State-wide Foreclosure Moratorium: How to get one!

Foreclosure Arrestee (USuncutMN) Asks YOUR help

VIRGINIA DEOCCUPY HOMELESSNESS SIMSON,  www.USuncutMN.blogspot.com, scoop.it/Austerity?NO!!

Saint Paul, Minnesota  By now, most are aware that the banks made enormous profits selling junk mortgages.  Inside Job won the Best Documentary award for exposing how the citizens were “played” by the banks and how the executives involved just did not hold themselves accountable for the consequences of their massive fraud. 

Matt Taibbei of Rolling Stone magazine, made powerful comment at Occupy Wall Street on February 23rd in a teach-in as to why we in the United States MUST fight back and demand accountability.  The crisis is far from over. This chart explains why it will take a full four years for the effects to "settle":  It takes time for the entire process to finalize into homelessness!  Let's prevent some trauma!

Because of activist pressure, a mortgage fraud settlement was obtained. The Bank$ter$ were convicted in The Court of Public Opinion.  Obama was forced to act -- because of We the People.  Try to remember that.

But many people are not aware that a minimal payout was made available to homeowners via the States after a lawsuit was brought.

It was an egregious settlement, but it was better than nothing after waiting four long years.

Where is this money?  Sitting in the bankers’ accounts, collecting interest.  Is this acceptable?  We say NO!  In Minnesota, $280 million dollars has been available for six months, but the program is not working.

 We want and  are petitioning for an immediate foreclosure moratorium.  Here's the link.  Right up front:  I am asking YOU to sign!!  http://signon.org/sign/41-million-reasons-for?source=c.url&r_by=260770

I write this in hopes you can learn from our Minnesota experience and grow a viable movement in your own communities.  Only through activism, through public pressure will we get justice. With just a little work, we can get foreclosure moratoriums in all our states if we work together.

What is, Why is and Who are Occupy Homes?

Journalist/activist Dan Feidt writes from a "think global, act local" vantage point: 

What is Occupy Homes?  

Firstly, banks use bookkeeping magic to electronically create money which they lend out to the public & government at compound interest. They don't actually have all that money - only a small fraction. This is called fractional reserve banking. It's intrinsically unstable because the economy can never grow exponentially along with the debt.

Over the last 15 years the Federal Reserve under Greenspan suppressed the prime interest rate, causing an enormous bubble in home prices. Criminal 'control fraud' organizations such as Freddie Mac committed various crimes such as fraudulent inducement, securities fraud, fraudulent conveyance, etc., to bundle mortgages which were likely to collapse as AAA securities. They got fat bonuses and Freddie Mac used its government backing to basically create insurance for bondholders in the event of default, then resold these securities again. In Nov 2011 FreddieMac was forced to pay the federal govt tens of millions $$ for orchestrating staggering securities fraud at the executive level (bundling Alt-A mortgages as AAA etc)

In order to create these fraudulent securities, the banks set up a go-between shell organization called MERS, Mortgage Electronic Registration System, which unlawfully poses as the legal entity with authority to foreclose on people for basically any reason, though it usually doesn't have the mortgage note in a valid chain of title. MERS was used to obfuscate any path to ameliorate housing issues, i.e. you could never even reach the responsible party on the phone, if you could determine who they even were.

Housing prices across the US finally started to crash around 2007-2008. The whole system had been predicated on rising prices which only occurred because the money was magically created thru fractional reserve at suppressed interest rates. As prices fell, thousands of homes had mortgages where the principal demanded exceeded the value of the home - these went 'underwater' as homeowners entered negative equity despite making years of payments. If they quit paying they entered foreclosure, further depressing local prices, a vicious spiral. Today the banks possess millions of empty homes and keep them off the market in order to create the illusion that market prices have stabilized, but in fact price discovery has been halted and 'fake prices' rule the day.

Don’t say the “F” word or else!

In the political system 'regulatory capture' has taken over most levels wherein no official with any kind of power, i.e. Sheriff Stanek, Mayor Rybak, are willing to even say the word 'fraud' and defend the public welfare from organizations that orchestrate these crimes & no decisions are taken in favor of the Little People. The housing court in MN does not offer any redress for fraud or in the case of the Cruz house, bank errors wherein the bank demands an unachievable amount of money for their own mistake.

Therefore a broad network of people have undertaken a direct action campaign to resist the political functions occurring under the regulatory capture such as sheriffs sales and evictions. Through demonstrations and occupying the homes directly, the figures who have the arbitrary power, such as the bookkeeping-magic powered banking industry & the feckless politicians who collect political contributions from the compound interest machine, are forced to let people retain their homes and reduce the principal due on the underwater mortgages, which was never necessary in any sense and was only a lever to consolidate wealth into an ever-smaller group of people.

