Creative Destruction

[Video scarfed from Willy Loman's Place]

This is a lovely -- and very well done -- video assemblage of the protests and governmental actions in Greece recently. As we know, the People rose up in their multitudes, shut down much of Greece's faltering economy with repeated general strikes, and otherwise made the process of governing and exploiting the Greek People difficult for their Rulers.

And the upshot was that the People got nothing.

No, they were robbed and raped even more severely than before they rose up.

Let's "start" to get a handle on what's really going on.

This has been a year of popular unrest and tumult, all over Europe, all over the Middle East (now even including Israel) and North Africa, and for a time at least in the Upper Midwest of the United States.

People rose up in their multitudes in many places around the country and the world, protesting the imposition of "austerity" -- actually, the application of neo-liberal Shock Doctrine economic policies that favor the rich -- and the continuation of rotten dictatorships and managed democracies, only to be discounted or ignored, when not being beaten, gassed, shot, run over, and rounded up by the thousands.

The People got nothing. Not even when they thought they had "won" as in Egypt and Tunisia.

In parts of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the Arabian Peninsula, the protests of the masses have turned into civil wars between undefined factions vying
to control governments on behalf of... whom? Nobody quite knows.

Certainly not The People.

It has been a year of unrest and tumult, and it has been a year of governing contrary to the People's will, everywhere, even when they rise up, even when they think they have "won."

And in the United States, the pattern is the same, though the uprisings have been surprisingly polite given the provocations of the Rulers. The People protest this or that take away, this or that reversion, this or that diminution, this or that reduction in rights, benefits, and/or income; the People invariably lose, utterly and completely.

The New Normal sets in. Protest may or may not recommence, but the People invariably lose again.

As we watch Our Rulers in DC simply ignore the will of the People -- as quantified in poll after poll after poll -- and adopt completely contrary neo-liberal/Shock Doctrine economic policies (among so many other reactionary policies), regardless of any other interest whatsoever (oh, such as jobs for example), we're understandably shocked and OUTRAGED!!!™ How can they do this?

Well, they do it, don't they?

Ordinary protest -- even the sort we've seen in Greece -- doesn't affect them in any way. The Ruling Class doesn't care because they don't believe there is anything the People can or will do that they have to pay attention to.

None of the usual tactics work.

And because that's the case, regardless of your political issue or position, acts of terrorism (such as happened last week in Norway, in reaction to governmental "treason") proliferate. Because it is the only way to make The Powers That Be pay attention.

But falling into the trap of the Cult of Violence doesn't "win" -- for the People -- either.

Certainly Perpetual Argument on the Internet doesn't work!

Is there nothing that will?

Things that haven't been tried, perhaps? Things that haven't even been imagined yet? Or if they have, the imagining is so low key and so far underground...?

I know what a lot of people are doing in the face of Implacable Power. They are choosing to withdraw from the fight altogether, and to withdraw from the necessity to fight perpetual losing battles against the Implacable. Internal and external exile, refusing to cooperate, to engage in routine tasks or economic activity, decoupling, if you will, from both the political and economic systems insofar as it is possible to do so.

"Goodbye to All That."