The Road (to Travel) to Solidarity

"The corporate media routinely divides Americans as 'liberals,' 'conservatives' and 'moderates,' a useful division for the corporatocracy, because no matter which of these groups is the current electoral winner, the corporatocracy retains power. In order to defeat the corporatocracy, it's more useful to divide people in terms of authoritarians versus anti-authoritarians, elitists versus populists and corporatists versus anticorporatists. Both left anti-authoritarians and libertarian anti-authoritarians passionately oppose current US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Wall Street bailout, the PATRIOT Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the so-called 'war on drugs' and several other corporatocracy policies." -- Bruce E. Levine

I've been feeling a bit melancholy lately, mostly -- but not entirely -- because I've felt no matter what actions the Left takes, or seems to take, it's never good enough, or it's never on target. I had mentioned to a friend a few months ago that as far-fetched and off-target the right-wing fringe was, in particular the Tea Party, it was correct in its assessment that something dreadfully was wrong. In our conversation I remarked that we, the Left along with the right-wing, held some very common ground in some very important aspects. Sure, in more areas than can possibly be enumerated here, we're as different as night and day -- as unmixable as oil and water -- but in some very key areas we recognize that there is something frightfully wrong. 

As I wrote in my initial blog post last July, I came across that "something" back in 2002. It's not that I didn't have a rudimentary understanding that multinational corporations wielded great power and influence, but I wasn't totally understanding the reasons how and why -- and how deeply and almost transparently. As I read and researched more and more about these reasons, and understood the ramifications of key court rulings over the last century-and-a-quarter, I came to understand the true disease that has poisoned our republic and its assumed democratic processes. This morning, out of the blue, that same friend who I had been talking to about Left and Right commonalities, brought me out of that funk with the following uplifting article. 

As the author, Bruce Levine, a clinical psychologist, articulates: "Many Americans are embarrassed to accept that, after years of corporatocracy subjugation, we have developed 'battered people's syndrome' and what Bob Marley called 'Mental Slavery'." It's what activist and author Jane Anne Morris coined, the "colonizing of our minds". The psychological manipulation that has taken place, accelerated and more intense with each passing day, has been a long-term and piece-by-piece process. 

In order to un-do the damage of mental-colonization, it'll take a step-by-step process -- from building individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, to siding with anti-authoritarianism and democratic values against authoritarianism and the values of the corporatocracy. It'll take more courage and critical thinking; more thinking in terms of local institutions and activities that affect our day-to-day lives, and less about national agendas and politics and elections. It'll take the uniting of "comfortable anti-authoritarians" and "afflicted anti-authoritarians". As Dr. Levine summarizes, "democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity" and some risk. Read this excellent article and tell me if you agree. 

The Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate Elite

by Bruce E. Levine, Truthout

Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a "corporatocracy," in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.  

Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity. 

The elite spend their lives stockpiling money and have the financial clout to bribe, divide and conquer the rest of us. The only way to overcome the power of money is with the power of courage and solidarity. When we regain our guts and solidarity, we can then more wisely select from - and implement - time-honored strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have long used to defeat the elite. So, how do we regain our guts and solidarity? 

individual self-respect and collective self-confidencebuilding individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, to siding with anti-authoritarianism and democratic values against authoritarianism and the values of the corporatocracy. It'll take more courage and critical thinking; more thinking in terms of local institutions and activities that affect our day-to-day lives, and less about national agendas and politics and elections. It'll take the uniting of "comfortable anti-authoritarians" and "afflicted anti-authoritarians". As Dr. Levine summarizes, "democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity" and some risk. Read this excellent article and tell me if you agree. 

individual self-respect and collective self-confidencebuilding

individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.

individual self-respect and collective self

individual self-respect and collective self-confidencebuilding

individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.

individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.      siding with anti-authoritarianism and democratic values against authoritarianism and the values of the corporatocracy. It'll take more courage and critical thinking; more thinking in terms of local institutions and activities that affect our day-to-day lives, and less about national agendas and politics and elections. It'll take the uniting of "comfortable anti-authoritarians" and "afflicted anti-authoritarians". As Dr. Levine summarizes, "democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity" and also some risk. Read this excellent article and tell me whether you agree. 

authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy

The Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate EliteThe Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate EliteThe Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate EliteThe Tenfold Path to Guts, Solidarity and the Defeat of the Corporate Elite

1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements

Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a "corporatocracy," in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.

Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity.

The elite spend their lives stockpiling money and have the financial clout to bribe, divide and conquer the rest of us. The only way to overcome the power of money is with the power of courage and solidarity. When we regain our guts and solidarity, we can then more wisely select from - and implement - time-honored strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have long used to defeat the elite. So, how do we regain our guts and solidarity?

