Is it just me, or is discouragement playing a role in limiting on-line participation from the left? I just got an email from Jim Dean of Democracy for America. He says the "fiscal cliff" is not real, is merely a scare tactic. We all know this.
What does he propose? A petition to Congress. "Pretty please would you please please not run this scam that has been years in the planning and has most powerful people firmly behind it?"
Some time during the last 4 years, I stopped bothering to sign these petitions. Anyway, I feel as though I see the future, and it is murder. Such petitions strike me as worse than useless--they encourage a delusional feeling of participation and are usually more about maintaining the public standing of those who put them forward than they are about seriously addressing the problems we face.
Comments
Occupy and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Occupy had a good idea but then there are problems with that, like how to sustain it. Oh yeah, and how it's reported, if it's reported at all.
Money runs everything. We need to get rich, to gain access, to bring down the banksters through their own greed.
No, I have no clue how to do that.
Not much, but here's a comment
I feel discouraged noticing where our attention goes--even most of us with our eyes wide open can't seem to avoid having our agenda set by the daily propaganda report. It is really challenging to maintain focus on nitty gritty things, such as educating people about using credit unions or battling blindness to the inhumanity of drone strikes. We cannot expect to gain momentum that develops a life of its own because we own zero big media outlets. This means staying at it day after day. I'm not whining--I'm saying that I feel this challenge is wearing on us. It might help if we acknowledge from the beginning that this is the way things are, that this is the world we live in and the challenge we face. Speaking personally, I'm not doing too well with it right now. I'm actually lecturing myself.
Someone mentioned the importance of livestreamers and Tim Pool's idea to self-surveille with inexpensive drones armed with cameras.
From discussion elsewhere
A lot of us seem to agree on the hopelessness of petitions to change things. We all see the limits of demonstrations for being heard, because they are seldom covered by mainstream media and when they are, the coverage is wildly inaccurate.
A couple of people have mentioned the importance of art and music for strengthening the message of resistance to the juggernaut of oligarchy. I'm onboard with that, because that is the best way to create a healthy collective unconscious, the collective exuberance we need to keep our energy up for the struggle.
I see an immense challenge to be resisting the ability of the media machine to set the terms of discussion every day. When everybody's talking about something, it is difficult not to turn one's attention to what is on everyone's minds rather than to keep it on one's on plodding, unheralded work toward doing something that may actually have impact.
Just thinking out loud.
I don't find petitions to be useless at all.
There are millions of people who can't join in the organizing, who can't protest, who can't "show up."
There are homebound people, there are caregivers who can't leave home - much, there are people working two or three jobs, trying to take care of their families who couldn't possibly "show up."
Yes, people can make phone calls to their representatives and the White House, but I've found that to be useless -- as politicians can and do lie about how many phone calls they received on a particular issue and how the calls were running - for/against.
At least with a petition, those that aren't as able to "get out" as others are, they can sign a petitition and their support will be documented.
I'm not saying that petitions get 'er done, but that's all that some people can do at the particular moment.
And if we had a media that could actually do their job right, WE'D HEAR about petition A, B, C, how many people signed. We sure are hearing about how many petitions there are regarding seceding, aren't we.
Maybe if we started boycotting the traditional media until they started doing, what's that called, journalism, that could help. Maybe I'll start a petition ;)
You're right, I shouldn't put down one organizing tool
Good points, as usual. What I'm really thinking of is that reading that petition and remembering so many other of these rigged battles over the last decade and more, how every single one of them turns out to give the 1% what they want. At this point, it looks like the pretense of democracy and nothing more. Which has more oomph, the petition signed by a million people or the lobbyist Alan Grayson describes, offering a million dollars for a vote? The answer to this question has been answered loud and clear. I read that petition and I felt the entire scenario has already been set up. The desired results have been determined by wealthy and powerful people behind the scenes, and now it's time to put up a show of a spirited debate. This is how it feels to me. This feeling does not arise from being a spoiled purist who always needs to get my way; it arises from having seen this process so many times. The results seem always to come out independent of what the country wants. We have seen over the last decade more than one example of Congress having an opportunity to choose the moral choice, the politically popular choice, and the practically wise choice--all 3 aligned--and have seen them choose the thing that continues the flow of money to the 1% instead. We have seen this.
Do you have a link to the petition?
I'd like to read it, but can't easily find it on the DFA site. Thank you.
linky
http://democracyforamerica.com/activities/846?akid=2575.121832.onz45b&rd...
Thankie very much ;)
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how has change happened, historically?
how do governments change? how do they fall? Outside invasions, usurpations by those close to power, torch-carrying citizens. Sometimes they go broke, like the USSR.
I doubt that any government has undergone fundamental change because of petitions but I don't discourage them. Anything is better than nothing.
Anyway, I'm headed off to the "library" to read up on how things have changed in the past.
Good question
I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that in exploring this question, there is one thing to take into account. I don't believe any previous society had such a sophisticated, saturating propaganda system, a system which is delivered to the homes of most of the population, which is viewed addictively by most, and which is controlled by only a few players. I believe this circumstance to be unique to our time.
Not just you George.
