My earliest memories of politics in the UK are those of people being deeply depressed, downtrodden and angry. The attitudes always seemed to have been along the line of ‘ what difference can I make? ‘ , ‘ What can you do about it anyway ?’ etc The statements always revolve around powerlessness , a sense of being small and unimportant . Given that we, the poor, outnumber the richest by incredible numbers, I wonder how we got to this place of desperation ?
The information age solidified all our worst fears, in many ways it was the public opening of Pandora’s box. We now knew for a fact we were being lied to , manipulated and controlled. The advent of calling the rich ‘the elite’ helped to deepen their claws into the public imaginations as untouchable monsters. Justice never reaches into their ranks, and why would it, they are after all The Elite now.
Thing is…they are far from elite. They are constantly on the back-foot all the time. That’s why they are fighting a class war against us in the first place, we scare them. Literally in some cases. Tightening of security in states demonstrates fear of rebellion, uprising or just plain simply a movement of the people for the people. Thus why freedom of speech and the right to protests have been severely declining in the past few decades.
Examples of wins are numerous, though rarely shouted about. If they are, it is usually attributed to one person, an individual , a charismatic leader ( even when the movement did not have one ) This helps the feeling of powerlessness again. ‘ We need another MLK, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Emma Goldman etc.’ People who achieved great things for sure, but those achievements happened because of the mass movement itself, not the individual . Never the assigned ‘leader’ of the movement.
We aren’t really taught to think about our species in terms of a collective whole . It’s all about individualism within the corporate PR paradigm. That is to say, an empty and selfish individualism that conforms with the status quo the richest desire in society. Yet, mutual aid still runs through our moral fibre. In spite of all the consumerist education, the notion of wealth for self above all else. The out cry over the refugees fleeing conflicts recently is a testament to that .
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.”
― Howard Zinn
Frustration and a sense of powerlessness often lead to people resigning themselves to situations, like poorly paid jobs, for example. How many of you like what you are paid to do every day ? What would you rather be doing ? Why aren’t you doing it ? Lack of money is usually a popular response to the last question. We work, yet we lack the money to improve our lot in life. Always just ‘getting by day to day’ , from one pay check to the next. If that stops, all sorts of bad things start happening. Late credit card bills, arrears payments, failure to pay payments, and of course , incarceration. Everyone understand this because we all live in it , every waking day of our lives.
The internet has broadened the human horizon . Expectations of what we could be / do, is vastly higher than ever before. Governments once offered these potentials as patriotic dreams, to keep us engaged and on page with them, we now see that their dream is our misery, our mundane nightmare of boredom, blood and repetition. It gets harder to fool the masses when they can instantly communicate with one and other all across the globe. I believe we are only at the beginning of how this will change us as a species, on a global level. Governments and corporations have shown their inability to keep pace with this digital age. Piratebay is one beautiful example of a new power we have, now imagine 3D printers are in every home , like mobile phones. You can just download the plans for what you want from Piratebay without having to pay the corporations. Look at the record and film industry today. Netflix could be seen as a capitulation to this, whilst trying to profit from it . My point is this : that industry has been crippled by things like file sharing. That’s a win. It starts artists and writers discussing new ways, and better ways for them , in terms of content distribution.
This is just the start of something brand new. Governments and corporations still seem clueless as to how to curtail our individual and collective power. Why else would they need so many laws as of late ? The more we win the scarier they are going to appear, the louder their minority of supporters will scream and shout and stomp and say stupid, stupid, stupidly outrageous things. They are no longer relevant in a world where science tells us that our current way of doing things is killing our world. Many of them know this. There is hope in this era of depression – There’s billions of us , we cannot lose.
“The big system can be pretty overwhelming. We know that we can’t beat them by competing with them. What we can do is build small systems where we live and work that serve our needs as we define us and not as they ‘re defined for us. The big boys in their shining armor are up there on castle walls hurling their thunderbolts. We’re the ants patiently carrying sand a grain at a time from under the castle wall. We work from the bottom up. The knights up there don’t see the ants and don’t know what we’re doing. They’ll figure it out only when the wall begins to fall. It takes time and quiet persistence. Always remember this: They fight with money and we resist with time, and they’re going to run out of money before we run out of time”
― Utah Phillips
Glen Hunter 