dupe

[kpete]

One must be defeated to be controlled.



....control is the point. When you have income inequality at the levels we have it in this country it is natural for the oligarchs and aristocrats to begin to get nervous. Even in America, the land of opportunity, the malefactors of great wealth have always worried that the polloi was going to use this "democracy" to wake up and grab a pitchfork. One of the ways to control that is social control.

There is, I've recently realized, an impulse among liberals to constantly reinvent the wheel and switch gears manically when things do not change rapidly enough. I suppose that's a natural function of the personalities that veer toward rapid change rather than conservation. But it's a political weakness, especially when it's in reaction to authoritarianism and economic intimidation.

I'm older now, so perhaps my newfound "patience" can be seen as resignation rather than wisdom. But I have learned a couple of things over these years: don't panic, don't drop out and don't despair. The reactionaries and revanchists aren't all powerful and the will to progress is as fundamental to humanity as breathing. Bad things happen, to be sure. But liberal focus and persistence can be a powerful antidote. We need to hang in.

more from digby:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/hanging-in.html

and emptywheel:
Preserving the Fabric of Our Society as They Roll Out the Shock Doctrine
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/07/25/preserving-the-fabric-of-our-society-as-they-roll-out-the-shock-doctrine/