We are wasting our breathe. The president, and, respectfully, a significant number of Democrats, long ago signaled that they were going to choose a horrendous path for the country by embracingthe phony debt and deficit "crisis". We are here, on a day of complete capitulation, because of a very long march–years in the making–of a willingness to hand the wealth of the nation over to the powerful and wealthy. This was entirely predictable–months and months ago.
Why is anyone surprised? The real question has always been: where is the movement to take on the system? What are we willing to do?
Last week, I wrote that Obama was not the issue. This fight was about what we are willing to do, and the failure to build a true movement.
If you want to quote pundits who run progressive publications but have never been willing to ask the hard questions about why our movement has failed, be my guest. But, ask those pundits, and others, what ARE THEY WILLING TO DO?
Are they willing to sit in jail for weeks at a time? Are they willing to climb down from their perches and comfortable homes on the Upper West Side and give up their freedom? If the answer is "no", we need to tell them to just go away because they are irrelevant to what must be done.
I think that there will be a tremendous amount of time asking the entirely pointless question about whether to vote for the president in 2012 or not. Whether you vote for him or not, very little will change (but, by the way, you need to consider that enough will change if the Mad Hatters of the Tea Party win the White House that everyone would should think pretty clearly about short-term survival versus long-term strategy).
This is very simple math. Take the 50 largest cities and put 1,000 people into the streets–without permits, without permission–who peacefully sit down and do not move.
Fill the jails.
Bring the economy to a halt.
Nothing else will change the system.
I am willing to go to jail. For days. For longer.
Are you?
You think there aren’t people ready to do it?
