Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Upping the ante — Recipe for a Revolution


Opposition to NDAA has upped the ante significantly. The concurrent trial of Bradley Manning, and the threat to implicate Julian Assange is adding fuel to the fire. Is widespread civil disobedience and economic pressure the nest step for the gathering movement?


Recipe for a Revolution from StormClouds Gathering

UPDATE: "Twitter terrorism." I kid  you not.

Can the U.S. Government close social media accounts?
by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)
That is the heart and soul of the U.S. Government’s framework: we can do what we want, in total secrecy and with no checks, including to U.S. citizens, and you don’t need to know anything about it and we need no checks: you should just trust us.
Has any government earned that trust? Silly me, I thought this was exactly what liberal democracy was designed to avoid. Oh, and isn't liberal democracy the sine qua non of "free market capitalism"? That's what I was taught anyway.

UPDATE:

Read it at CounterPunch
America’s Silent Collapse
by Sam Smith, editor at the Progressive Review. He is the author of The Great American Repair Manual.
One of the curiosities of being chronically ahead of the mainstream is that periodically you suddenly discover that you’re not. For example, over the past decade I’ve putting forth the notion, seemingly bizarre to many, that the First American Republic was over and that we had moved into a post constitutional adhocracy. Lately, however, the idea seems to be becoming increasingly mundane, almost like saying, “Geez, that was a lot of rain we had.”
But when did it shift from being a radical thought to becoming so inevitable? I don’t remember people debating it on corporate TV, writing about it in the NY Times, arguing it in a campaign speech, or analyzing it in a professorial paper. It just happened. The most important development in our nation’s history since the Civil War crept into the room like a shy new guest. And somewhere in between, radical conjecture transformed itself into the norm.
UPDATE:

Read it at CounterPunch
Raging Against the Machine
by David Michael Green, professor of political science at Hofstra University
If it feels to you a bit reminiscent of 1968 these days, that’s because it is.
And that’s a good thing.
It’s starting to look like 2011 was the year of Basta!, when people finally woke up and found the voice with which to say Enough! 
These are all knock your socks of postings, and they show that this is 1968 redux. This is just the beginning of it, and it is going to have far-reaching social, political and economic consequences. Even if the protestors don't "win" a decisive victory, these experiences will shape the upcoming generation, expecially the millennials and post-millennials, and through them shape the future course of history as they accede to power with the passage of the silent generation and the boomers.

5 comments:

GLH said...

What scares me is the way Michael David Green can say the very things I am thinking. The man has the same antipathy for Obama and the other politicians as I do and I can only suspect that there are many more people who feel the same way. I just wonder from where did the eleven percent who approve of Congress come.

Matt Franko said...

Tom,

The StormClouds group there at Facebook shows some hookups are starting to happen between Occupy and the Tea Party (Richmond, VA)...

Another big thing this week and that was mentioned at the StormClouds is this "Fast and Furious" thing where the govt looks to be acting against the 2nd Amendment rights.

I visit the Alex Jones site periodically (for 'academic' purposes only;) and those folks are 100% behind the OWS folks. They are mostly anti-globalist imo.

So some previously separate forces may be staring to coalesce.... OWS/Tea Party/NRA/NWO.

Resp,

Tom Hickey said...

Matt, what seems to be happening is that the underlying truth to some of the conspiracy theory is surfacing and the conspiracy theorists are recognizing common purpose with the Occupy-99% movement.

In addition, libertarians of the right and left are also finding common purpose in resisting the threat to liberal democracy that has now become starkly real and undeniable.

Moreover, global social media is turning this into a worldwide reaction against a system that is perceived as fundamentally and profoundly unjust. Am I just surprised that it took so long for people to rise up angry. The system hasn't worked for them for a long time. The only explanation I have is that the 0.01% distracted them with trinkets and sideshows — paid for by increasing private debt loads.

Tom Hickey said...

GLH: I just wonder from where did the eleven percent who approve of Congress come.

Diehards who think that hard-line obstructionism is helping to defeat Obama?

GLH said...

Tom Hickey:
Those people may think they are defeating Obama, but I think you will agree the joke may be on them as I have read on firedoglake that even the Wall Street Journal seems to be upset with the repubs. The hard liners may be handing all Democrats an easier election campaign.