That's the theory anyway -- the authorities are willing to carry out extreme levels of state violence to maintain momentum in the regulatory capture & control fraud system which prevails today.

People who care are forced to join Occupy Homes because:  

The US federal government sent the Banksters $13T, the entities which created this mess.

What did the Banksters’ do with their welfare?   It didn’t direct money to solve title problems, it gambled the trillions on more toxic debt around the world.

Experts such as Ellen Brown urged full redress.  She and others suggested a massive settlement that left the banks feeling the sting -- along with the restructuring of banking itself.  Too Big To Fail meant Too Big To Manage.  The FRAUD was seen as systemic.  Robosigning/liar loans and the scourge of adjustable rate mortgages were to be abolished - whether by regulation or the imposition of State banks.

Instead, the AGs in the US accepted a bandaid rather than rehab to the heavily-bleeding victims, the taxpayers and shareholders.

.

Hopefully - in the name of fairness -  local registrar of deeds and local judges will slap Banksters hard, because elected officials - many owned by Banksters and who could conceivably slap them - haven’t: and logic dictates, won’t.

And in the urge for fairness, it would seem that banks that participated in fraud should not be collecting interest on the monies paid out for VICTIMS. But they are; that’s how State banking "regulation" is not working these days.  Make a fraudulent attack on the public: Get paid for it.

So we say that each state should demand a foreclosure moratorium until the allocated money is allocated, and the programs for relief have been proven to work.   

San Francisco set up a precedent. What We say is that this should go through each state, where the money is, through the Attorney Generals' offices.  So far that has been done only at the local level and to continue that as a strategy would take years.

To see for yourself who that was done, here is some excellent video on the San Francisco experience provided by Carol Harvey.  A video is worth 1000 words; share her videos with people that care.  

Learn and then maybe we can get mortgage foreclosure moratoriums in each state, and as we suggest, working through our Attorney Generals.

Some of us get arrested occupying foreclosured homes, because we think the actions over the last four years are just plain shameful.   I am one of those cases - and I wanted to stand in solidarity with other occupiers.  So I am "guilty" of trespass - with an explanation!   Below is an "explanation" of what I am doing while I await a hearing.

Here are action steps ACTivists can take. 

Take this idea and this article to your next Coffee Party gathering.  (We have another one here in Saint Paul on July 7^th.)  Take this to moveon.org and your #ows General Assemblies.  Take it to your church.  Take it to your union local.  Take it wherever people w/social justice concerns gather. Some won't hear you, but keep working it.  No one said life doesn't have its struggles.  You may need to remind yourself of that often, but the good responses on a daily basis will keep you buoyed.  We are rocking boats, talking, trusting and building a truly caring movement.

It is important to remember, that at each step, you need to reach out to more and more people to gather enough people to get a foreclosure moratorium.  If people around you don’t understand what you are doing, just keep doing each step.  Trust me; we're after a winnable action.  More people will begin to support this idea as you go along.  Precedent has been set already!  ; )

And then devise an action plan that includes the following:

 

Plan a screening of the following two – Inside Job is available on Dvd, and the Matt Taibbei video is easily accessible on youtube .  (See links above.)  Even a couple of people watching this together can began to have a massive effect on how things go in your state after solidifying their commitment.  There are good homelessness videos coming out now, too.  Tip:  Start a video/youtube collection right away -  in early days.  Get some good photos of homeless persons together too. You may need them later.  Or be bold - go and make a video of your local foreclosure victims and homeless people and then post it on facebook.  Suggest this as a "group activity" for your initial contacts .. Look for and build a community spirit.  Sometimes media committees get a bit ruthless. Cooperation is key to success and this is the time to aim for that.  Include everyone who wants to be included in media efforts.

Go to www.propublica.com and find out how much money your state has been allocated for foreclosure relief.

Get an appointment with your Attorney General – and find out the amount the office says is on their books and has not been distributed.  Be prompt and cheerful and loaded with facts and an attitude of compassion for foreclosure victims and homeless people when you go in.  Know that public policy can be changed by YOU – you can make a difference, a very big difference.  It's not a tea party nor an action.  It is an information session at which YOU make a sensible request that will save time, money, social havoc and heartache.

Ask for them for a foreclosure moratorium! until the money IS released and the program has been proven to work.  Offer to petition citizens showing that the population is on their side if they do that.  Going city to city would take a very long time. 

