What is it going to take?

[MadHound]

During the early part of the twentieth century, revolution was in the air. The first flowering of labor unions, the birth of the IWW(the Wobblies), the rise of Socialism in this country all came to a head during the first days of the Great Depression. After two years of inept handling of the crisis by Hoover, the country was electric, ripe for revolt. There was a genuine fear among the wealthy elite that it was all about to spiral out of control. Roosevelt stepped in and instituted a series of reforms, collectively known as the New Deal, in order to stabilize the capitalist system, and to provide enough relief to the people at large in order to quell the drive towards revolution. He succeeded well enough, and the "crisis" was averted.

Fast forward to the early part of the twenty first century, and we see many of those New Deal programs and stabilizing structures either gone or under attack. Yet the people remain, for the most part, oblivious to what is going on.

What is it going to take for people to wake up? Are we going to have to go back to the days of child labor, Hoovervilles, deaths due to lack of safety precautions and simple overwork? Is that where we're going?

If we don't want to see a repeat of the bad old days, then we have got to get out on the streets, organize, present ourselves as a real threat to the powers that be. The wealthy and power elite never concede power unless they themselves are under serious attack, unless they are confronted with a major threat. The path that is being taken now simply does not provide that sort of pressure. It is time for us to organize, gather together the strength of the masses, and meet that power with power of our own.

Otherwise, we will continue to see our lives, our country, continue to dwindle and diminish, and all that blood spilled, all those lives lost in winning the concessions we now still enjoy will have been in vain.

[Township75]

1. It's going to take just a few more posts your's on DU. Then everyone will wake up.

Can we do it? I don't know. But it woudl be a shame if we didn't try.

[MadHound]

2. Hey, I'm already out in the streets at least once a week,

What are you doing?

[Poboy]

3. Looks like it will take complete collapse and breakdown -and thats coming.

[rosesaylavee]

4. I think the difference between then and now

is that now we have more things to anesthetize ourselves with... TV, Games, Video, Movies... sounds trite but how often do we retreat after a bad day in mindless dithering on our computers or television? In the 30s, there were not too many ways to retreat. People talked with their neighbors more, there were connected communities. Ironically, Facebook and like social networks such as DU may actually help us with reconnecting as communities.

I think the level of collective pain hasn't been reached yet. However, if the PTB turn off the internet, watch this come to a rolling boil.

[raccoon]

8. "is that now we have more things to anesthetize ourselves with... " And drugs.

Street drugs AND prescription drugs.

[starroute]

10. That's not quite true

The early 30's had movies -- all those Busby Berkeley musicals with chorus girls singing "We're In the Money." Or the Marx Brothers making fun of the upper classes. Or Dracula and Frankenstein and The Public Enemy if you wanted to indulge your anger and despair in a non-political manner. Or Disney's Three Little Pigs proclaiming "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

Those years also had the early days of radio. Pulp magazines. Comic strips like Little Orphan Annie. Jazz on the point of turning into swing, blues, and early country music.

There were just as many forms of escapism then -- and the escapist tone was strongest in 1931-33. It was only after Roosevelt was elected that people started to get organized instead of looking for distractions.

[rosesaylavee]

12. I remember my mom talking about how important the

radio and talkies were at that time. However, you went once per week. You weren't able to retreat into that on your own whenever you chose to. Heavens, there has always been entertainment - that's not what I meant. The means to escape has never been as accessible to humans as it is today. That's what I was trying to say. And we, including me, take full advantage of whatever I can. IPODs, phones, computers, games, movies at your fingertips - no waiting for Friday or Saturday nights or Sunday matinees.

[madokie]

5. I feel the giant is waking

I think we have serious problems yet but I seem to think that we're heading upstream or at least holding our own. The Big Man yesterday dropped the anchor that stop our slide. Oh I realize its too soon to say that but I feel in time it will be shown that yesterday morning was when the tide changed.

I'm with you 100% we have to wake up

[TxVietVet]

6. IT will get worse before it gets better.

The conservanazis believe they are the majority and will keep trying to destroy any social programs especially those instituted by Franklin Roosevelt. The conservanazi propagandists are on the media, 24/7, spewing the conservanazi talking points, lies and distortions. MSNBC and some progressive media outlets counter that conservanazi propaganda. Connect up with the Internet. Listen to WCPT 820 AM online. Organize, organize, organize.

The conservanazi corporatists will not be happy until there will be NO middle class, only an under-employed barely literate underclass and poor people to be exploited. There will be no municipal governments. It will be corporately run city-states. BTW, the main mission of conservanazis like Toxic Tom Delay and others is a PERMANENT majority. PERMANENT.


Learn to organize. Study the issues. Search for answers. When it gets bad enough, the middle class, the former Democratic supporters, liberals, progressives and independents will form a solid opposition.

[Hotler]

7. I said it before and I'll say it again...

Things won't change until more people are feeling the pain. The "I have mine fuck everyone else." attitude is alive and well even among many liberals. Until they lose their jobs, get sick it's not their concern. The people with jobs need to be standing up for the people without jobs.

[TheKentuckian]

9. What it appears it will take is the comfortable suburbanites and upscale urban folks

to go from SUV's to dumpster diving en mass.

[Cleita]

11. You want to get people mobilized?

Appeal to labor. Let's face it, most of us work, regardless of what differences we have. Labor will unite us. The Republicons have united their base by appealing to their prejudices and bigotry. We are going to have to appeal to people on the basis of jobs, creating jobs, good paying jobs and job security. Forget about getting pulled into their conversation, the ones of abortion, birtherism, islamophobia and calling everyone liberals and communists. We need to talk about jobs, jobs and jobs. We need to let them know how we get our jobs back from China, how we get our worker's rights back and how we get our living wages and quality of life back. This is our platform. I hope Obama and our real Democrats realize that and turn their backs on their corporate donors and talk to the working and unemployed person, who wants to work, instead.