It's become clear that we live in a reactionary era. The conservatives have far more power than the progressives and are determined to use it with as much brutality as necessary to maintain control.
As radicals we're defying the zeitgeist. We're opposing not just the Republicans and the Baptists but the tenor of our times. The tide is against us.
But tides change and zeitgeists change. Taking a farther look back in history, we should remember that none of the radicals of the mid 19th century lived to see their ideas put into practice. The reactionaries of their day squashed their efforts, and many of them died thinking they'd failed. But their work caused some cracks in the power structure, and they're recognized now as revolutionaries. Their writings and actions helped form our efforts, as ours will for the next wave.
So we must persist. Patiently. Perseveringly. After all, Rome wasn't destroyed in a day.
The truth is that Fortress America has to fall. It's too destructive of people and the planet and too resistant of reform. It's willing to change only in ways that shore it up, so before we can build anything truly different, we have to bring it down.
Its rulers portray our alternatives as either them, Arab terrorists, or North Korean commissars, but that's just a scare tactic. Our choices are far greater, and we can forge a future better than this.
To defend itself, this system wields a revanchist club in its right hand while waving the promise of democracy in its left. Its liberals play on our hopes of seeing a decent society in our lifetime. They claim to be open to substantive change, a mirage always glimmering four years away but never arriving. Their illusion of reform camouflages the fact that working people around the world are under attack and the conditions of their lives will continue to worsen until we all dismantle this colossus.
Given its power and resilience, that's going to take a long time, a work of generations. We won't live to see the new era, but historically that's not important. What matters is widening the cracks, opening up possibilities for change that others can expand. This is our moment, with its own ragged glory. Overthrowing the corporate dominance of the world and its peoples is a task nothing short of heroic. All else is collaboration.
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