"You should get it into your head, and pass it on to whoevr needs to know up above, that your power depends on not taking absolutely everything away from people. The man from whom you've taken everything is no longer in your power; he is free again."
-Aleksandr Solzhenytsin, In the First Circle.
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
-Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobby McGee.
In case you hadn't heard, nobody is coming to save us. In case you needed more evidence of this reality, look no further than an extraordinary admission in a lead article in the New York Times. It seems that the elite ruling class, both liberal and conservative, are all terrified of criticizing the Trump regime lest they, their families, their prestige, their careers and their finances come to grief.
The article, written by veteran journalist and consummate Washington insider Elisabeth Bumiller, baits the audience with a subhead stating that "people" are so intimidated they're afraid to speak out. You read on, thinking they'll interview the little old lady worried about not getting her Social Security check or the immigrant terrified of an ICE raid or the college student fearing arrest for participating in a protest against genocide.
But the Times piece is nothing less than an abject bid for sympathy for anonymous CEOs, college presidents and elected politicians. Readers are graciously invited to cut them democrats, especially, some slack for staying mute in the face of a fascist takeover of the federal government.
Put yourself in their $600 Manolo heels and see how it hurts! Imagine being put in the position of having to deny that Russia was totally unprovoked into invading Ukraine. If you are against war and killing, it follows that you are a trump supporter and you are damned if you and damned if you don't.
It was a prelude to the spectacle of our elected congressional reps holding up signs during Trump's address. The Pepto-Bismol pink they wore in protest was meant to keep our gorges from rising, and the "Resist" logos emblazoned on their fleeing backs were obviously placed to divert our attention from the "kick me" offers placed just below their spineless spines.
It did not work. They displayed for the whole world to see their tacit complicity with Trump, that they are all siblings under the skin.
They are not so much afraid of him as they are of their constituents. Beholden as they are to their own billionaire donors and in utter groveling awe of Elon Musk, they're trapped in the hell of their own corruption.
Of course, once the social safety net is utterly destroyed, the masses of people might finally wake up, take to the streets, stage wildcat strikes and boycotts and form strong unions and all the other stuff that desperate people do when they have nothing left to lose.
They don't want the desperate people they have helped to throw under the bus to blame them. On the contrary, the democratic cowards will pretend to "stand in solidarity" with regular people once the misery index increases so much that the capitalist facade finally begins to crack. That is when, as bottom-up victory approaches, they will attempt to co-opt any and all independent movements. They will want us to let the credentialed experts take over so we can retreat and go back to doing our assigned duties of voting and buying crappy Amazon stuff.
We must not let them. Now that they have lost face and lost power by taking too much away from us, we must seize the power we have and use it to change things for the greater good. We are our only hope.
What have we got to lose?
24 comments:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-158710335
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."
~ Alice Walker
“One of our people in the Native community said the difference between white people and Indians is that Indian people know they are oppressed but don’t feel powerless. White people don’t feel oppressed, but feel powerless. Deconstruct that disempowerment. Part of the mythology that they’ve been teaching you is that you have no power. Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth.”
~ Winona LaDuke
Patti Smith ~ "People Have The Power"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPR-HyGj2d0
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band ~ "Power to the People"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Epue9X8bpc
The link given by "Anonymous" to an excellent essay prompts these quotes:
“If you're in trouble, or hurt or need — go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help — the only ones.”
~ John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
~ Arundhati Roy, War Talk
«nobody is coming to save us»
... but that's why we're HERE, why it's always a relief to come HERE and realize that HERE there ARE people on whose judgement we can rely.
Most of us came here when Obama dashed our HOPE. But now and soon, we will be joined by those whose hopes are being dashed by Trump.
We are many, they are few.
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/the-masque-of-anarchy/
I don't know when Arundhati Roy wrote that, but I read an essay where she was singing a different tune as she looked on and watched Modi consolidate power. "Even the most hard bitten and cynical among us find ourselves whispering to each other are they still posturing or has it begun? Is it organized or out of control? Will it happen at scale?" The tone was more hopeless as the world ignored what was going on.
I wish I had a friendlier way to greet you than Thorstein. I know how good it feels to be responded to with sympathy. I'm glad to find you here and hoping for a return of the others who haven't been heard from lately. You're waiting for the joining in by "those" who were deluded toward disillusionment. Or, otherwise, their hatred of us keeps growing. There's denouement in the air. Their project has been advancing steadily. It's looking more like a juggernaut than a clown car. The brains from the think tanks, Vaught, Rufo, et al, who write the script and direct the theater seem to have studied well how despotic coups succeed. Americans are about as unprepared for this as a nation can be. We're lucky to have a few historians writing for us that know that script and keep us alerted.