1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements

Historian Lawrence Goodwyn has studied democratic movements such as Solidarity in Poland, and he has written extensively about the populist movement in the United States that occurred during the end of the 19th century (what he calls "the largest democratic mass movement in American history"). Goodwyn concludes that democratic movements are initiated by people who are neither resigned to the status quo nor intimidated by established powers. For Goodwyn, the cultural and psychological building blocks of democratic movements are individual self-respect and collective self-confidence. Without individual self-respect, we do not believe that we are worthy of power or capable of utilizing power wisely, and we accept as our role being a subject of power. Without collective self-confidence, we do not believe that we can succeed in wresting away power from our rulers.

Thus, it is the job of all of us - from parents, to students, to teachers, to journalists, to clergy, to psychologists, to artists and EVERYBODY who gives a damn about genuine democracy - to create individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.

2. Confront and Transform ALL Institutions that Have Destroyed Individual Self-Respect and Collective Self-Confidence

In "Get Up, Stand Up, " I detail 12 major institutional and cultural areas that have broken people's sprit of resistance, and all are "battlefields for democracy" in which we can fight to regain our individual self-respect and collective self confidence:

• Television
• Isolation and bureaucratization
• "Fundamentalist consumerism" and advertising/propaganda
• Student loan debt and indentured servitude
• Surveillance
• The decline of unions/solidarity among working people
• Greed and a "money-centric" culture
• Fear-based schools that teach obedience
• Psychopathologizing noncompliance
• Elitism via professional training
• The corporate media
• The US electoral system

As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, "All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike."

3. Side Each Day in Every Way With Anti-Authoritarians

We can recover our self-respect and strength by regaining our integrity. This process requires a personal transformation to overcome our sense of powerlessness and fight for what we believe in. Integrity includes acts of courage resisting all illegitimate authorities. We must recognize that in virtually every aspect of our life in every day, we can either be on the side of authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy. Specifically, we can question the legitimacy of government, media, religious, educational and other authorities in our lives, and if we establish that an authority is not legitimate, we can resist it. And we can support others who are resisting illegitimate authorities. A huge part of solidarity comes from supporting others who are resisting the illegitimate authorities in their lives. Walt Whitman had it right: "Resist much, obey little. Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved."Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a "corporatocracy," in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity.1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements

Historian Lawrence Goodwyn has studied democratic movements such as Solidarity in Poland, and he has written extensively about the populist movement in the United States that occurred during the end of the 19th century (what he calls "the largest democratic mass movement in American history"). Goodwyn concludes that democratic movements are initiated by people who are neither resigned to the status quo nor intimidated by established powers. For Goodwyn, the cultural and psychological building blocks of democratic movements are individual self-respect and collective self-confidence. Without individual self-respect, we do not believe that we are worthy of power or capable of utilizing power wisely, and we accept as our role being a subject of power. Without collective self-confidence, we do not believe that we can succeed in wresting away power from our rulers.

Thus, it is the job of all of us - from parents, to students, to teachers, to journalists, to clergy, to psychologists, to artists and EVERYBODY who gives a damn about genuine democracy - to create individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.

2. Confront and Transform ALL Institutions that Have Destroyed Individual Self-Respect and Collective Self-Confidence

In "Get Up, Stand Up, " I detail 12 major institutional and cultural areas that have broken people's spirit of resistance, and all are "battlefields for democracy" in which we can fight to regain our individual self-respect and collective self confidence:

    •    Television

    •    Isolation and bureaucratization

    •    "Fundamentalist consumerism" and advertising/propaganda

    •    Student loan debt and indentured servitude

    •    Surveillance

    •    The decline of unions/solidarity among working people

    •    Greed and a "money-centric" culture

    •    Fear-based schools that teach obedience

    •    Psychopathologizing noncompliance

    •    Elitism via professional training

    •    The corporate media

    •    The US electoral system

As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, "All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike."

3. Side Each Day in Every Way With Anti-Authoritarians

We can recover our self-respect and strength by regaining our integrity. This process requires a personal transformation to overcome our sense of powerlessness and fight for what we believe in. Integrity includes acts of courage resisting all illegitimate authorities. We must recognize that in virtually every aspect of our life in every day, we can either be on the side of authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy. Specifically, we can question the legitimacy of government, media, religious, educational and other authorities in our lives, and if we establish that an authority is not legitimate, we can resist it. And we can support others who are resisting illegitimate authorities. A huge part of solidarity comes from supporting others who are resisting the illegitimate authorities in their lives. Walt Whitman had it right: "Resist much, obey little. Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved."

