Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Tea Party vs. The Left

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 8, 2011

The Tea Party vs. The Left

by David Peterson from Z Communications.

I think that the best interpretation of these poll results is that the US government is a subservient branch of the ruling class that performs various theatrical productions. There are two plays currently being performed in Washington: "Shutdown" that stars John Boehner, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama; and "Libyan Humanitarian Mission" in which Obama and various generals are starring.

I don't mean to diminish the significance of the related issues dealt with in these staged productions, it is just that the plays are not the real action or actors. The Washington Theater is partly entertainment in the sense that it is designed to distract attention, but mostly it serves to have people think that this is where decisions are really made.

You see, we are taught to believe that government is supposed to work as we were taught in school. The reality is that it has long been taken over by secret agencies and "think tanks" of the ruling class. Rather than simply declaring the government null and void and announcing a fascist oligarchy, the ruling one percent (you know, the people who "own" the economy) want to continue the farce about representative government in order to keep people in a comfortable state of mind. In short, the poll results reveal this huge gap between what people think about the military intervention in Libya and what the government actually does.

This sort of gap is unusual. I think it has occurred largely for two reasons. The events in Libya, along with all the other uprisings in the region, came on very suddenly. The ruling class hasn't had time to "prepare" the minds of its citizens to justify and rationalize the invasion. They have managed to provide some legitimacy by getting the UN Security Council to approve it (with some key abstentions), but they've had little time to stir up enough hatred in its citizens by using its media to show the cruelty of the Libyan regime (women being raped, civilians being killed, etc). To be sure, the regime is oppressive, but so are many others, many that our government supports.