Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
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Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Liberals & the Return of Feudalism
Last weekend 1,000 Democrats rallied in Washington DC calling for investigation of Trump and Russian 'interference' in our last national election. Across the country there was also a smattering of local protests including one in Portland, Maine that drew a couple hundred people.
Usually protests of this small size are totally ignored by the mainstream media but in this case they received major newspaper reporting across the nation and broad TV network coverage.
The video above gives us a hint to how many Democrats are picking up the 'talking points' about Russian collusion and hacking from mainstream sources like the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC. But in reality when challenged these Democratic party partisans cannot effectively articulate any real evidence about these allegations because there has not yet been anything of substance revealed.
The operative question should be what is behind these fabricated claims about Russian election interference? Obviously one key thing that must be considered is that the Democrats, now out of power, need an agenda to rally the troops. The Democrats don't do 'peace' anymore - in fact they stand in unity with the Republicans on the US imperial military empire with its more than 800 bases. The Democrats, again like the Republicans, are in bed with the military industrial complex thus they are strongly in favor of cranking up a new Cold War with Russia and China in order to continue US global dominance. The Dems don't really want to talk much about the growing economic disparity across the US - especially as we saw the cozy relationship between Wall Street and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
At the start of the video we hear one of the rally organizers say that former Democrat congressional staffers put the protests together so it is quite clear that the 'movement' is really nothing more than a party platform to project their agenda. I am certain that foundations closely linked to the Democrats (like the George Soros Open Society Foundations) are heavily funding these operations. (You don't think the explosion of all those 'Pink Pussy' hats was organically organized do you?) They are using the party members as tools and have no serious interest in creating democracy, peace or real justice in America. It is all about an internal fight between competing oligarchic interests. These rallies that were organized across the US last weekend were put together by local Democrat party apparatchiks. The one in Portland was led by the Democratic party Attorney General in Maine - a woman who is a real piece of work.
The size of these events was shy of what organizers likely were hoping for - in spite of all the help they got in publicizing them from the corporate media. It's becoming abundantly clear that legions of Democrats, and former Democrats, are not buying the line and are abandoning this corrupt corporate shell of a political party. How activists of good will can remain inside this rotting corpse is a mystery to me.
Some people have drifted into third party formations like the Greens or the Libertarians. Many working class former Dems voted for Trump because he at least spoke to the economic hardships they are facing. (Even though his actual policies are now walking away from his economic promises.)
Sadly many people have given up on the political system. It's actually hard to argue with their analysis that says Washington is a corrupt mess and that we can do virtually nothing to reform Congress. But in the end when people abandon political action they leave it to the lobbyists from Wall Street and the weapons industry.
Our only way out of this mess is to work outside the ossified corporate structures to build an independent movement across America that is linked with similar progressive forces around the world. Capital has gone global and our movement building must do the same. Only by rejecting the corporate dominated parties and working with people worldwide can we hope to deal with those who are determined to bring feudalism back.
Bruce
Excellent article (and video). The political system as it exists is untenable and we must start building systems and institutions that are of, by and for the people. This government we have now has no legitimacy. Everybody, whether on the right or left, despises it but is too afraid of letting go. We need to begin the process of building something beneath us to catch us when the rotten edifices collapse.
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