Everybody sane is asking what to do. Some of them are calling for arming up. Lincoln intervened upon the dissolution of the nation with a Civil War. I feel I'm watching a kind of dissolution now, but without a Lincoln or abolitionists. A lot of it is still peripheral, not having hit home yet. So, we watch and comment. Often I feel not up to responding. My two oldest friends- one is a logical pragmatist who doesn't know how to keep emotional company, the other one must see everything through a lens of humor. Neither suits me.
Worse is that I sense myself becoming an anachronism. Someone who can't cope in a world where the dominant value is a ruthlessness, even brutality. The contours of the struggle are vague. Meanwhile I worder what we'll have to suffer for not having joined the enemy.
Prof. Snyder had a guest writer, Laurie Winer, who quoted from a 1939 text:
“many adapt to living with clenched teeth. Unfortunately they form a majority of a visible 'opposition' in Germany. So it is no wonder that this opposition has never developed any goals, plans, or expectations. Most of its members spend their time bemoaning the atrocities. The dreadful things that are happening have become essential to their spiritual well-being. Their only remaining dark pleasure is to luxuriate in the description of gruesome deeds, and it is impossible to have a discussion with them on any other topic.”
You can see where my mood comes from.
PART 1
@Mario: Thank you for your eloquent description of the current situation, and how you feel.
I myself have to disagree with Karen, I feel that there is no hope possible for the U.S. in the short or medium term, and not much possible even in a longer one. I won't here go into my rationale for why I believe that, but I think that a strong case can be made for my position. Admiration, though, for those progressives who think that a fight here can be won AND will produce a good-enough result to have been worth the effort, and are willing to expend that effort. In the U.S., though, the whole thing seems to me at best Sisyphean. In most scenarios, a win, even if it can be attained, probably only returns us to our previous precarity and pawns of dysfunctional politics.
Many years ago, wondering how Nazi Germany came to power, I accumulated and read through a considerable collection of books on the subject. Informative as they were, in some ways I now almost feel that I don't need them, all I need do is look around, here in the U.S.
Of course, that history is actually still valuable. I strongly recommend the personal perspective of Victor Klemperer's diaries, for the Nazi period, the first two volumes:
(Vol 1) I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941.
"What makes this book so remarkable, aside from its literary distinction, is Klemperer's preoccupation with the thoughts and actions of ordinary Germans: Berger the greengrocer, who was given Klemperer's house ('anti-Hitlerist, but of course pleased at the good exchange'), the fishmonger, the baker, the much-visited dentist. All offer their thoughts and theories on the progress of the war: Will England hold out? Who listens to Goebbels? How much longer will it last?"
Volume 2, for the period 1942-1945, was originally titled "To the Bitter End", but then also published retitled as a Volume 2 of "I Will Bear Witness".
And also read Klemperer's "The Language of the Third Reich", which details how language was perverted in the service of Nazism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Klemperer
As I said in a older comment here at Sardonicky, I strongly believe that the rational course of action for anyone young or middle-aged is to get out, "while the gettin' is good". But I'll probably stay --- us old-timers aren't risking as much if we stay. And most countries probably don't want geriatric refugees (unless they are in some way especially distinguished), the cost/benefit ratio in accepting them almost certainly isn't beneficial for the receiving nation. Got a feeling, though, that I should re-read Klemperer, for a reminder/preview of what it feels like when idiocy and madness and developing, worsening oppression are all around.
PART 2.
As I said, I'm not here and now going to get much into my reasoning for why I'm far less optimistic than Karen, but I will say that from the perspective of someone who has been on this planet for many decades, who when much younger lived for several years in Europe, is degreed in ecology and evolutionary biology, has a relatively-strong rational/logical, scientific bent, suplemented with, I think, both a fair amount of humanistic outlook and political consciousness, and who, long ago, took a university course in abnormal psychology (factoid: from a former roomate of Stanley Milgram, of the "obedience to authority" experiment fame) --- frankly, with all that, I still cannot grok much of human behavior or many of the structures and institutions that humans have developed. I feel like I'm living in the proverbial insane asylum where the inmates have taken over. Or maybe some sort of zombie movie. That usually doesn't end well for most of the characters.
I'm with you, Fred.
I have no illusions about our Evil Empire. After witnessing how silent, accepting and even supportive Americans have been about our first ongoing live-streamed holocaust, I'm convinced that there is no hope for US.
