A year ago, no one imagined an Arab Spring, and no one imagined this American Fall

rebecca solnit...

When civil society sleeps, we’re just a bunch of individuals absorbed in our private lives. When we awaken, on campgrounds or elsewhere, when we come together in public and find our power, the authorities are terrified. They often reveal their ugly side, their penchant for violence and for hypocrisy.

[...]

Does an 84-year-old woman need to be tear-gassed in Seattle? Does a three-tours-of-duty veteran need to be beaten until his spleen ruptures in Oakland? Does our former poet laureate need to be bashed in the ribs after his poet wife is thrown to the ground at UC Berkeley? Admittedly, this is a system that regards people as disposable, but not usually so literally.

Two months ago, the latest protests against that system began. The response only confirms our vision of how it all works. They are fighting fire with gasoline. Perhaps being frightened makes them foolish. After all, once civil society rouses itself from slumber, it can be all but unstoppable.

[...]

[T]he grounds of my hope have always been that history is wilder than our imagination of it and that the unexpected shows up far more regularly than we ever dream. A year ago, no one imagined an Arab Spring, and no one imagined this American Fall -- even the people who began planning for it this summer. We don’t know what’s coming next, and that’s the good news. My advice is just of the most general sort: Dream big. Occupy your hopes. Talk to strangers. Live in public. Don’t stop now.

i confess... i'm a hope junkie... i keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, there will be a breakthrough and we'll see some real change... how that will happen, when it will happen, if it will happen, i couldn't begin to guess...

this morning, i visited the occupy reno site and caught up on what's been going on there while i was out of town... the good news is they're still there and still cranking away... they're going to be at the mall at midnight on black friday and plan to project the bat signal the way it was done on the verizon building in nyc... a lot of people will be gathered waiting for the doors to open so they can trip all over each other in their mad rush to part with their money so it will be a captive but not necessarily receptive audience... i'm thinking i'll join them just to see how it goes...

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Glenn - on vacation but back briefly to comment on Obama making Bush/Cheney radicalism the 'new normal'

hopey changey, hopey changey...

NOT...

snippets from glenn's post...

• [I]n Collapsing Empire News, the Democratic House -- not deterred or even slowed in the least by what the WikiLeak-ed documents revealed -- voted overwhelmingly to appropriate unconditionally another $37 billion for the war in Afghanistan while the political class prepares massive teacher lay-offs and (coming soon) slashing cuts to Social Security; this action -- with 102 Democrats and 12 Republicans opposed -- was taken in violation of the emphatic pledge of virtually every Democratic politician not to fund wars through supplemental appropriations.

• [A]s was painfully predictable and predicted, the bulk of political discussion in the wake of the WikiLeaks disclosures focuses not on our failing, sagging, pointless, civilian-massacring, soon-to-be-decade-old war, but rather on the Treasonous Evil of WikiLeaks for informing the American people about what their war entails. While it's true that WikiLeaks should have been much more careful in redacting the names of Afghan sources, watching Endless War Supporters prance around with righteous concern for Afghan lives being endangered by the leak is really too absurd to bear. You know what endangers innocent Afghan lives? Ten years of bombings, checkpoint shootings, due-process-free hit squads, air attacks, drones, night raids on homes, etc. etc.

• [T]he Obama administration is now advocating changes to the law that would empower federal law enforcement agents to compel companies to turn over citizens' Internet records without a warrant or any other form of judicial oversight. I wrote previously about the Obama DOJ's extremely dubious (and dangerous) arguments in court that the law already allows them to access such Internet and email records with no warrant, but now they are attempting to have Congress re-write the law to vest them with that power.

sigh...

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Something hopeful for a Father's Day

as a father and a grandfather, i feel a special pull toward bequeathing a legacy to our future generations, something we've been failing at spectacularly, particularly in the course of my lifetime... here's something to give us a little hope, not obama-style hope, but REAL hope...

A short film looking at the success of organic urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba. An example for cities around the world.

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A huge thank-you to Brother Tim

i've been wallowing in a blogging funk this last week and a half... actually, regular readers will note that it's been longer than that... since my "coming of age" to the realities of this world some twenty-five years ago, realities that became almost unbearable during the seemingly endless george w. bush years, each and every dark development that issues from the obama white house is like a stab to my heart...

i don't consider myself naive but i did nourish the brief hope that we would at least see a general change for the better under obama... i certainly didn't foresee that the rape and pillage of our country, the erosion of our civil liberties, the vicious destruction of the middle class, and the full-tilt boogie of endless war would accelerate from warp 2 to warp 8...

so, i've been on a self-imposed blog strike, feeling that, under the best of circumstances, i'm only tilting at windmills... brother tim, in his great compassion, noted the vacuum and generously stepped in to keep the home fires burning... tim, you're a real mensch...!

what i neglected to consider is the plain truth that i never started this blog to make a difference... i'm neither conceited, articulate, prolific, nor ego-driven enough to assume that l'il ol' me could turn the tide... from the outset, i determined to make this an outlet, something to help me retain my sanity in an increasingly insane world... this little vacation has reminded me of that and how much the occasional post keeps me from descending into the hellhole of my own mind...

so, i'm back... not with bells on... not on a crusade... not with anything more in mind than to scratch some really annoying itches...

again, many, many thanks, tim... hang in there, buddy... we're all we've got...

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I no longer have the desire to give Obama the benefit of the doubt

he's either got to start walking the talk or he needs to STFU...

US Refuses to Allow UN Inspectors to Investigate its WMDs

We Have a Nobel Peace President Who Won't Ban Land Mines

President Obama 'creating torture impunity'

so, barack... what's it gonna be...? solid actions that support your nice words or just more nice words...?

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What goes into the making of a contemporary American revolutionary?

a question for all of us to ponder, particularly with the chaos and borderline violence erupting daily in townhall meetings...

So what goes into the making of a contemporary American revolutionary? What turns an ordinary law abiding, relatively sedate and insular, American Idol watching couch potato into an informed and committed citizen prepared to incur risk and make meaningful prolonged personal sacrifice aimed at reclaiming our country? Two things: truth and suffering.

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Well then, if we have these essential elements of truth and suffering, why is there still no large, forceful, coherent, and well organized body of popular grassroots resistance in the US? The main reason is simply that the requisite deep suffering and penetrating hard truths are not yet sufficiently widespread. Another reason is the extensive dumbing down of our society, along with the non-stop lies and propaganda spoon fed us daily by mainstream corporate media. Also there’s the ever present fear created by our government, using both rhetoric and legislation designed to consistently reinforce the clear threat so plainly put to us in the wake of 9-11 by George W. Bush: “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.”

In any case, with our Bush initiated upward spiraling national debt, exploding unemployment, and massive war related economic hemorrhaging, all continuing unabated under Obama and our wholly owned Congress, the furtherance of expanded suffering is a foregone conclusion. It will be left to the small but growing numbers of would-be resisters and truth-tellers (citizens Big Brother will vilify as home-grown terrorists) to advance the spread of truth.

we placed so much hope with obama for meaningful change... now what...?

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