At times like this, personal characteristics that have always seemed wrong and annoying""like, say, a big mouth you can never keep shut""acquire a new and unexpected value. Enjoy!
In addition to withdrawing affection, attention, respect, and cooperation, we can withdraw something perhaps even more important, namely, our money. Get out of the stock market. Realize that every campaign contribution you make, to either party, enriches the corporate media: boy, do they love a swing state. Those of us who have disposable income need to drastically reduce our spending across the board. Begin by canceling all your newspaper subscriptions, magazines too. Switch from cable to satellite and tell them you're moving to get Link and Free Speech TV. Set a goal for personal savings that's ambitious""and then double it. (P.S., these are also common-sense survival tips.)
I also believe that we somehow need to stop paying for disasters, as well. The Red Cross is still a non-profit but don't forget that Elizabeth Dole is a former president: it's become a great little corporate enabler, dutifully collaborating with the government agenda in order to protect its funding stream in much the same way PBS does. Neither of them has the balls or the ambition to make the kind of waves that, say, Amnesty International does. Call it a corporate version of Stockholm Syndrome. We have to figure out a way to help disaster victims""and all the victims of globalization""without unintentionally feeding the circling vultures.
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