What is We The People's answer to the Powell memo?
The Powell memorandum told the Republicans to go forth and use ownership of media and industry by the super-rich to change American popular culture from top to bottom — in order to put a stop to the social and political ferment of the Sixties and Seventies, crush the so-called counterculture, and try to make any revival of such developments impossible once and for all.
And lo and behold, recognizing the value of having a comprehensive, overarching strategy and objectives, the Republicans went forth and did so.
In 10 years on DKos, now and then I did indeed see people mount attempts to come up with an equivalent road map for We the People (using that word as a placeholder and catch-all for the labels Left, Alternative, Green, Progressive, 99%, etc.).
Almost always what happened was, rather than a discussion, an allergic reaction to any principled criticism of Democrats set in, usually with the tired argument that holding the power structure to principles is not pragmatic. And then it wasn't long before the attempt ran up against other people who mocked the first group of people and wanted them off the site.
That sort of mean-girl or Lord of the Flies group dynamics being strongly discouraged at c99, perhaps people may, over a longer period of time, want to reflect on that question here.
After decades of concerted action by the super-rich and the fanatically religious, dragging U.S. culture ever further to the Right and ever lower into the morass of ignorance — what is We The People's answer to the Powell memo?
Comments
best answer right now is Bernie movement
as Bernie says over and over again, revolutionary change requires millions of engaged citizens
build the movement before the election and continue it after to put the pressure on the elected officials and to change the frame of the whole culture
one of the things I do is to put in issue comments on Bernie News Roundup which is published each morning by a volunteer. There have been over 140 of them and each one has new info about the Bernie movement
Don
The Chinese Dynasties
Succession was attributed to the hubris of the dynasty. Once the dynasty no longer served the people and was no longer benevolent, the people rose up and replaced the dynasty. To be sure, our government does not serve the majority of the people and we are living in a police state. It's been going on for 50 years and will still be evolving after our time.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Hold to Tao, become one with the law of cause and effect,
be alert to the harbingers of the changing of the guard and of the seasons, while acknowledging that we can neither catch the wind nor push the river?
Be the change?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Elderly Hiroshima & Nagasaki A-bomb survivors were also opposed
Elderly Hiroshima & Nagasaki A-bomb survivors were also very vocal in their opposition to allowing Japan to take part in wars again.
Every August, as part of memorial observances, NHK (the Japanese equivalent of the U.K.'s BBC) airs documentaries about the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This year I was most interested in the parts devoted to survivors' first-hand experiences of the atomic bomb attacks and their aftermath, and what they had felt and witnessed as children. With the number of survivors dwindling, their detailed memories of what it was like need to be preserved for the generations to come.
Those survivors who were asked about it politely but firmly let it be known that they were very much opposed to the re-militarization law and very much on the side of the protests against it.
There was even an extended segment about one survivor's post-retirement career as a peace activist. It ended with a close-up of her taking part in a protest demonstration, a feisty and vocal spokesperson at the head of it, on the front line.
Oh, true, certain elements would occasionally try to intimidate her. She had no illusions. She would speak up for peace, she said, until her dying day. Having seen what she had seen and knowing what she knew, there was no other choice. It was her duty to the children of the world.
many important articles on common dreams now
Peter Van Buren, former state dpt employee who did a review of Iraq and wrote "We Meant Well". And like many who speak out about the powers get zapped.
He has a column today about the special ops man who recently died in Iraq and how the story was part of the effort to gear up the ground effort in the middle east. The preface to the article says that his prediction took less than 24 hours to come true.
Hillary not learned from Iraq -- she is a war monger
article on food today - and they have a lot of coverage of the key role of soil, now and to deal with climate change
the front page right now is on Retirement
and the former front page is about possible negotiation between US, Russia and Iran about Syria. Has it gotten so bad that even the military wants to settle it?? The articles by the staff are on the left hand side.
and also on left, push back from EU on TTIP. Great news for these "trade deals" which might get blocked
I contribute to common dreams.
In the Sixties a global youth culture with a peace message arose
Everywhere you went, it was on the radio. Kids around the world bought the records — in poor countries, if need be, as a pirate pressing from Taiwan or Hong Kong. For a brief while, even the Number One TV show in American prime time (The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour) was part of the peace movement.
Every large American city had a so-called "underground" weekly newspaper. Alternative scenes and critical consciousness flourished.
This "counterculture" was even able to resist and outlast Nixon. It was amazing.
All that is long gone now.
