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Re: We must take to the streets, to demand the Change that was promised
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James
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Nov 03, 2009 02:02 PST
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We the People!
Many decent thoughtful people have taken part in the public demonstrations
of the last ten years or so. These demonstrations have taken place in many
parts of the world - North America, Europe and Australia perhaps in
particular. They have been ignored by our politicians and our financial
"elite" - indeed they have at most been an irritant to anyone of any
consequence except the demonstrators themselves.
Those who occupy the box seats in our political and economic theatre have
been able to ignore the demionstrators because, yes, the demonstrations have
bundled together groups that are peaceful and constitutional and groups that
are militant and revolutionary. The various groups may have agreed on some
points and disagreed on others. Few of us have ever been sure what aggregate
impact has been intended - if any thought has ever been given to such a
concept by any of the groups.
Some violence has occurred. Sometimes the police or the "forces of law and
order" have contributed to this violence if they have not initiated it.
But whoever has been most to blame, violence has occurred and it has looked
ugly or has been made to look ugly by those in whose interest that is. At
least some of the violence has been initiated from the ranks of the
"demonstrators". Most if not all of it has come from the "militants" and the
"Trotskyites" and whoever - or at least that is what is often alleged, again
by those in whose interest those allegations are made.
However, the "establishment" - those who like to conduct their business
undisturbed by a racket outside - have been able to label the
"demonstrators" as a whole with slanderous epithets and in effect, damn
their cause, however "right" that cause or those causes may be.
Unless we get to the point at which we define clearly what that cause is and
ensure that those who claim to stand behind us genuinely share that cause,
we will continue to self-destruct whether on the streets or elsewhere.
At the moment, we know, in Robert Frost's words, that we whould take the
road
"less travelled by" but we do not know precisely what that road may be - nor
do we agree on its direction.
A large part of the "elsewhere" has been on the internet and through the
media.
Yes, we have been doing a lot of talking, especially since the greatest ever
Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2007-08. Much of the talking has been sincere
and much of it has been informed.
But it has failed to get us anywhere. The bankers have come back. The
politicians have resumed their seats in their "comfort zones."
They now call one of their "comfort zones" the Group of Twenty, instead of
the Group of Seven or Eight. Another "comfort zone" is constructed by
passing responsibility and authority to the International Monetary Fund - a
multilateral institution which has failed as disgracefully since 1971 as the
domestic "regulators" have failed in most of the national economies.
The hope or even the expectation of our political and financial leaders may
be that a "recovery" will quietly take place and all will be well.
That is roughly what their predecessors did as they drifted through the
1930s, trying not to rock the boat and to convey a vision constantly that
"prosperity is just around the corner."
Those were miserable years and they ended in the calamity of the Second
World War.
That does not mean that there was not a quite fantastic array of left,
centre and right-wing movements to bring peace and prosperity to all of us.
They never combined in any semblance of a unified intellectual, political or
social force.
And that is perhaps what we most lack today.
We do not have the same range of formal political parties or political,
social and
economic movements as we had in the 1930s; the almost total collapse of
"socialism" that followed the implosion of the Soviet Union has tended to
guarantee that.
Instead we have a bedlam of random ideas that have a half-life of about ten
minutes on the internet at large or on one of the online opinion
enterprises.
In other words, the internet, the telephone and other forms of instant
communication may have enabled us to talk and to breed ideas faster than a
fast-breeder nuclear reactor; but they leave us in no less chaos and
confusion than we were in the 1930s about which turn in the way ahead to
take.
The result has been, so far, that there has been no "opposition" - no
arguments or "power" of any kind that those who led us into disaster must
confront. The road ahead is clear for them to resume the positions of
privilege and power to which they have been accustomed and to which they
feel
they have a clear right - as contrasted with those who demonstrate
fruitlessly against them on the streets and/or chatter away on Twitter and
the
like.
What we need is to do sometjhing more purposeful. We need to do something
that shows we can organise ourselves. We need to do something that shows we
are professionals who have done our homework, served our apprenticship and
are now ready to embark on a career of reconstruction and renewal.
A first step might be to use the internet not to Twitter but to organise
serious consultation among serious people to confront serious problems
which we will seriously define and resolve.
We will have not another inane, "comfort-zone" meeting of the Group of
Twenty but a meeting of representative people - people who effectively
represent, for example, the responsible "demonstrators" and "Teabag"
talkers,
to establish working groups leading to a world conference. That world
conference will, ideally, produce Articles of Agreement on what we should
do. It will, in effect, produce what we laboriously negotiated during World
War Two to
construct a more prosperous, peaceful and equitable world than we had during
the Great Depression.
This time, we might hope to produce solutions without having first to go
through
what would be the even greater horrors of World War Three.
James Cumes
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----- Original Message -----
From: <peter.-@mailstar.net>
To: "Ellen Brown" <ellenh-@gmail.com>
Cc: "James" <jcu-@chello.at>; <VO-@topica.com>;
<paulcrai-@yahoo.com>; <ne-@ihr.org>; "PGS"
<peter.g.-@online.de>; <herm-@picknowl.com.au>; "Susan Prior"
<sus-@onlineopinion.com.au>; "John Patton" <john.p-@optusnet.com.au>;
"John Stapleton" <john.st-@gmail.com>; "Kevin Rudd"
<Kevi-@updates.kevinpm.com.au>; "Richard Cook" <rickyc-@hotmail.com>;
"Jon Lord" <jdom-@bigpond.com>; <Michael-@gov.com.au>; "Steven
Clemons" <clem-@newamerica.net>
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 9:57 PM
Subject: Re: We must take to the streets, to demand the Change that was
promised
The Tea Baggers are already doing that here, but they've got the wrong
message. To get what I would consider the right message -- the right
solutions -- I think we need to do a lot of talking first. Most people
don't understand how banking works. Once they do, the solution appears
obvious. Ellen
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 11:31 AM, <peter.-@mailstar.net> wrote:
James,
The "Anti-Globalization" Protests at the G8, IMF etc are run by
Trotskyists. They actually DO support Globalization, but not the inequality
that goes with it.
I took part in many demonstrations in Canberra - the last was during the
visit of George W Bush - which featured Green speakers but which were run by
Trots - eg Rick Kuhn of the ISO (International Socialist Organization).
These Trots oppose the independence of Nations - they'd prefer Capitalism
to that - but they are pushing for One World.
They are militant groups akin to militias.
That's not at all what I'm suggesting. Violence is not at all part of what
we need.
But the Internet is not enough. It's a wonderful talkfest, but it's not
the the public domain - the Streets are.
I DO suggest that we organize Street Demonstrations. Rolling
demonstrations, one after another. The numbers of people may be small at
first, but no matter.
If such demonstrations eventuate, the organizers must exclude violence
either of the Left or of the Racist Right.
Peter
Ellen,
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Yes, but we've been doing that, and come a long way. That's why WE will run
the demonstrations.
Obama ran on a promise to Change things. He (and his backers) can't be
allowed to renege on that.
He's sold out to Wall Street, probably thinking that they run things anyway.
He only needed to "Save" Wall Street - let the Real Economy fend for itself.
The point of these demonstrations would be to show him he can't get away
with that. And also to pressure Congress.
Peter
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