If I'm correct that the objective conditions seem to exist for radical organizing and social revolution, why isn't it happening? Especially in this country. Are Americans lazy? cowardly? terrified? bored? too exhausted trying to keep their economic heads above water? frightened of their potential power? worried that revolutions always eat their children? All of the above?
I don't know the answer(s). It may take a singular event or unforeseen catastrophe to get us to the tipping point. It certainly will take a new generation of leaders to prepare the soil and sow the seeds of social revolution.
It may be that these new, presumably younger leaders won't develop until some charismatic, courageous leaders join them from the traditional pool of elected officials, willing to risk their current positions of power and the perks that go with them -- in the service of sweeping social/political/economic initiatives. In other words, the momentum generated by the progressive forces of the New Deal/Great Society must find a way of merging with the growing energies of a pissed-off electorate and a somewhat radicalized citizenry.
We activists of "The Sixties" Movement didn't get everything we hoped for, but we got enough to start the ball rolling as we altered the parameters of power and greatly influenced several decades of political and social discourse. We need that new Movement ASAP. Organize. Organize! ORGANIZE! #
Bernard Weiner, a poet, playwright, photographer and Ph.D. in government & international relations, is co-founder and co-editor of The Crisis Papers website (www.crisispapers.org). For two decades, he was a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle. To comment: Email address removed .
Copywright 2013 by Bernard Weiner.
First posted at The Crisis Papers 3/22/13. http://www.crisispapers.org/essays13w/revolution.htm
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