Misdirection and Underestimation

Sirotablog's been doing a great job of documenting how the DLC and the Congressional DINOcrats have been playing progressives for corporate profit, from Citigroup's attempt to short-circuit labor to Hillary's protection of "free" trade (that is, protection of the corporate right to make slaves out of the third world and as much of America as they can drag into the third world) to the loss of conviction that passes for strategery among the DINOcrats.

Michael Miller says, "We pretend to vote, they pretend to be elected".

But there are, as always, voices for alternative action. It worked in the '60s and '70s, didn't it? If enough of us stand up and say "No!" it would certainly work now? Wouldn't it?

It depends who profits from the alternative.

Consider this advocated course of action:

What would happen if politically active progressive Americans suddenly stopped devoting their energies to drafting better sound bites, and instead directed all that time and passion into a serious and strategic campaign of civil disobedience?

...Ask not how you can save a political party that doesn't want your help in a single sentence. Ask what in your life you can sacrifice, what you can put at risk to force our government to do what we the people demand.

Ahh, but which people? Which "we"? The DINOcrats will be pissed- and it was Daley who called up the cops in Chicago in '68, not Dick Nixon.

...Don't get me wrong. I like nothing better than crafting messages, writing speeches, and running my mouth. And I'll take a back seat on bashing the Democrats to no one. But these are not the most effective places for us to put our energy if we want to change our society. These are distractions and delusions. These are frantic repeated voting in online polls, panels for speaking to the converted, meetings with powerpoints, mass masturbation, means becoming ends.

What if we stopped imagining that propriety and respectability could win the day, that there was hope for bipartisanship, that lobbyists for peace and accountability are more effective if not tainted by association with protesters? What if we realized that pressure can be more powerful than politeness, and stopped putting our relationships with Congressional staffers ahead of the need to force their bosses to do their jobs or be harassed and humiliated and hounded out of office?

Movements that make change against great odds and great concentrations of power are movements that are united, focused, and composed of individuals willing to take personal risks. We should be shutting down recruiting stations and Congressional offices. We should be filling jails.

You know, I might have agreed with David Swanson, up until the very last sentence.

Because with what's being built in the desert out west and their possible use, the chances are the turnover might be higher than Swanson imagines.

Not to mention who- or what's in charge of Homeland Security.

The duty of a progressive revolutionary is not to get caught but to bring about positive change.