Notice how completely dropped any mention of Luigi Mangione has been? One crisis after another will keep him permanently off the front page until he can be thrown in solitary forever.
Elon Musk is biding his time until his easily controlled buddy takes office and then the Twitter accounts will be shadowbanned and censored with no “savior” in sight. Don’t forget within the first few weeks of the Gaza genocide he flew to Israel to apologize in person to Netanyahu for annoying him. His billions come from government contracts and we’ll be paying for his trip to Mars, just like he planned it. The
What’s the answer? Stop buying crap for starters especially off Amazon. Christmas is over and today — if I keep any resolution at all this year — let it be this one. All they understand is money and the less they get, the less they’ll like it.
"They spell it: DeMOCKracy and Fiefdom."
Well said. The numbers from Oxfam don't lie--the billionaires are killing the planet and everyone on it (eventually killing themselves in the process) with their pollution and hoarding behaviors. That's insanity in a nutshell. We don't need more insane people ruling the roost and suiciding themselves and our planet--we need to lock them up pronto before they can do any more damage. #FreeLuigi
It is the embodiment of Wetiko.
Hating your enemy doesn't affect them. Even if it releases some of the pressure of frustration.
Understanding your enemy can defeat them. By abandoning them we can build the world we want. Only the future born of love will have a future.
I'm also responding to Ron's comments.
The emotion of hate/anger is a neutral form of energy, just like a gallon of gasoline is a neutral form of energy. One could take a gallon of gasoline and pour it across the living room floor and burn one's house down or put it to use to power a chainsaw to cut enough firewood to heat that home for a long winter. One is negative, the other positive. The gasoline alone is neutral.
One of the main things lacking in the leftist world these days is energy. There's no spark. People are collapsed. Like domestic violence victims, they have given up and internalized the hate of the abuser; being complicit in their abuse.
This is particularly dangerous given the ruling corporate cabal from United(W)ealthcare to Congress to Wall Street to CIA/Deep State to the War Dept and beyond is absolutely pathologically evil. They literally are out to kill off not just our financial security and opportunity, they are out to kill us and our children through a variety of immediate and long-term methods.
Joel, you ain't gonna win them over with love. That would be like trying to persuade Hitler to be nice to Jews with a gift of Girl Scout cookies.
We need to get serious about the very real immediate and long-term threat we face from this cold-blooded predator class. They hate me and all I hold dear and I hate the bastards back. I hate Netanyahu and the US officials funding and arming the genocide. I hate the Israeli snipers double tapping children with shots to head and chest. They are all evil. Period. NONE of them have any positive qualities. Every day they earn and deserve my hate.
In your second comment you say it doesn't help anything. I strongly disagree. It can provide the fuel needed to heat up opposition and resistance to the evil we face. You say overthrowing them is undoable. I, again, disagree, because to meekly accept that is to accept domination of evil; it is a suicidal mindset to conspire in one's enslavement and death.
F*ck that.
Will it be easy? No. As in all justice movements, it is an evolutionary process that grows and responds to changing situations. What needs to happen this time is to clearly see and accept the reality of the absolutely dark, soulless evil we face. It is possible to hold Hate and Love in one's heart. Given what we are facing, to not have the former will kill the later.
Now, I completely agree we need to unite and help each other, in a spirit of love and compassion, but it is not a matter of either/or. It is yes and both at the same time. It is hate of those who are out to kill off all love in the world and in the process to not lose one's soul; to find a balance of Yin and Yang.
To confront and defeat what threatens us all will take a lot of energy. We need to channel the justifiable emotional fuel of hate/anger into constructive things like supporting labor unions and strikes, participating in boycotts and protests, community mutual aid work etc.
Hate of the rich needs to be expressed not in violence but truth expressed through mocking derision, humor, satire, shunning and any other way to push the bastards into irrelevance.
Resist
Persist
Don't be complicit
Mark, I never mentioned winning them (the enemy, the psychopaths) over with love. I specifically named ”abandoning them”. Fuck these deranged greed-diseased servants of Mammon. All this energy directed towards opposing, resisting and overthrowing the rulers of the prevailing order is misdirected. We must use our energy —and love— to help, support, educate, and unite the people. Period.
”Everyone doing what they can is enough to to everything that needs to be done.” Dartwill Aquila
I hear you, but just don't see it as either/or. Resistance -- be it a finger in the face of the rulers or helping your community -- needs to be on both fronts; literally destruction and construction at the same time ... one supports the other.
As Malcom X said, “In order for non-violence to work the enemy must have a conscience.” Billionaires, by definition, are psychopaths - no conscience, no empathy. While we must understand the enemy in order to defeat them, part of that is understanding that they are different than most people, they are psychopaths. I think the message is that showing the masses why they should hate the billionaires (and their enablers) instead of those who are most vulnerable, why they should attack psychopaths rather than those who look different or those the psychopaths say we should hate, is a first step to understanding. That is the first step to over-throwing them, one way or another.
See my response to Joel in the thread.
I don’t claim that we shouldn’t hate, but that it doesn’t accomplish anything. In other words, what can we do about our hate. Yes, our enemies are psychopaths, but aiming to overthrow them, although desirable, is hardly doable. It’s a gut reaction, but a faulty strategy. We need to unite with the people by solving the problems they are burdened with. Should we wait until we’ve overthrown the psychopaths before caring for the health of the people? Must we overthrow our enemies before educating the people about truths of life and love and community struggles?
”There is so much that must be done. That shouldn’t prevent us from doing what we can.” Hjalmar Montelius, Swedish priest and philosopher.
🔥🔥🔥
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