America's New Radicals Attack a System That Ignores Them

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/03-4

"Enraged young people," The New York Times worries aloud, are kicking off the dust of phony democracy, in which "the job of a citizen was limited to occasional trips to the polling places to vote" while decision-making remains in the claws of a rarified elite of overpaid corporate executives and their corrupt pet politicians.

"From South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street," the paper continues, "these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over. They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box."



The rage of the young is real. It is justified. It is just beginning to play out.

The political class thinks it can ignore the people it purports to represent. They're right--but not forever. A reckoning is at hand. Forty years of elections without politics will cost them.

More at the link --

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. "Young wolves, show us your teeth." - John Steinbeck

[tblue]

3. Young people rock!

:yourock: Totally. They will save us because they're unafraid.

[Mr Deltoid]

11. The young and the Unions

Are our only hope. The Democratic party is part of the problem anymore.

[FirstLight]

2. you know

I have a feeling that the next six months or less will be a real crucible of change...Obama told us he needed our help, right? well he didn't do shit for us so we are taking the matter into our own hands.
...i wonder if we will even have another election, the PTB think they can just continue with business as usual and this will just go away. I am telling you, it is going to get bigger than they realize...to big to ignore.

[tblue]

4. Well, we know what kind of 'help' he wants from us.

He wants us to help him get what he wants (reelection). But first we have to “stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying” and “press on,” as if there's no justification for what we do. He's all populist now that he's trying to get reelected, but it takes two to uphold a bargain.

[FirstLight]

5. +1000!

exactly...

i keep thinking this growing movement will not just fade away, too many people hurting, too many people pissed...there is no good guy to fix this for us...we are the ones we have been waiting for, right?

The fact that the movement itself is without 'leadership' is freaking out the PTB...they want us to play by their rules of engagement, but it ain't gonna happen. The new paradigm of COOPERATIVE COMMUNITY is taking hold!

...funny, part of the reason the revolutionaries won against the british is because they refused to fight in the traditional way, they ignored to 'rules of engagement' and used the terrain to their advantage, the first geurilla warfare tactics. WE will win now because of the same ideals... we will refuse to engage in their demand for us to form a 'coherent' list of demands, we refuse to resort to violence, we refuse to create a 'structure of leadership' ....

[tblue]

6. Had not thought of that!

Dang, you are brilliant! I am getting a real charge out of this whole thing. I was wondering how people can protest in a repressive state like Iran but not here in the US.

[bengalherder]

8. +1000 yourself!

Not only is 'no leaders' freaking them out, it is the way the protest is articulating an emotional state as opposed to 'rational' (ie: one solid demand, etc). The inability to impose conventional wisdom on these protests will be our strength.

Been watching Anon (chanology to be exact) vs. Scientology for years. Anon is winning because CoS's stratetgy is all about targeting leaders and setting the framework for arguements on their terms, anonymous turns all of those tactics inside out. This is just the same thing writ large.

Anyone interested in chanology's fight please see WWP, www.whyweprotest.net

[phantom power]

7. At 9% unemployment, more and more people literally have nothing else to do.

And really, that's when you have the conditions for a revolution -- when enough people have nothing to lose:

One of the protesters last week was quoted (paraphrase) "If the cops think they can shut this down by making it hard on us, then they don't understand how hard it is back home."

[OHdem10]

9. What makes them Radical.???? The fact that they have the

guts to go to the heart of the problem to protest.

Many of them are educated and understand the sytem
is designed to give Wall St and Big Business more
and more power. What is so radical about speaking
the truth?

Most of today's problems can be traced back to Wall St.
Most of them have circumstances in which either they
or their family, sometimes both have been harmed by
the policies.

Believing that the GOVERNMENT IS the PROBLEM, Reagan
set in place policies and efvery President since especially
GWB, aided by a Republican House and Senate have added
to those Policies. Conservative Economic FundamentalisM
or FREE MARKET PRINCIPLES which tell us every issue in
this country can be solved by the FREE MARKET SYSTEM.
This puts Business with more power than the Government.
Privatize every thing, get rid of unions, Taxation punishes
Business so it must minimal if at all, Businesses know
best what is best for the rest of us. (The Market will
right all wrongs.) The Democratic Party should be the
Party fight back such radical changes but they have not.
In fact, more often they affirm the GOP.

It is all in the eyes of the beholder. I see the Conservative
Economic Fundamentalism as The RADICAL. Since they purged
all Moderates from DC and have developed a literal interpretation
of Free Market System.

One of the first changes made by Reagan was to declare
and put into law. Business has an obligation to ONLY
their shareholders. No obigation to workers or the country.
No matter how disgusted you may be with Business they
are practicing their mission: TO MAKE PROFITS FOR SHAREHOLERS.

This is a decided change from the way our country was rung
up until the 80s.

You can go down the list and see what the literal interpretation
of FREE MARKET SYSTEM has done to this country.

The Young people are educated understood and went to the source.
So this makes them, the radicals.

[Shagbark Hickory]

10. If voting was effective, it'd be illegal. n/t