Read the rest at truthout

Going Beyond Locke's Natural Rights

Our environment is being dramatically transformed in ways that soon will make it difficult for the human species to survive. We must direct our energies toward building sustainable, local communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort. The liberal class, which clings to the decaying ideologies used to justify globalism and imperialism, which has refused to defy the exploitation or galvanize behind militants to halt the destruction of the ecosystem, has become a useless appendage. The decimation of our manufacturing base, the rise of the corporate state, and the contamination of our environment could have been fought by militant movements and radicals, but with these voices banished, there were no real impediments to the self-destructive forces of corporate power. --- Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class (New York: Nation Books, 2010), 194

We're precariously close to reaching a point of no return, a tipping-point where there's no looking back; where the environment is in dire jeopardy, due to climatic changes fueled by runaway corporate greed and myopic visions of unsustainable growth and profit at any cost. Living within ecosystems where we've created unforeseen levels of unbalance, the accelerating economic devastation of global capitalism...globalization...will shortly be matched by ecological devastation. With increasingly dramatic changes caused by global warning, coupled with economic despair, communities will fragment and disintegrate from internal chaos and division. Gradual, turning to certain, economic collapse will happen sooner than later, if we don't stop rearranging the deck chairs and start averting this mothership from a collision course with disaster. That's what assuredly awaits us, and in the very near future, if major paradigm shifts are not acknowledged and implemented -- soon.

Maybe it's going to take the foresight and stewardship of Bolivia's recently passed law that gives Mother Earth, and all living things and ecosystems and natural resources, the same recognizable rights that transformed humankind since Locke's universal and self-evident natural, or inalienable, rights of man found traction and footing in the 17th century. A passage toward, and through, another enlightenment may be all that separates us from the worst of Dante's Inferno. The Bolivian document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings", and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from human-created pollution. A Ministry of Mother Earth is proposed, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist groups and other organizations, including the state itself. Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations, speaking of the nation's law, said "If you want to have balance, and you think that the only (entities) who have rights are humans or companies, then how can you reach balance? But if you recognize that nature too has rights, and (if you provide) legal forms to protect and preserve those rights, then you can achieve balance." In 2008, prior to Bolivia's Earth-protection law, Ecuador became the first nation in the world to rewrite their Constitution to include rights for nature to exist, flourish and evolve.

But this idea must not be restricted; it needs to grow and find realization here, in the United States, and in other developed and developing nations of the world. For example, last November, the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, became the first in the nation to assert the rights of communities and nature over those of corporations when it passed a city ordinance banning the practice of "shale fracking" within city limits. In addition, nearly two-dozen U.S. municipalities have passed similar ordinances, finding that existing laws are unable to protect their local ecosystems. Canadian communities are wondering if legally recognizing rights for nature can halt the privatization of their public water systems and stop tar sands extraction in the fragile Alberta region. For the last two decades, the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) has advocated such grassroots and local organization and legal advocacy in stemming the tide of corporate prerogative through the challenging of the existing corporate paradigm which manipulates our democratic processes.

Other organizations that have changed tactics, like the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), used to work within the body of existing environmental law -- helping affected residents file lawsuits or appeal corporate permits -- to protect communities from environmental damage. Over time it became apparent this was only playing into the corporate game, and that the only viable strategy was to rewrite local laws to effectively give communities legal authority to say "no" to unwanted corporate activities, recognize the rights of nature, and strip corporations of their constitutional rights. To solidify this approach, democracy schools are a key piece of  community organizing, and CELDF promotes and provides one-to-three day intensive seminars that examine how communities across the U.S. are beginning to demand local control to protect the rights of their communities. 

The fight for survival has moved from Locke's natural rights, to the even more encompassing understanding by our southern neighbors that trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation is crucial to saving the planet and our species from annihilation. Once the shift in consciousness takes root, and people everywhere see the moral imperative that confronts them, I'm hopeful that restoration of our fragile world and all its magnificent beings and ecosystems will find balance and equilibrium through systemic processes that nurture instead of destroy, and replenish instead of consume. Because if this mindset doesn't form a taproot to grow and expand, we're truly doomed to extinction. There's no other recourse. Otherwise, Hedges's final chapter of Death of the Liberal Class, "Rebellion", is as sure to occur as the sun rising in the east. What choice do we have? Now you must make a decision.

Happy and blessed Beltane to all this May 1st! Let's continue to celebrate the fertility of spring and the greening of the earth, so we may all live; and live peacefully and in harmony with the only home we have -- Earth.

Watch the following interview of Vandana Shiva on GritTV: Understanding the Corporate Takeover.  "The American people should see that corporations have abandoned them long ago", says scientist, environmentalist, and food justice activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, named one of the seven most influential women in the world by Forbes magazine.  "The people will have to rebuild democracy as a living democracy."