We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Louis Proyect on US election outcome

Click here to access article by Louis Proyect posted on Redline.

Although I don't often agree with Proyect's views on various issues, I think that this brief article hits the nail on the head.
Do we have the guts to build a radical movement or will we be continuously tailing after The Nation, Salon, MSNBC and the Democratic Party? [my link to explain the usage of this verb]
And we see the same reaction from Workers World in an article entitled "Don’t just mourn, organize".
...this is no time just to mourn. It’s a time to reaffirm support and militant solidarity with all those who have been the main targets of Trump’s demagogy and hatred: women, people of color, immigrants. That’s the only path toward uniting the working class against its real enemies: the billionaire rulers of this country, including Trump.

The day after the election must become Day One of the resistance.
What I fail to understand after 60 years of activism is why younger American activists still take elections sponsored and organized by the capitalist ruling class seriously. They still don't seem to grasp the simple and obvious truth contained in a quote attributed to the early 20th century anarchist Emma Goldman: "If  [capitalist] elections could change anything, they would be illegal". Only grass-roots reform movements have made even a mild impact on the way capitalists rule the US: the abolitionist movement, Populists, women's suffrage, and Civil Rights movement. Only a revolutionary movement can make substantial improvements in the lives of ordinary Americans, and by extension, to the lives of most people of the world ruled by the US Empire. There is no other option. 

Forget about having families, forget about having kids, forget about having a career, and forget about the American Dream--it is truly a dream. Wake up! Organize a revolutionary movement as if your life and the lives of many people in the world depended on it--because they do!