I am deflated. I have thots and ideas, but as you say, they are drowned out by the daily cacaphoney of manufactured reality. People just cannot stop themselves, and as you say, it gets the best of em. Petitions do work at the state level. We got marijuana legalized because of petitions that got it on the ballot. That's because they're tied to a system that requires they be listened to if enough sign. That's what we need at the national level, a national petition/referendum or inititative system, which I think is built into the national system. But no one wants to talk about it or even take such ideas or options seriously.
Now that one scares me
Nation-wide petitions. I think they're problematic. "Problematic compared to what?" you may ask, and you will have made an excellent point. Give me throwing a deck of cards down the stairs to the current system. Still, a huge problem with them is that a specific thing can pass irrespective of how it affects the entire system, with financials being the worst problem there. Citizens decide some great thing has to be done everywhere all the time and the government has to figure out how to pay for it. I can imagine that flaw being gamed, also, by Rove/Norquist types who wish to drown the government in debt. Anyway, that's one negative argument. I'm not feeling totally negative, and not wanting to rain on this parade. I'm interested in discussing it. Sounds like a good idea, and some good things have been done.
These things frighten me. Another aspect is that, based on CA, it seems to me anecdotally that money definitely pays--we've seem some things fail that I'm pretty sure most of the people in the state would favor if they knew what hell was going on. I would like to be wrong about that money thing--perhaps it's more immune to money influence, or alternatively more amenable to counteracting money through citizen activism than personality politics.
Isn't the Gray Davis recall an example of Enron gaming the system, engaging in execrable behavior, truly beyond the pale of human sympathy? That's a little different, but it's a referendum being manipulated for hidden reasons, and it worked. Hello Governator. Cut slash burn.
Sorry to be so negative. What are the chances of getting a bill like that snuck through congress. Maybe no one will notice the extreme democratic element to the bill, an element that they all would detest. Yeah, I think that would be a pretty good way to apply pressure, merely mount support in favor of such a bill, make it an issue. We want national referenda. Damn if I haven't changed my own mind.
Do petitions divert people who were going to ...
... do something from doing it?
I think that they are indeed primarily a tool for the people promoting the petition to collect contact details of people at least mildly interested in an issues area.
Whether or not anything useful comes of it depends on whether anything useful comes of that organization getting that information. For those in the "veal pen", who make their living in soliciting contributions to pressure Congress and the Administration to put window dressing up at the slaughterhouse, obviously not much useful is going to come from it.
If, hypothetically, there was an effective and committed progressive movement, and they could parlay one out of a thousand petition slacktivists into people making some small but real and effective contribution, then the petitions could do a tremendous amount of good.
I feel so dejected.
I feel like the too many people are disengaged and aren't willing to listen. I'm relieved that Obama won because I feel like he was the lesser of the two evils but now I'm so depressed because I see where this country is going. How do we stop it?
I guess we have to decide what we're more afraid of
ourselves, or the ruling class.
Like I said, even bringing up those type of things, I could add the Article V Convention process, state Constitutions, etc., bring up those comments. Talk about term limits or a draft and people get all scared, oh no we can't do that. Well, absolutely no one has a fucking clue what to do and they're too scared to try shit.
That's why I'm a One Percenter by voting for Stein. I'm still alive.
Maybe we deserve what we get.
No offense geomoo, just my tude tonight.
Not a Whiff of Offense
Thanks for laying it out there.
Let me run this by you. I say there is an untold story of this election. It may have been told--I don't watch much news. That story is the definitive statement that people like us can be safely ignored, can even be goaded into actively hating the president. It doesn't matter. But, you know what is most unsettling of all, this story is not even important enough to report. Everybody knew that anyway. Where's the news? Liberals have been caricatured and mis-represented in every medium from action movies to comedy to advertisements. Liberals can be comics, but when the bullets start flying, we're all happy there's that asshole Bruce Willis standing there, prepared to jump over shit and blow shit up in our behalf. And if we take it seriously and forget all that conspiracy shit, we may even get to marry his daughter. We'll grow up some day. That's us. Challenging times.
I like your ideas for finding avenues to apply grass-roots pressure. We should deploy them all at once. But I'm no organizer, so there you have it.
That's the thing, I'm not either.
"I'm just a pawn in the game of life".
I remember years ago writing that we needed a couple liberal billionaires to pony up their money so we can organize. Money talks bullshit walks.
But all the fricking liberal billionaires and most of the liberal millionaires are phonies, like the Hollywood phonies.
I'd also like to see all those smart people on the internet who are on our side turn from paying attention to the daily manufacutured reality toward finding solutions, organizing specific actions, using the system against itself.
If I had a million bucks I'd fly them all into a convention center in a midwest city and make them stay there until they came up with a plan.
A multi-faceted plan
What I would do with that billionaire's money, btw, is create a competing media empire. My assumption is that, even with money, the game is rigged somehow so the market can't be penetrated. I'm curious what happened to Ted Turner. I know very little about what happened, but once I did see him on a news show pleading his case that government policy was somehow putting him at a disadvantage against Rupert Murdoch. He was pleading, I can stop this guy, but I need whatever. I've always wondered what went on there. I know people don't like him, but he wanted to be liberal. Those peace games he funded, that was a philanthropic venture, and for something I believe in. If he could be running CNN the way he wanted, he would likely be trying to create cultural connections with the muslim world. I mention Turner, because he's as close to what you mention as I think we'll see.
