@Mark from Queens

terribly by 'identity' politics. They know who the crooks are, go about their business, and get results.

Love those hand-held cutouts of prisoners with the faces of corrupt politicians on them.

Reminds me of one of my favorite parts of the Occupy protest in NYC: There was a small wall heading toward the SW corner of Zuccotti Park onto which there were pasted "Wanted" flyers with a mugshot of each individual bank CEO, with descriptions of their crimes, their salaries, etc.

Identify the perpetrators of these massive crimes, personally. They get to hide behind their palatial living, constant security, blacked-out window caravans of SUV limos and their faceless job positions out of the public eye. Expose these bastards on a personal level. I wish I could find that series of posters from OWS.

We need to revive such focus in our protests.

Key to this would be a shift in mentality among the masses. We have to convince people that the turbaned ISIS terr'ist isn't who you should be afraid of, it's the 3-piece suit-wearing, well-coiffed, sun-tanned, smiling Wall St banker/hedge fund scumbag, who with the capability of a thousand financial paper cuts or a few big slashes, is far more dangerous to your life than the chance that the mythical Middle Eastern terrorist who is not going to blow up your local Arby's or Toys R Us.

@shaharazade

A problem I perceive with the 'too big theory' is that massive protests over appallingly destructive and abusive State laws and politicians have too often failed to elicit any positive change...

I suspect that this is because corruption and contempt for the Constitutional rights of Americans has become utterly ingrained within corporate/political culture and, having never suffered any adequate consequence, the abusers perceive their abuses as a right in a system where the check and balances have been check-mated and unbalanced for so long that similar attitudes hold within these as well. Only The People have survival incentive and only they can now initiate change...

is too flippin big to be cohesive culturally, politically or bio-regionally. If say Oregon was a sovereign state or even Cascadia there would be enough people with common ground to actually get out in the streets and bang those pots and pans and get these criminals out of power regardless of their complicit party. City states or bio-regions that would not be part of the current giant vampire squid implanted humanities face.

My fantasy is that the USA federal centralization busts up. It no longer serves any purpose other then keeping the powers that be so powerful that we the people have no chance of removing the rat bastard pols they install. One of the reasons I did not want the Clinton's to win was in her speeches to the bankster's she said she believes in a border less world. What she meant is that the world would/should be run under the transnationals. Centralization of any power is to me the monkey's paw. Especially this nasty evil USA!USA! USA! empire. 'Goldman Sachs rules the world' as the trader dude once said.

It's hard to have a peaceful revolution when all roads (and money) lead to DC and their standing army both domestically and globally. There is no way we're gonna get enough people out there in the streets to bring the end to this by-partisan farce of democracy. Liberals don't like this train of thought as they are hung up on red vs. blue and the meaningless cultural divisions of symbolic social liberalism.

Maybe the divisive culture wars and our insane identity politics would be lessened if this country was not so centratized. I've never been a big fan of nationalism or patriotism. On the scale where living in it's madness. The 'owners of the place' play it for all it's worth. They twist history, twist the Law and turn the states into fiefdoms of designated D or R corrupt in the bag, tyrants. So maybe we should not cling so hard to the concept of a united USA! USA! USA! Ain't gonna happen and the assholes with power are depending on it.

Good on the Romanians, God bless them and good luck. Since there is no way that at this point that this country is going to bust up peacefully my other thoughts are that people whatever region, state city, county they live in should and could stop thinking in terms of Democrat's or Republicans, liberals vs. conservatives and just get out there and protest the whole shebang.The majority of people here in the USA seem to know regardless of our political ideology or cultural biases that the system has failed and we are all at the mercy of corrupt criminals puppets that keep the big lie of dead as a doornail democracy alive.

Just my thoughts on the latest global glimmer of real resistance to this global nightmare. Here in Oregon it's hard to sort out the so called resistance to Trump from the political machinations of the evil duopoly that controls all information and all resistence that is outside the designated protest pens. None of us can know what comes next if resistance works and people get these fuckers out. Hey since when has anything in this world been static and settled. It's a ongoing struggle that will never end on this planet and one worth pursuing. Act like a Rumanian.

