The issue is one of breaking the lines. Almost everyone I speak to is sick of politicians not answering questions. It's been very noticeable over the last couple of years that our UK politicians don't even show up when the going gets tough. The media is essentially broken through briefing systems and becomes a place for spin propaganda. People on the streets are somehow already not 'the people', but groups to be herded and arrested by cops who are now cowardly, hardly people with direct prerogatives under the Crown. Our current defence minister is known as 'Bullshit Bob Ainsworth' and we see him telling us 'why we are in Iraq-Afghanistan' without ever getting any understanding of why we are really there. Our troops die, yet this is never because of under-funding, yet elsewhere we hear of constant under-funding and mad botches by the MOD. In the Iran-Iraq war, they killed about a million of themselves and our guess is a similar number, probably more Iraqis have been killed through sanctions and the war we have instigated. At 'smaller' levels, jobs as people like Orn and I knew them in terms of availability and the chance to move between them, have largely gone and our cowardly cops and a range of new local authority-based people supposedly there to enforce reasonable law and order and help improve quality of life are failing. They are cowardly because they report into 'performance systems' almost totally protected from independent investigation and the voices of those being hurt. They don't speak out. As Lee said somewhere, 'we now sack dinner ladies, don't we'. To take to the streets is to be subjected, automatically, to derogation as a 'protester', to being silenced so as those in power can eat their meals on us in peace.
Zinn has been right for at least 30 years. I could fill the page with others and say that management techniques are at the perverse heart of it all. Our most popular chattering class comedies make money and reputations for a few in tilting at the humbug. In all this, we don't seem to recognise that leadership is the problem because it's our way of washing our hands of the problems. One might say, of the world generally, people don't think but breed. The key problem is that the real problems are never on the table and even if they were, we lack decision-making processes that keep them there and under review. They are always complicated. I want world peace, but I don't want to cede current military power to another bunch who would be even less democratic and simply come looking for us. I found myself laughing and crying the other day when some media hack was talking about how we can encourage our best to enter Parliament. My immediate vision was not of the jive turkeys we do elect, but of a motley crew with pitch forks. The statement was made as though we have a history of our best getting into the place. One can obviously say much the same of these bweankers who claim to be so good at banking through divine right. We need to stop doing ourselves down through soaking-up a whole load of dross about 'ability'. We could make politics and other areas of real power a province of the ordinary - work we all share. We might wonder, in the 21st century, why we should have to go on the streets to make our points heard. The 'Age of Information'? I think not. There are still no effective ways to make collective points electronically. Bullshit Bob and others should not just have to respond to media hacks, but directly to us. In this sense we have no collective democracy, only a manipulated system. I have to say people have also been manipulated onto the streets - a very old politics. Berlin, between the wars would be a classic. Politicians tend to think they are decent people working with a 'dirty hands - real world' philosophy the rest of us don't understand. They are, in fact, dangerous clowns operating on very partial information about the world and themselves. We all need to show up to tell them. They already know and will do everything they can to stop us from revealing their crass lack of awareness, a common feature of board rooms and dictators' chambers. On 13 Dec, 16:43, Molly <[email protected]> wrote: > Two of my favorite contemporaries. Howard Zinn has been instrumental > in the US since the Vietnam War and civil rights movement in promoting > peaceful protests by grass roots efforts and public relations of those > movements. > > On Dec 13, 6:43 am, ornamentalmind <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > “…Zinn is spot on, so where do we go from here? As he said, people > > rise > > up and then they disappear.” – SD > > > Ahh, yes. Thanks for the clarification. This is something oft asked of > > Chomsky and as unsatisfying as his responses may be to many, they > > appear to be the best found so far…that is IF one wishes to ‘do’ > > anything and not just retreat into isolation and/or a theological > > stupor. Seek out his advice if necessary. > > > On Dec 13, 3:38 am, Slip Disc <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I mean for the people to collectively do something, to challenge > > > authority, to change their world, as suggested by Zinn. > > > > I'm all for the complacency to end, the passivity, apathy towards > > > social stressors. > > > > Zinn is spot on, so where do we go from here? As he said, people rise > > > up and then they disappear. > > > > On Dec 13, 5:26 am, ornamentalmind <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > :-) > > > > > As to what's next, in what context? There is his documentary > > > > tonight... > > > > > On Dec 13, 2:46 am, Slip Disc <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > Excellent !! 5 Stars!! > > > > > > What's next? > > > > > > On Dec 12, 9:59 pm, ornamentalmind <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > Howard Zinn on Bill Moyers Journal 1 of > > > > > > 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIERifyW_aI&feature=sdig&et=1260654949.96 > > > > > > > 2 of > > > > > > 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNLHDsZZ50Q&feature=sdig&et=1260654949.96 > > > > > > > 3 of > > > > > > 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tfkiUtB3_0&feature=sdig&et=1260654949...- > > > > > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - > > > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
