Troubling Times

City Hall, Worcester, January 31, 2017

Troubling times come to all nations eventually, even "exceptional" ones like the United States. 

Unfortunately, what is exceptional about the United States is not what politicians and the ruling class would have us believe, that we're a welcoming, tolerant country founded on principles of liberty and equality, that we alone among the world's nations have the moral authority to script the planetary moral code.

All it takes is intellectual courage and the willingness to examine History through a lens wiped clean of nationalism to discern that America as a moral beacon is an obvious falsehood. Though the national myth suggests a nation of toleration & freedom made steadfast by the rule of law, the truth is something else.

A careful and honest appraisal of the nation's past - from slavery to Manifest Destiny and the genocide of the Native Americans, from Jim Crow to Joseph McCarthy, from Selma to Saigon - reveals a history stained with violence, xenophobia, venality, and cruelty. This is simply true.

History continues. History , in fact, is not the past, it is the Present. We lurch forward now into the era of the Ignorant Beast. Ban the immigrants. Restrict the vote. Deport the Other. Make America White Again.

Yet there is another story within the story, an aspect of the National Narrative that cannot be denied or erased - Resistance. At every step of the bloody way, the Beast has been confronted by the people. The underground railroad. Geronimo. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The Suffragists. SDS. The Black Panthers. AIM. The levitation of the Pentagon. The Women's March on Washington. The list is long, prestigious, awash in sadness and punctuated with triumph.

Today our turn has come to continue writing the story line of Resistance. We must take strength from the examples of our predecessors, we must incorporate the lessons of their movements into our own, and we must decide, each one of us, what our role is to play in the gathering struggle.

Responding to the anti-immigrant actions of the Beast
Worcester City Hall, January 31, 2017

Occupy America

Could this be the beginning of real resistance to the Corporate State? Can the Occupy Wall Street movement which, by now, has spread to other cities across the country, be the spark that sets in motion real mass resistance? Could it possibly re-configure the Red/Blue, Dem/Rep divisions and coalesce into a movement that unites the 99% of the population who are being ongoingly fucked by the moneyed class and their courtiers in government?

It's too soon to consider this incipient movement in terms of the Arab Spring or the collapse of Communism. To do so would be to underestimate the remorseless and unchecked State Security apparatus that has been assembled in this country since 9/11. When drones can target and assassinate an American-born citizen abroad, how big of a jump would it be for something analogous to occur here, in America?

Nevertheless, the Occupy movement, at least in this chilly moment in the wasteland of autumn 2011, stands out as some glimmering flicker of idealism and possibility.

Chris Hedges certainly thinks so.

As does James Howard Kunstler.

Further commentary and updates to follow, including links to sites that support the movement, screeds that elucidate the principles, goals, and tactics of the protests, and various other comments and reflections.