Now in 2015, the media spectrum is unrelentingly right-wing and hawkish. Shades and variations range from Democratic right-centrish to Republican pre-Enlightenment extreme.
The handling of reporting on Israel-Palestine is as good a surrogate as any for sizing up the diversity of allowed political opinion. Or, rather, the lack thereof, since it should be obvious that the human worth and dignity of one party to the conflict remains almost totally blacked out.
Israel-Palestine is one example where not even the most prestigious U.S. news organizations rise to even rudimentary standards of fairness and even-handedness.
In the mainstream media and among the political and economic elite, it looks very much as if diversity of opinion is only tolerated on topics the Deep State and the super-rich don't care about, topics they ultimately consider unimportant.
When it comes to war and foreign policy, scratch a leader of either party and under the surface, plus or minus a few minor tweaks, you find the same authoritarian mindset and neoconservative plan for planetary dominance through total surveillance and military garrisons throughout the world.
The establishment sees to it that those political figures who constitute the few exceptions to this end up roundly mocked and marginalized.
For those of us not on the right-wing, hawkish spectrum, the share of media and other economic infrastructure available to us has been token and meager. Corporate owners and their gatekeepers are comfortable consigning and confining our views to a niche disproportionately very small relative to our numbers.
This situation persists even as traditional media give up ground to Internet 2.0 and social media. In fact, concentration of corporate power and market domination by single companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook is greater than ever.
so well said, feels hopeless, I wonder when I
thought for the first time that may be "we the people" won't be able to find a way to cause major political changes. 2010? I don't remember. But lately it seems completely out of the reality range. We have been taken over.
You said it, Sister! I often enjoy watching 60's and 70's TV
shows/series for a healthy distraction. One show that I watched for a while was "Quincy, M.E." (I think that's the name of it--the one with Jack Klugman as a Medical Examiner).
Anyhoo, when I watched some of that series for several months, I was struck by the many constructive, almost 'public service' type of messages embedded in the weekly storylines--about things like the need for motorcylists to wear safety helmets, segments on environmental issues, segments on substance abuse, and making rehabilitation available, including needle-exchange programs, etc.
And, none of these topics were handled in a judgmental (right-wing) manner.
(To some extent, shows like "All In The Family," etc., also had similar 'lessons' embedded in their storylines.)
It is so sad that generations have seen nothing (on TV) but right-wing, corporatist bilge.
[Except for Basic Cable to get C-Span, we quit watching TV about six years ago, and haven't missed it a whit. We are much more happy with our satellite radio programming (XM). Admittedly, when my home radio speaker dock recently died (and I drug my feet ordering a new one), it was a drag, since I missed a three-hour M-F program that features reporters being interviewed about current news stories, including their own.]
Mollie
"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."--Author Unknown
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Remember the Smothers Brothers
and how they were basically run off TV for being too liberal.
The Tao of Polarity
The people of the US can no longer change the system from the inside.
Yes. There was a time when that was possible. But, that hasn't been the case since the US Constitution became entrenched and amendments could no longer be passed. Perhaps 25 or 30 years ago. Change from within became impossible when the Soviet Union fell. When the Tao lost polarity.
Once empire-seeking begins, the people are either on the bus or off the bus, but they are no longer driving the bus. They are "contained" by the bus.
The US empire bus currently seeks to contain the entire world, country by country, and in that way make each of them immutable — completely subject to the empire diktat. Empire has swallowed most of Europe already, and has weaponized Europe's ability to sanction and kill (via NATO) in order to capture the rest. The Saudis work for empire to contain the Middle East, but the Saudis know that the US will eventually consume them or nuke them. 9/11 was nice, thank you very much, but the Saudis will cease to be useful at some point. Sooner rather than later when they try to become anything but a regional filling station for empire.
But I digress. China and Russia are resisting empire. They are presenting a vision to the world of a vast sharing economy of friendship and cooperation and progress and development across the entire Eastern Hemisphere. This was not anticipated by the Neocon empire. Right now, each country of the world sees a stark choice. Be sucked onto the empire bus, leaving sovereignty behind. Or become part of a future multi-polar world (which has great wealth that was cleverly sucked out of the West), where they cannot be dominated by a global dictator because polarity will have been restored to the Tao.
But the countries of the world must act together to stop empire, using "diplomatic" sanctions against the US and the global rejection of the Dollar. Only in this way, will the American people be freed from their political prison in order to dream and learn again, and enjoy the bounty and wealth of their nation.
Once polarity and balance comes to the global world again, where it belongs, its paralyzing stasis will be lifted from the lives of the American people.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato