There is so much desperation out there, and so little connection between that and the political activist community. A note today from someone in deep trouble, working mom, caught in the trap -

Nice to know you are still a windmill charger. A trait I appreciate, along with your offer of some kind of assistance. Just being willing to hear this is a great service.

What has struck me about all of this is that those with the most concrete means to help (financial based) are the most likely not to, and come up with the most absurd ideas for ways for me to manage things; like selling my childrens eggs to a fertility clinic? Employment opportunities in Washington D. C.?

I have a wonderful friend that has not been able to work much for the past few years due to health issues, and yet, he has been the most generous with time, transportation, food, whatever we might need. There is no way he should be doing it, yet he does. He has such an appreciation for what it means to be without, that he gives whatever he has without hesitation. Of course, I throw it right back his way, in whatever way I can manage. It's hilarious that two people that have so little are trying to keep each other afloat.

The state "assistance" program is also a joke. I can get "assistance" if I quit working and go to job training. I have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get any "assistance" with feeding my family, and I have no idea what I need to do to get any medical care. And; if I call my case worker more than one time per week, my case will get put on hold till she decides that I have been punished enough for bugging her. And I paid how much in taxes over the years to pay her salary?

Ok, no more ranting. Time for sleeping so I can be fresh to go at the dragon again.

I'll help this gal out if I can. But there are millions. The wealthy don't help. I am on the edge myself. It isn't considered very fashionable to “care” – after all, “who are they to you?” people will ask. You can always avoid ignore or dismiss the struggling people all around you. Care is a pretty weak word. Outrage is what I feel. I wouldn't want to be the sort of person who was not outraged. The dishonesty, the cowardice, the blindness, the callousness required to ignore these people is a price that I won't pay. Life wouldn't be worth living.

Now, with each and every person, if you are not going to ignore and dismiss them, you can give a few bucks, help them line up resources (such as that is), just be with them.

We can wring our hands. There is always that.

What if you could say “sister are you ready to join the Union? Or do you just want to keep suffering and complaining?” and hand them a pamphlet. Tuesday night. Be there.

Now we can endlessly debate what sort of union, what was wrong with unions in the past, or what is wrong with them now, which flavor of socialism is best, what about this idea or that party or candidate, and how we will organize this or that, what will our platform be, whether we should donate money to this or that politician or organization....

But now we have nothing. We have nothing.

We need to talk about the people this (us, really, all of us and most of the people in the country) and having something. Anything. Because we have nothing, and because there are millions of people like this, and because this isn't going to go away or get better and because you have to start somewhere.

Did they all make “bad choices?” Do they all have “no one to blame but themselves?” Are they all “losers?”

Seems to me the most principled, the most creative, the most compassionate people, the most talented people are the ones most hurt. The self-serving shitheads seem to be the ones “making the right choices” and thriving in modern society.

someone in deep trouble, working mom, caught in the trap -

What has struck me about all of this is that those with the most concrete means to help (financial based) are the most likely not to.

Today, I made a call to a contact for providing aid to families affected by the recent "Indentity Theft Ring" broken up at Swift meat packing plants around the country and, in this case specifically in the little bitty Texas Panhandle town of Cactus.

Many of the workers affected are of Guatemalan origin; these people - who usually do not speak any Spanish - were summarily deported with no money to just across the US-Mexican border and dumped. Many families now have left the area north of Amarillo to try to reunite with their spouses for the arduous and unaffordable trip south back to their home country.

This woman I spoke with declined our offer of help saying only four families remained in her sphere of influence and that she believed she already had enough funds for their transportation needs.

Well, great.

But what was striking was her comment about her uncaring white collar friends in the community, about the local church that took in a lot of resources but gave few and was opaque with the finances, about the idea that many have about the community as being in less distress than it really is.

"I really just wish we had someone to step up and lead. I would be right behind them."

She runs a small, self-funded food pantry with income from her disabled husband's pension and donations she said she almost always gets from the poor and minority community.

It is hard out there. People know there is something wrong. This woman, a Latina, readily agreed with me that the whole immigration thing has been MANUFACTURED in the last couple of years to divide us, the unspoken working class that we had been discussing without naming in the last 15 minutes. "You said it all in one breath then, she responded" when I said it was to divert the people from looking at the war and to divert working and struggling whites from coming together with other working people, that it was a cynical ploy using our most base, racist inclinations against us.

I did not need to say 'working class.' Or who was running the cynical ploy. Race was only important to the context of the conversation in terms of pointing out what a sham of a topis it is in the bright light of What's Really Hurting Us.

But those white collar (her term) people in her town, they don't think there any homeless there...they hardly believe her, she says.

The self-serving

To be self serving is to make the so-called right choices.

That is the racket.

But those who do so aren't necessarily shit heads.

Like Big Mama 'cross the street said the other day, "Folks is just too oppressed to see the oppression in others."

Alas, that can involve a Lexus.

Not with me or Big Mama.

But it can.

We need to pound on this message. Pound it, it can be backed up, it can't be dismissed.

It is an illusion that only a small number of people care, and that they are all apathetic.

They lack leadership. The people with the skills to lead are the ones "asleep."

It is an illusion that there is no way to start a mass popular radical political movement.

We are defining politics incorrectly.

It is an illusion that mist people are doing OK.

We dismiss the "losers" from the range of individuals we call "the people" in order to think that most people are doing OK.

It is an illusion that the people are ignorant or stupid.

They don't know - or don't care - about theory or about current events. They accurately perceive that those are both irrelevant.

It is an illusion that people are opposed to socialism, or not ready for class analysis or ready to engage in class struggle.

They are living class struggle. They don't have the words, the organization. They would have those were we not all missing in action.

It is an illusion that talking is worthless.

Talking is what is missing. There is a conspiracy of silence about reality. Talking is the one and only missing ingredient.

Pound, pound, pound this message. It is the truth. No one is telling it. Pounding on this message will build the outrage and the shared words and perceptions that will make mass organizing and resistance inevitable. Nothing else will make it even possible.

The self-serving

To be self serving is to make the so-called right choices.

That is the racket.

But those who do so aren't necessarily shit heads.

Like Big Mama 'cross the street said the other day, "Folks is just too oppressed to see the oppression in others."

Alas, that can involve a Lexus.

Not with me or Big Mama.

But it can.

Yeah, given the constant reinforcement of of what is proported to be the way things are by the media and the education system making blanket condemnations might be a little unkind. Still, how much of their blindness is willfull ignorance masking self interest? Tough call.

Big Mama has eyes that can see. Too true, and interesting if one substitutes of for in. When your face is in the dirt it's hard to have much consideration for anything but your own pain.

Gotta run.

Looks like we got an ice storm coming.

When your face is in the dirt it's hard to have much consideration for anything but your own pain.

It's been my experience that most people really do "get it" when their faces are in the dirt. They lose all illusions. They suddenly see what's happening, and their own pain becomes a link in the chain of pain they can now see around them. Bootstrap Theology is quickly tossed aside in search of justice and solidarity.

Although, alas, the system works well at keeping the masses just barely treading the waters of aspiration. As long as we can "redecorate" our kitchens in a moo-cow theme for less than $20.00 at Wal-Mart, our faces aren't in the dirt. Right?

Affordable Moo-cow themes make it hard to gauge how "ready" people really are.

When your face is in the dirt it's hard to have much consideration for anything but your own pain.

It's been my experience that most people really do "get it" when their faces are in the dirt. They lose all illusions. They suddenly see what's happening, and their own pain becomes a link in the chain of pain they can now see around them. Bootstrap Theology is quickly tossed aside in search of justice and solidarity.

Although, alas, the system works well at keeping the masses just barely treading the waters of aspiration. As long as we can "redecorate" our kitchens in a moo-cow theme for less than $20.00 at Wal-Mart, our faces aren't in the dirt. Right?

Affordable Moo-cow themes make it hard to gauge how "ready" people really are.

I agree with you, rws, but it ain't simple. I think people are ready, "unevenly". They understand some things but are unsure about others. What is missing is, in many cases, the local struggle to help a lot of that understanding gel. That is what the union struggle used to do, among others. Throw on a strike and all of a sudden the county dominated by the church of the perpetual Wal-Mart suddenly becomes Harlen County. It used to floor me what the difference was between working people together and in motion (in "struggle") versus alone and "at rest". ...And it NEVER went away.

Gotta figure out a way to get the fight goin' again, "locally"...

The self-serving shitheads seem to be the ones “making the right choices” and thriving in modern society.


Because they are ruthless, vicious, unprincipled, gross, ignorant, believers in self-entitlement, ambitious and cut-throat competitive and use class war to their advantage by gaining the higher-ground of respectibility in terms of material status and achievement. They will stoop at anything to get it.
I have done battle with them on a local website in my little town--and they are down-right ugly--usually hiding behind anonymous monikers on their mission to drive out long-time working class residents in order to gentrify with uncultured, ill-bred new money. That is the only thing that works to crush them--they are so intent to piss on the poor, out of self-loathing of their own background, that one must use class one-upmanship to put them in their place.

Question: Where is the solidarity with them--the constituents of the New Democrats?

Although, alas, the system works well at keeping the masses just barely treading the waters of aspiration. As long as we can "redecorate" our kitchens in a moo-cow theme for less than $20.00 at Wal-Mart, our faces aren't in the dirt. Right?
Maybe not, runs. Maybe not. Imagine if that is not true, what good news that would be. Imagine the power.

The system keeps a handful of people - the middle management educated types who dominate all of the political discussion - just contented enough, so they will keep shilling for the ruling class.

But that isn't affecting the other 150 million working class people. They are already in the dirt. They really are. But we aren't relating to them at all. They have no voice. They are already fully radicalized. We need to be careful not to project our own reality onto them.

It is the relatively well off few - the loud mouths, the dominant ones on the Left - who are suppressing radicalism and telling us that the people are not there. It is a lie.

I agree with you, rws, but it ain't simple. I think people are ready, "unevenly". They understand some things but are unsure about others. What is missing is, in many cases, the local struggle to help a lot of that understanding gel. That is what the union struggle used to do, among others. Throw on a strike and all of a sudden the county dominated by the church of the perpetual Wal-Mart suddenly becomes Harlen County. It used to floor me what the difference was between working people together and in motion (in "struggle") versus alone and "at rest". ...And it NEVER went away.

Gotta figure out a way to get the fight goin' again, "locally"...

I think I understand what you're saying. And as an aside, have you heard of the website freecycle.org? It's basically a way to find things others want to get rid of, or get rid of something yourself. Long story made short. My husband and I helped some family members "recycle" some of their stuff locally. In the process we met several people in the area, coincidentally during a time when the city was debating a not very popular issue. It was in the news and a subject of easy discussion, and everyone was like-minded. Essentially, I suggested one COULD fight city hall just simply by showing up. And that's what we all did. It took three council meetings before they shelved the idea, probably just to get us to go away.

It was a weird experience, and around here very rare! I don't know. Maybe it's a regional thing. No one goes to city council meetings. No one organizes or gathers over anything. People are so isolated. Most of the people I have contact with have been heavily conditioned to avoid "politics," and they happily do so because the politicians aren't discussing their interests. The local fishwrap prints the same tired LTTES from the same Republican or Democratic party loyalist types, concerning issues no one cares about.

The corporate one party system has co-opted the conversation. Nationally and locally.

But that isn't affecting the other 150 million working class people. They are already in the dirt. They really are. But we aren't relating to them at all. They have no voice. They are already fully radicalized. We need to be careful not to project our own reality onto them.

It is the relatively well off few - the loud mouths, the dominant ones on the Left - who are suppressing radicalism and telling us that the people are not there. It is a lie.

I know. I think I just get discouraged. And impatient.

I probably know better than most that "the people are there." Just lightly scratch the surface and you see and hear it. The question is how do we get heard? When so many forces fight to silence us.

I've been reading Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," and I've been shocked (shocked I tell ya! :shock:) by his historical examples of how often working class people in this country have fought back against the powerful interests of the wealthy.

Jesus! These are the stories, the folklore and fabric of our existence, that need to be told!