Our Empire is based on the immoral state religion of Capitalism where everything and everyone becomes commoditized and privatized.
Where would I move if I was younger than my 73 years? China. Seriously. It puts people over profits, is safe, powerful, and intelligent enough to deal with the machinations of the Evil Empire. While it's an ancient civilization, it's now far more modern and technologically advanced than USA, Inc. It's also morally based on the wisdom of cooperation and balance in all things.
Many Americans live there and love it but of course they're not the type who are into killing and exploiting for fun and profit.
And thank you Fred for your kind reply. Thought Criminal, I was under the impression that you were a teenager. While a young person should be encouraged to find they're voice, in my case, however, when an old person gives a speech into a dark, empty room and concludes that they've finally found their voice, likely they're on the onset of dementia.
For some time it bothered me that I could not tell if a trans person was a man or a woman. If only they would explain it to me if it's one or the other, both, or neither. But I've evolved. I've set myself free from having to know that and I've set them free from having me ask for an explanation. Bless you and go on your way because you're not hurting anyone, but, sure as hell some are trying to hurt you. If I ever get the chance to stand between you and them, I will.
There are moments when I wish I was paying closer attention. A while ago I glimpsed (on a screen) the face of our one trans person in Congress. Of course, she/he was under some sort of attack. But she/he was really used to it. When the attacker paused, he got a reply from the trans representative: I can see that I occupy a significant portion of your mind. But guess what? It's rent free.
Wit is better than hope (which never helped anyone). But it does have a wiser sibling which will help us, which is called faith. It's what intervenes when hope is lost.
Fred, I believe you are correct. Covid and the rebellions of 2020 demonstrated the contradictions of capitalism. What we are facing now is the backlash. The scales from the eyes of the citizenry are not going to fall off due to mass immiseration. And even if they do, you still need someone in power, some institution on your side. I didn't think the NYT article was written to encourage sympathy. It was just scary. In Nazi Germany, the proletariat was much more organized whether by the KPD or SPD-- they had social, sport, and cultural clubs. It was more urbanized. But these organizations collapsed. We should be so lucky if we have free and fair elections in the future.
From the essay I referenced earlier: --they will have to pit their power f individual judgement against the crushing verdicts of the ballot box and the media while lurching among feelings of dread, disgust, and shame. They will also have to live with the suspicion that their heightened moral sensitivity is useless, even counterproductive. For the catalogue of outrages, and the gleeful justifications made for them by politicians and journalists, expands every day and and the feeling that<,i>this can't be happening provoked by such a deluge of atrocity paralyzes the thought and over time normalizes a brutal and mendacious regime. In such a situation, platitudes about the ultimate victory of the human spirit can only seem childish. The writer was comparing the experience of writers under the Nazis to those under Modi. I suppose we could draw from American history though. Think of the civil war and the halting attempts to establish a multiracial democracy and guarantee the right to vote for freedmen in the South. Even when troops were stationed there -- there were never enough feds-- there were lynchings. Once the troops were withdrawn the planter class reasserted itself and ex slaves were on their own. There was no wake up moment.
“You’ve got to look in the mirror and understand that, if you act like change for the better is impossible, you guarantee it will be impossible. That’s the one decision each individual faces.”
~ the recently late Robert McChesney
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
~ Anais Nin
"When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, without faith and without hope ... suddenly the work will find itself."
~ Isak Dinesen
So, people, stop whining about how the bloody bleak, despicably disgusting, and frighteningly dangerous tRump/Musk regime is so hopelessly heartbreaking, and get to work expunging it.
And not just for ourselves, Erik, for Aaron, Khalil, Ms Ozturk, Hind, and that legless Palestinian kid who pushes himself around on a roller skate.
Who says I'm not protesting? I'm doing it while we still can. I don't think waiting for things to get worse is an option. As for McChesney, he provided an actual left critique of the media and specifically, social media in Digital Disconnect. I would think anyone that believed a billionaire buying Twitter was going to provide "a free speech zone" or that the Twitter files was a blow for free speech should have read the book.