@shaharazade

But only one factor.

A general strike in Lisbon, Paris, Madrid or Athens will be easier to organize and have more impact on Portugal than will a general strike in New York. However, that does not explain why so few workers' strikes occur in New York. Oh, a particular trade or kind of job might strike, tho' not often. But we do not get all workers walking out in NY. Anymore.

For many reasons, I am not a fan of using the word "war" for anything but a war. However, since so many do, I will jump on the misnomer bandwagon just. this. once.

From colonial times, there has been a war on the common person and people who had to work for a living, which spread to wars on workers' movements, unions, and then to Communism and socialism, then to Korea, Vietnam, etc. The total,cumulative cost of this cancerous war to the US in blood and treasure is incalculable.

Until recently, Joe Scarborough was wont to bray, "Economic warfare never works." What an ass. Warfare has at least two sides and economic warfare has always worked for one side, the side that began it, starting on these shores with the East India Company. It continued through OWS until today, with weapons ranging from the the arms wielded by Pinkertons and cops, through union busting legislation on state and federal levels and OWS to TPP.

Example from the centuries-long war--and from the Gilded Age, to boot: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11179109

is too flippin big to be cohesive culturally, politically or bio-regionally. If say Oregon was a sovereign state or even Cascadia there would be enough people with common ground to actually get out in the streets and bang those pots and pans and get these criminals out of power regardless of their complicit party. City states or bio-regions that would not be part of the current giant vampire squid implanted humanities face.

My fantasy is that the USA federal centralization busts up. It no longer serves any purpose other then keeping the powers that be so powerful that we the people have no chance of removing the rat bastard pols they install. One of the reasons I did not want the Clinton's to win was in her speeches to the bankster's she said she believes in a border less world. What she meant is that the world would/should be run under the transnationals. Centralization of any power is to me the monkey's paw. Especially this nasty evil USA!USA! USA! empire. 'Goldman Sachs rules the world' as the trader dude once said.

It's hard to have a peaceful revolution when all roads (and money) lead to DC and their standing army both domestically and globally. There is no way we're gonna get enough people out there in the streets to bring the end to this by-partisan farce of democracy. Liberals don't like this train of thought as they are hung up on red vs. blue and the meaningless cultural divisions of symbolic social liberalism.

Maybe the divisive culture wars and our insane identity politics would be lessened if this country was not so centratized. I've never been a big fan of nationalism or patriotism. On the scale where living in it's madness. The 'owners of the place' play it for all it's worth. They twist history, twist the Law and turn the states into fiefdoms of designated D or R corrupt in the bag, tyrants. So maybe we should not cling so hard to the concept of a united USA! USA! USA! Ain't gonna happen and the assholes with power are depending on it.

Good on the Romanians, God bless them and good luck. Since there is no way that at this point that this country is going to bust up peacefully my other thoughts are that people whatever region, state city, county they live in should and could stop thinking in terms of Democrat's or Republicans, liberals vs. conservatives and just get out there and protest the whole shebang.The majority of people here in the USA seem to know regardless of our political ideology or cultural biases that the system has failed and we are all at the mercy of corrupt criminals puppets that keep the big lie of dead as a doornail democracy alive.

Just my thoughts on the latest global glimmer of real resistance to this global nightmare. Here in Oregon it's hard to sort out the so called resistance to Trump from the political machinations of the evil duopoly that controls all information and all resistence that is outside the designated protest pens. None of us can know what comes next if resistance works and people get these fuckers out. Hey since when has anything in this world been static and settled. It's a ongoing struggle that will never end on this planet and one worth pursuing. Act like a Rumanian.

@Song of the lark

by exogenous forces."

They not only can be, they have been many time and often still are.

Does anyone have a handle on who the " black bloc" demonstrators were at Berkeley the other night at the Milo demonstration. I see widely varied ideas about their level of organization and agenda from both right and the left. If you are fighting for an idea I understand your anger. But if these people are being paid or organized by either side that seems to me a different kind of action. That means good actions can be sabotaged by exogenous forces.