The World is Revolting,
Why Not Join In?
by C. L. Cook
You've seen the mouth-breathers, screaming at the top of their lungs, white-spittle flecks a barrage pocking the CNN and FOX News camera lenses. They're the Tea Party we're told, named not for the progressive Canadian rock band of the nineties, nor for the Mad Hatter's favourite pastime, but self-titled, and self-regarded, as the harbingers of the second American Revolution.

And, as were their namesakes of yore, this new crew is a phony brew too.

Most school-age Americans are familiar with the tale of The Boston Tea Party, wherein a mob of disgruntled Yankees, rather than pay yet another tax, (this time more for postage) boarded some ships in the harbour and dumped some of its cargo of tea into the bay. Those intrepid did this in full "Indian" regalia, presumably to afford a patsy in case things went south.

Today the false rebels are dressed as populists, and they claim to be standing up to the hated guv'ment, source of all the nation's woes. The fact their "movement" is mobilized by Rupert Murdoch's teevee screens, and financed by billionaires like the Koch brothers behind the scenes, has somehow been left off the picket signs, sandwich boards, and abridged pamphlet materials.

But if the organization and its proponent ideology of the Tea Party is as fake as George Washington's dental work, the thousands proudly proclaiming themselves "tea partyers" have the right sentiment, if for the wrong reasons.

America is lost in a way it never has been before. The history of the United States is pretty shocking and awful; from the genocide of the First People's, enslavement of the Africans, manifest wars of conquest, monumental crimes committed in the name of fighting first the Nazi's then the Soviet threat, to the modern application of weapons of permanent mass destruction like depleted uranium used in the Balkans, Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan; to say America has now lost her way may sound like a good thing, but it's not.

The U.S. today is like a great, trapped animal gnawing its limbs in hope of escape. It is turning in on itself, lurching angrily about for a fitting target of its impotent rage. The Tea Party may work as a vent for this mounting ire for a while, but its manipulated masses are soon going to realize they have been used by agents working for the authors of their discontent.

 

In Europe, where the influence of television is relatively weak, insurrection is fomenting in country after country. That realization has already happened there, where the people are more used to the plastic nature of politics, and more keenly aware of the fruits of demagoguery. There, the real populists are gathering strength, making alliances, and getting into the streets.

There is a common perception in Europe that the blame for the economic failures of the system lay with both the nature of that system, and with those charged with its smooth operation. There is an understanding that the corporate/government revolving door nexus of nepotism and cronyism has led to the crash, while the callous venality and cynicism of an irresponsible elite are the leaking fuels promising this wreck will burn too. The hoi polloi there do not believe it up to them to bail out the wafer-thin, moneyed uber class with either their pensions, or what other middle-class perks still remain.

A realization is gaining momentum in America. It says: The system is rigged; the rich own the political process, and it doesn't matter whether your team is blue or red, both sides favour only the ones with the green. Two years later, Obama's hope is revealed as hype. He will continue to pour billions into the coffers of the war profiteers, whistling Dixie as the American treasury burns. He will too cleave close to him the Wall Street mavens, taking their counsel and carrying through their prescriptions, though they serve only those at the top of the fiscal pyramid.

The Liberation of Hopelessness

But all is not lost. What good greed has done here is make clear the long-overdue need for a systemic change that is both profound and global. This needn't be a "One-World Government," or even a "New World Order," but a shift in paradigm that recognizes the current way of doing things is not only unworkable, but is doomed to a failure so complete none will be spared.

 

It is time to surrender the hope of "recovery" for the world and embrace instead the fetid decay of democracy and capitalism and communism and socialism dead issues whose burial is a necessary step in the evolution of humanity toward the  more perfect world we all feel it should be.

 

The marches and demos are necessary, but not enough. What is shaking them up in Europe, (where even France's neo-liberal warrior, Sarkozy is disowning the orthodox economic assumptions that brung him) is the work stoppages. When the wheels stop turning, and the money stops coming in, the invisible engineers will get the message.

 

Next, the so-called "Value Added" taxes must be abolished. Until governments realize the well-being of the people is the only measure of prosperity, and the pursuit of that well-being the only justification for taxation, no money for wars and the corporations that wage them should be forthcoming. Consumption taxes are not representative, and make real change impossible.

 

And finally, everyone who can should be provided a place in the productive life of the society. There are a lot of challenges that need meeting. There are millions out there with skills, talents, and ideas that are currently sitting on the outside, heaped like junked cars, rusting away. There is work enough to do for everyone, and it is criminal to allow a failed system of economy impede those necessary labours. 

There's surely revolution in the air, and you can get out there and join in the fun of making a better world probable.