The Ruling Class have Federal mountain and underground relocation sites. They have the support of all of the Managerial and Upper Classes, and most of the Middle and Working Classes. They control all branches of the military, the espionage agencies, the police, the media, the education system, and means of communication. Their guardians are paid well and have great benefits; they like the system the way that it is, and have free reign to literally wipe out any opposition. When you think about changing things, think about how all of the leaders of change in the 1960's were terminated. Sadly, the class war is over and the apex predators of the human species won. To quote the Propagandist George Orwell: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
It is a funny thing - After the 2008-2009 crash and the incredible disappointment that was Obama, I have been waiting for this moment, knowing it would come. But now that it here, I am not ready. I can't seem to keep my eyes and ears off the geopolitical analysis shows - the good ones on Alternative Media - at the same time, I am trying to take moments away to look at the view from my front porch of the distant river and take in the trees in my and my neighbour's yards. It is autumn in Australia - my favourite season. After a brutal summer, the cooler days and nights are a welcome change and my two rambunctious Mareema puppies chase each other around our generous yard.
Like the rest of you, I come to the Sardonicky Salon because it is hard to find anyone who understands or speaks my language. Here, I find old friends, I have never met nor will ever meet, who have written on this blog for as long as I have been here. Fellow travellers like Fred, Kat and ThoughCriminal.
I try to talk to people around me about what is going on in the world - the courage of Ansar Allah and moral stance they have taken, the horror of the Palestinian Holocaust and the heartbreak of the Palestinian people during the brief ceasefire singing songs of hope and praise as they returned home, the perfidy of Netanyahu and his vicious band of thugs, my worry for the Iranian people who have done absolutely nothing to deserve this coming war - I voiced this last opinion and the owner of my organic grocery shop practically threw me out of the store (I've shopped there for about fifteen years). I worry for my friends in Germany and my friends in the US. I mourn for the totally unnecessary deaths and ruined bodies and minds of Ukrainian soldiers – and Russian soldiers as well - and I admire the patience and wisdom of Putin and Lavrov.
And I am missing JayOttawa more than I can express. His insight, his profound compassion, his willingness to put things in context, his humour. While I wish I could write to him, a part of me is glad he doesn’t have to see what is going on – or see what is happening to Canada – the past haven of draft dodgers and liberal minds. And Mario, you remind me so much of him. Thank you for that.
I find I have nothing much to say – certainly nothing profound – I just want to be with my tribe for a few moments.
At least you're in Australia, Valerie.
By the way, for the sake of you Australians, I sure hope that Australia re-evaluates its intended purchase of U.S. nuclear submarines and its current reliance on F-35 aircraft for defense. Given the U.S.'s current isolationism, rightwing plunge, and just plain batshit-craziness, Australia can't know whether it'll be able to properly use those weapons if ever needed. There could easily be software "kill switches" by which the U.S. could unilaterally render those weapons useless, or alternatively, the U.S. could stop supplying software updates and/or spare parts, soon-producing the same effect, if Trump doesn't like Australia's usage of them or its foreign policy, or if Australia doesn't assist with or at least acquiesce to some crazy U.S. foreign policy line --- for example, a U.S. occupation of Greenland. Then all that expensive weaponry would soon become just so much scrap metal, and Australia would be largely defenseless.
The possibility of hidden software-based "kill switches" and other vulnerabilities in U.S.-made military equipment has recently come out into open discussion and press coverage in Europe, and while the U.S. has denied the existence of outright "kill-switches", if I were a citizen of another country, I wouldn't want to bet my country's security on the continued functioning of U.S. weaponry.
https://youtu.be/TQAfwk3Otno
Yes, I certainly agree with you with regard to the late JayOttawa, I miss his erudition, perspective, wit, eloquence,... . And yes, were he still alive, even with his perspective, he'd probably be significantly dejected, at least.
I've got a lot more to write, including with regard to a long-standing considerable difference of opinion with you and some other of my fellow leftists regarding Putin (and Xi). TL;DR: Whatever imperialism or hegemony the U S. is guilty of (and there's plenty), that does NOT in any way make Putin or Xi benign, their own domestic repression acceptable, or Putin's war against Ukraine or Xi's plans for an invasion of Taiwan excusable, Putin and Xi are, in their own ways, every bit as much dangerous megalomaniacs as was George W Bush or as is Trump, just a bit more knowledgeable and smarter. We as leftists need be be consistent in our principles, not rationalize foreign violation of them. For example, if we opposed the U.S. under GWB invading Iraq, and Trump threatening to invade Greenland, then we should equally oppose Putin invading Ukraine, and Xi threatening to invade Taiwan.
Anyway, as I've said, I've got a lot more to write, however it hasn't yet coalesced into any logical-enough organization, will surely exceed by multiple times the character-count that this blog allows for a single reader comment, and I'm currently seriously distracted by pain from long-term back problems, but maybe in a few weeks I'll be able to put up a substantial post on my own long-dormant old blog (here too if Karen would be interested in a long guest post).
