AMERICA: Desperate Times Demand Revolutionary Measures
Towards Sociopolitical-environmental Collapse
By Prof. Peter Phillips
Global Research, May 14, 2012
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va
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"Don't waste any more time or energy on the presidential election than it
takes to get to your polling station and pull a lever for a third-party
candidate--just enough to register your obstruction and defiance-and then
get back out onto the street. That is where the question of real power is
being decided." Chris Hedges, May 2012
Runway capitalism is moving unrelentingly towards
sociopolitical-environmental collapse-cheered on by a two-headed single
party machine known as US Congress. Activists, who see the coming disasters
as catastrophic, are seeking revolutionary change through non-cooperation,
and occupy disruptions. Yet, many are the still delusional hopefuls
desperately fumbling with traditional responses; including "Kum ba yah"
marches, and the futile support for progressive left-leaning candidates
seeking positions of influence inside the Washington beltway.
Do we understand that habeas corpus is no longer a legal protection in the
US or that the US president can torture and kill American citizens, let
along anyone in the world? How can we ignore the inconvenient truths of
warrentless wire taps and electronic monitoring for everyone? Why do we
tolerate that US-NATO forces killing people in over one hundred countries in
the world using special service operatives, private assassins and drones-a
million civilians deaths in Iraq alone? How can we be so blind as not to see
our corporate media is a propaganda fog machine for the one percent? These
questions, reflecting the reality of America today, are so far from the
values of our traditions that accepting any aspect of authority from
Washington DC is a sacrilege to our honor. We are in desperate times.
In Congress, wealth begets membership, and wealth is the reward for correct
action. The members in the House and Senate have a collective net worth of
$2.04 billion, up from $1.65 billion, in 2008. While at the same time,
Americans' household net worth has continued to declined and the number of
people living in poverty has risen for the fifth year in a row.
The American Congress is in reality an artificial organization serving as
cheerleader to the transnational corporate class of the world. Congress
offers its members little more than a transitional path into the good life
of corporate affluence as long as the members remain loyal to party
discipline. Our legitimate electoral process has been completely usurped by
the Supreme Court ruling that a corporation's free speech rights allow
unlimited campaign spending, and congressional lobbying knows no bounds. Any
candidate willing to serve in the Democrat or Republican parties in the US
congress today, even as a gadfly of resistance, is stepping beyond the pale
of constitutional government.
Even if a Progressive Democrat of America-Moves On into the congressional
circle, the magnitude of compromise demanded makes effective action
impossible other than occasional symbolic votes of resistance. Those
stepping out of party lines will invariably result in orchestrated
opposition during the next selection cycle-Just ask Cynthia McKinney.
Reform is not an option. The only action possible is a complete and total
return to the social justice values of our US Constitution and the Bill of
rights. We cannot allow extrajudicial killings, privacy invasions into our
homes, and police state interceptions in the commons. We cannot allow global
capitalism to continue to kill and impoverish billions of people and destroy
the planet
Protecting and even rewriting our Constitution and our Bill of Rights will
require revolutionary acts. We must retool our elections and
eliminate/ignore the dark clouds of corporate media. A mass movement at this
level requires grass roots action by a core of at least ten percent of our
population. Getting one out of ten people actively involved is not at all
impossible; this is where our traditional values meet human rights. We are a
people of hope that only need to overcome our fears and find the voice of
our values by using radical democracy for human betterment for all.
The right to vote is a long held value. We am often asked, "Why waste your
vote on an independent third party candidate, they will never has a chance
to win." Can voting for a candidate who reflects your own political values
and beliefs be a wasted vote? It seems that voting for your true beliefs is
a self-actualizing act, and compromising one's values to pick the lesser of
two evils is self-alienating. Therefore, we urge all to continue to vote,
but find candidates outside of the two party oligopoly. Maybe someday,
self-actualized voting will be fashionable.
Peter Phillips is a professor of political sociology and social movements at
Sonoma State University. He is the president of Media Freedom
Foundation/Project Censored, and co-host with Mickey Huff of the weekly
Project Censored Show on KPFA.
Please support Global Research
Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.
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