Hell, take away the Pentagon and CIA's propaganda
budget and we'd make alot of progress right there. The media is the elephant in the room, that and our educational system. That's what creates and conditions the sheeple. And you know as well as I that's it's worse than ever and has reached Orwellian proportions. We need plans that take that into consideration, that can work with that reality somehow.
I've used the term before, use the system against itself.
Yes indeed
What is disturbing is that, what I call propaganda, is not just about ideas and believing things--it creates a different kind of person, it creates values, and those values have a huge impact on behavior. Here's an example. This is the preview to a Tom Cruise film coming out soon. I happened to see it the other day. This is what I mean by propaganda. The earlier trailers said, "If he's coming for you, you deserve it." See? Just like drone attacks and targeted assassinations. What first got my attention was the preview I saw. At one point, accompanied by loud music with heavy bass, all very viscerally involving, the screen flashes in huge block letters,
THE LAW HAS LIMITS.
HE DOES NOT.
The closing narrative is "He doesn't care about the law, doesn't care about proof. He only cares about what's right." Just like Colbert's gut feeling. Just like the military commissions. That's what I mean by propaganda. It doesn't even occur to people that they're being subjected to it.
Here's the trailer for that film. How much sympathy am I going to get making a serious critique of this film and claiming it contributes to our lack of outrage when the rule of law is undermined? It would just piss people off if I got in the way of their entertainment. This sort of thing affects our values, affects how we treat one another and who we are.
You see, right now I just don't give a shit about
the Occupy's debt jubilee actions or the utopian ideas of building community gardens of eden everyone can live in peacefully.
We have to take the boom boom toys away from our psychopathic ruling class, demilitarize the fucking planet, and stop the bankers and corporations from stealing all the money and resources. Two things. Nothing else matters. Climate change can't be addressed unless those are anyway.
But doesn't lumping the Occupy Jubilee actions ...
... together with building "community gardens of edens" help ensure that the psychopathic ruling class will stay in power, the planet will stay militarized, and corporations will continue stealing all the money and resources?
There is no collective result without collective action.
There is no collective action without a collective with experience in acting
So it would seem that doing something useful beats sitting around waiting for the "get everything done at once" express to come along.
And clearly, the Occupy Jubilee actions are an action aimed at preventing corporations from stealing all the money and resources.
Self-sustaining institutions
We do need to develop something new, here.
The corporate aristocracy have built a quite effective network of institutions ~ think tanks, talk radio, Fox News, etc. ~ that work to sustain the radical reactionary movement in part by employing the radical reactionary movement. Providing work ~ work at think tanks, work at lobbying, speaking engagements, fees to be a "contributor" ~ allows radical reactionary activists to not only stay engaged as activists, but also to take the long view, because so long as the vicious radical reactionary movement retains some political clout, then it will continue to be worth the while of the corporate aristocracy to dole out funding.
An alternative corporate aristocratic movement can proceed along the same lines. And so we have a smaller, less effective, weak, wishy washy Whig alternatives, making timid little reformist proposals while carefully avoiding upsetting the pillars supporting the massive wealth and privilege gained by the corporate aristocracy.
But a movement that is dedicated to tearing out the corporate aristocracy, root and branch, needs to find ways to build a network of supporting institutions that run on a self-sustaining basis.
That's just painting a target: as far as what will hit that target, I do not know. One idea comes from the way that the current brutal labor market pushes people at the bottom of the labor market into corporate two year career colleges. A two year career college organized on a cooperative basis might be able to offer degrees on similar terms but less expensively. It would also offer opportunities to work for people with Masters degree or better qualifications in various areas.
Other ideas might be in the area of electronic publishing. Its relatively easy to publish for online digital distribution, but much of the work published independently suffers from lack of proofreading and editing. But starting independent authors often cannot afford to hire professional proofreading or editing. A cooperative might accept submissions of independent work, offering proofreading and editing of works in return for a percentage share of the sales of accepted submissions. Working as a cooperative offers advantages for proofreading particular, with chapters being sent out with some randomization for first pass and second pass proofing, and a proportionate share of the cooperative's share of sales revenue.
And of course having a cadre of experienced proofreaders and editors means an ability to help polish up progressive writing in addition to the genre recreational writing that would be the bread and butter of the cooperative.
I've mentioned in one of the American Indian diaries at dkos the idea of taking on the "Small House" design patterns and building small houses to address the housing shortages in the oil patch in North Dakota, which at the same time implies building up skills, incomes, and capability to build housing on the reservation as well. A network of cooperatives would extend that. Being able to provide shelter is an element of directly sustaining progressive activists, over and above being able to provide income generating opportunities.
And as far as gardens, yes, community gardens are important as well. It is, of course, a bit tricky to run a community garden entirely online, but a network of cooperative community gardens could well imply an additional piece in the capability to sustain progressive activists in the literal sense of seeing to it that they have food to eat.