A couple of interesting articles caught my attention just this morning:
First, in The Guardian, Alex Bronzini-Vender references historical trends of both business and political behavior that he believes predicts that business can't/won't effectively challenge Trump over the tariffs, despite the damage they'll do to the economy and business itself. Likewise, no effective challenge on other issues by other institutions in Trump's crosshairs. His conclusion is that "Only an organized working class, then, can resist Trump".
"Corporate America won’t stop Trump’s tariffs. Here’s why.
Whether among executives, lobbyists or university trustees, an elite backlash to the Trump administration won’t work. It’s up to working people to resist."
Alex Bronzini-Vender.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/corportate-trump-tariffs-backlash
Within that Guardian article, he also quotes Mike Davis from a 2022 online "Sidecar" piece in the New Left Review that, while descriptive at the time, also seems positively prescient given Trump's re-election. Notably (here taken from the original), from that piece's concluding paragraph:
"We are living through the nightmare edition of ‘Great Men Make History’. Unlike the high Cold War when politburos, parliaments, presidential cabinets and general staffs to some extent countervailed megalomania at the top, there are few safety switches between today’s maximum leaders and Armageddon. Never has so much fused economic, mediatic and military power been put into so few hands."
In that NLR Sidecar piece, Davis has plenty of criticism to go around, aimed at both prominent individuals and institutions. Food for thought, and well worth reading, I think.
"Thanatos Triumphant"
MIKE DAVIS.
07 MARCH 2022.
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/thanatos-triumphant
Fred, Mike Davis warned us about so much. Everyone should read more Mike Davis.
I'm imagining Karen saying: Enough already.
Since I'm neither journalist nor analyst, what I can comment about is how I'm trying to orient myself to this historical moment that fate has placed me in.
What I'm watching, on this side of my demographic, is the need of participants to play the role of prosecutor facing the legion abuses of power with a chorus of grief and outrage, but without a judge or jury. To me, this is done for the set of the stage. The drama that is unfolding, for me, is how our illusions are being shattered, how we're learning about having been deceived about the nature of our civilization, how we're forming new convictions about the role we play in it, and finding the voice we need to perform in it. The exhortations? Careful, I say to myself, you're here to draw interest, not confront. Like the single, middle aged, lady across my street who listens to right wing radio all day out of loneliness and a desire to feel a part of the world. The stories of Kahlil and Ozturk are compelling, they fill my senses the way that lady fills hers. We both have our postures on justice.
So here I stand with my indignant exhortations and my camaraderie of the indignant, yet my helplessness felt early on about the genocide is now a multiple of what it was then. The more informed I am, the more daunting a solution becomes. Since humans are known to habituate to their condition, it's difficult to transcend the commonplace circumstances I've grown used to: Maybe it's a mistake to not be a capitalist businessman or see the world in ruthless competitive terms? What force is there in imagining, like Lennon, a morally and spiritually healthy alternative? Peace isn't merely the absence of war, it's a humanity that doesn't have war as a choice. Every time I look at the pistol on a cop or an armored cash truck going by, I recall my own urges to resort to violence and sense how the culture has infiltrated me.
To wish or hope for the conversion of those who perpetuate this world is tenable in solitude until I try to persuade someone. It's beyond any one of us. An old aunt once told me, "The world always goes its own way". But we do have the expression, "sea change". The waves depend on the wind, and the wind depends on the sun and the earth's rotation and maybe there are changeable winds in the minds of people affected by what we say to one another, day in, day out, to allay the helplessness.
We are here for you and all others still questioning what’s to be done.
..."I admire the patience and wisdom of Putin and Lavrov."
Huh? Is this sarcasm?
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-kryvyi-rih-missile-attack-63cf067166caebe68b163af6c2e1de5e
The one shining light in all of the terrible injustices going on in the world and in our declining nation are our young people on college campuses standing with Palestine. The most inspiring among them are the students at Columbia - many of them Jewish - speaking out for their Palestinian friends who have been arrested and are in the cross hairs of police or ICE - and for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. I am always moved by people who give up the comfort and status of their place in society and risk their privilege in order to stand with the powerless. It would be so easy for these students to keep themselves safe with silence and inaction - yet they choose to fight the good fight. My friend's daughter, who is majoring in Middle East Studies and carries on about Biden and Trump, has never attended one of these protests for fear of being kicked out of Columbia. It is easy to stay silent - those in power count on it.
Here is a link to the latest Columbia protest from Democracy Now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqnKIc5pHw
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