“It was the workers in these industries who taught me that there was a systematic conflict between profits and health.… When you start thinking that, when you start to interfere with the forces of production, you’re going to the heart of the beast.” –Tony Mazzocchi, leader of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International (OCAW), who… Continue reading To the Heart of the Beast
Tag: protest
On my return
As the 2012 presidential election geared up, it seems, I lost the stamina to keep a regular political writing habit. With the election of Trump, battle lines have been drawn, and no one can remain silent and not be complicit. I will return to my regular political writing, and do all I can to organize for a better future for all of us.
So given this extreme human suffering and repression imposed by the Saudi monarchy in multiple countries, what should the US – the Leader of the Free World and the self-proclaimed Deliverer of Freedom and Democracy – do? To Riedel, the answer is obvious: work even harder, do even more, to strengthen the Saudi regime as well as the neighboring tyrannies in order to crush the “Arab Awakenings” and ensure that democratic revolution cannot succeed in those nations.
-Greenwald skewers another
You don’t end war by encouraging a parliament to pass a resolution, or by swapping politicians and governing forms, but by creating a culture that finds blowing innocent men, women and children to bits as abhorrent as pushing an old lady into oncoming traffic. Those in power can’t start wars if they don’t find anybody willing to fight them.
-Charles Davis on social revolution
“As Gandhi revealed, non-violent protest is effective above all because it reveals how power really operates: it lays bare the violence it is willing to unleash on even the most peaceful citizens when they dare to challenge its moral legitimacy.”
-David Graeber discusses how police are now sexually assaulting female protesters in an attempt to intimidate them.
What we’re leaving behind today, at record pace, is whatever belief we might once have had in the value of unstructured time: in the privilege of contemplating our lives before they are gone, in the importance of uninterrupted conversation, in the beauty of play. In the thing in itself – unmediated, leading nowhere. In the present moment.
-Mark Slouka, on the virtues of idleness, in “Quitting the Paint Factory“
“The more we shed ourselves of national identity in this fight, the more we grasp that our true allies may not speak our language or embrace our religious and cultural traditions, the more powerful we will become.”
—Chris Hedges on Occupy
Life After Death
Egalitarians must work to take over the Democratic party as the Tea Party has recently taken over the Republicans. Action in the streets will lead the way, but we must have electoral strength to make our leaders follow through with the changes we demand.
“The way things are needs to be interrupted, so that we can hear about the way things should be.”
-Professor Richard D. Wolff of the University of Massachusetts and the New School, as heard on his WBAI show, “Economic Update”.
Occupation
We must recognize that no one beholden to Big Money can lead America towards being a truly democratic republic.