Au contraire, mon frere! We are building a "movement" and it is happening before our pollution-fogged eyes--even now--with every word we write, every "gesture" ("ill-timed" and otherwise). It is a global movement against the tyrannies of the 1 percenters and the 1 percent of the 1 percenters; against the rape of the Earth and the slaughter, deracination and torture of its sentient beings. There are bound to be fits and starts! There are bound to be wrong turns, detours, divarications. We don't have a lot of time to get things right, to turn this ship around. We've had our Great Collapse and one might call this age now, the Great Wrenching.
And here's Mr. Random's coup de gras: "I believe it is critical for the left to mobilize its resources to engage the system directly." [Good!] He continues: "That means finding candidates to run for office, finding congressional races that are winnable, and supporting campaigns with time, organization and money." Now we're not only singin' the Blues, we're singin' Stephen Foster and old-timey folk-songs! Camptown Races anyone? And now the blood: "If we cannot do this, if the best we can do is staged disruption, then we will fall even further into the pit of political irrelevance and the anarchists are right: Tune out, get off the grid, and refuse to participate."
I'm not sure the gentleman has the right slant on "anarchists," but I am sure that he's wrong about "staged disruption" leading to "political irrelevance." Perhaps he has not heard of The Boston Tea Party? (I mean, the original one!)
In this Great Wrenching, the assault on conscience and consciousness is taking place on all fronts, on all levels, at, literally, break-neck speed. We can have the Shavian Fabians sit around in their smoking jackets planning their ineluctable scenarioes, but we had better have a lot of political theater, too. Good political theater! And great theater a la O'Neil, Odets, Brecht, Ibsen, Lorca, Arthur Miller, Hansbury. Our awakening, our evolution as a species is ongoing, challenging, frustrating, fortifying and exhausting. And we definitely need those who "annoy" and "badger."
We're up against this (from Russia Today): On June 6, 2013, "The New York State Senate passed a controversial bill" that aims to classify "aggravated harassment of a police officer" as a crime. Bill S. 2402 would make it a felony to "harass, annoy, or threaten a police officer while on duty."
State Senator Joe Griffo, who sponsored the bill, declared: "P olice officers who risk their lives every day in our cities and on our highways deserve every possible protection, and those who treat them with disrespect, harass them and create situations that can lead to injuries deserve to pay a price for their actions."
Griffo said that New York police require extra safeguards because "too many people in our society have lost the respect they need to have for a police officer". We need to make it very clear that when a police officer is performing his duty, every citizen needs to comply and that refusal to comply carries a penalty."
The wording of the actual bill is even more foreboding. To wit: "A person is guilty of aggravated harassment of a police officer or peace officer when, with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm a person whom he or she knows or reasonably should know to be a police officer or peace officer engaged in the course of performing his or her official duties, he or she strikes, shoves, kicks or otherwise subjects such person to physical contact. "Aggravated harrassment of a police officer or peace officer" is a Class E Felony.
All of which evokes a few questions: Like, what exactly is a "Peace Officer?" When Cindy Sheehan protested against our murderous and insane War on Iraq, was she a Peace Officer? Where can I apply for that job?
Also, exactly what does "annoy" mean here? If I say to the kindly Police (or Peace?) Officer who is twisting my arm off and pepper-spraying me, "Sir, why are you twisting my arm off and pepper-spraying me?"--am I "annoying" him, and can I be charged with a felony?
And, what exactly is meant by "physical contact." If I happen to breathe my mint-freshened breath upon a "Peace Officer" beating his truncheon, have I made inadvertent "physical contact"?
For that matter, what exactly does "reasonably should know" mean? Isn't that a rather elastic concept? (No doubt skull-pyramiding Genghis Khan behaved "reasonably" according to his way of thinking!)
We're also up against this (as of today's news):
" President Barack Obama ordered national security leaders to compile a list of potential overseas "adversaries" for US cyber-attacks which could be targeted with "little or no warning," a top secret document reveals. " (--from Russia Today)
Didn't there used to be something called The Constitution which arrogated the power to declare war--any kind of war--to Congress--acting on behalf of "We the People"?
Willy-nilly, like it or not, squirm as we may, we are in a protracted life-and-death, twilight struggle--not with some chimerical Soviet "Evil Empire," nor an "Axis of Evil"--but, with ourselves, and we just may, we just may "have it in our power to begin the world over again."
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