Write a petition.  You can use moveon’s site, change.org, care2.org's petition site -- or any other that you’ve already linked up.  You can even post on all available  lists.  Be sure to mention the amount and give references to it as well as the propublica site.  Include a person’s email to return the names of signatories.  You don’t need addresses, or phone numbers from signatories on many of these, which will expand the base of those who will sign.  But be sure to get email addresses.  Tip:  About out-of-state signatories.  Go for it!  This is grassroots organizing at its finest and friends who will back you and your group up, get them on board! Show that this is truly an international issue.  Just aim for a higher number of signatures than you think you will need so that if their names are "disqualified" you have plenty.  Let this snowball by spreading it around.  I am so chuffed by my readers who have signed, that it makes my eyes tear over. They do care ...

Create a FB “cause” – click it around a bit to your friends and good Occupy sites on the web.  Go to Occupy Homes and other sites and post it around.  We call that clicktavism.

Write an action alert, a 3-paragraph inspirational piece to send out to your occupy websites.  Just be sure to include the petition link, a place to contact and perhaps a reference or two to show you do kinow what you are "speaking" about.

Make hard copies and 

Start asking for signatures at food coops, your social justice actions, in ordinary conversation.  Forward your link to all your FB and twitter friends.  Ask them to get involved and figure out ways you can work together.  I’ll be outside our homelessness show here in Saint Paul this Tuesday, clipboard in hand with plenty of pens and maybe a small sign saying “You can help end homelessness.  Please sign my petition.”  You can put flyers up on coffeehouse and coop bulletin boards - just be sure to pick them up or give a place to forward them to - maybe the Attorney General's office directly.

Think up talking points in advance:  Writing a blurb for your petition to hand out to those that sign will help you focus your thoughts. Points such as this are incredibly helpful: 

1. Foreclosure causes BLIGHT – it brings in crackhouses, whore houses, boarded up windows, rodents  – and

2. decreases the tax base. 

3. Homelessness hurts.  You might mention that for every homeless person, there are 24 empty houses now (Yikes!) One in seven people is homeless.  Here in MN, the average of a homeless person is .. wait for it! .. six years old!  One in four homeless persons is a veteran.  BREAK those stereotypes!  Most of the homeless are children. People who are homeless are not easy to “deal with”. They are wounded and hurt - and often desperately poor. Sometimes, things get so bad, you really cannot predict what an ill homeless person will do and they become scary.  That doesn’t mean that we, as humane persons don’t do everything we can possibly do to help them.  Remember we are asking for monies and programs for people who were victims of FRAUD. The kids didn't sign .. The best way to stop homelessness is to prevent it. That is what we are doing w/this foreclosure moratorium campaign; trying to prevent it.

4. You might also mention that those of us who fight back and try to get the media to write about the outrage get arrested, but the fraudulent bank$ter$ do not.  In fact, the media and policos lionize bank$ter$ – turning them into rock star status.  Here we see Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase wearing Presidential cufflinks.  After four long years, we are seeing precious little accountability for banksters' FRAUD.  Here is the article about the foreclosure victims arrests. 

5.  Our media and CONgress are not acting in the public’s interest, but this is a preliminary step in gaining accountability and helping victims for now .. you get the idea.  Only our pressure can change public policy. This is why the settlement was achieved. Public pressure.

6. Have people go to www.propublica.com for information if you are asked for verification. That’s so easy!

7. Stay current on issues so you have plenty to talk about.  Obviously, the foreclosure moratorium is just a bit of the solution to our corrupt and highly unregulated banking system.  The articles abound and it can be very difficult to know which to read, which to omit – but struggle on nevertheless.  Find a good author in “the know” and subscribe!  You can run a google alert and get regular, fresh information by the buckets.  Just put in “foreclosure”, “activism” or whatever strikes your fancy, and it will lead you to good, fresh and in-depth articles.  www.webofdebt.com and www.dandelionsalad.wordpress.com are two of my very favorite websites with economics about foreclosure.  So is www.nakedcapitalism.com.  There is also econtv.com for those who want punchy videos.

Give a donation – food, money, office help, your bodily presence – to a foreclosure occupation. Talk to the people, attend the barbeques, speak to your minister about hosting a teach-in on homelessness, the foreclosure crisis, about ACTivism.  Go visit a homeless shelter; see first hand how demoralizing the environments are that your tax dollars are paying for.  Get angry that homeless children are fed bad food, denied educational opportunities most take for granted and wonder where they will sleep that night. Thank those who volunteer their time in the most needed activity: helping the homeless.  The best "gift" you ever give anyone is your time as you can never get it back.

Understand me – I am on the side of COMPASSION.  No one should be made homeless.  Housing IS a human right; so is our personal property. So is the right to expect our governments to take our concerns seriously. Rhode Island has a Homeless Bill of Rights now..  An era of #austerity is being proposed. We need to work to ensure we don't have more unhoused, demoralized people.

Remember: this is a political struggle.

Over the months I have been fighting foreclosure, I have seen a most disturbing criminalization of dissent.
  – an overmilitarization of police and private security forces Say FRAUD loud and clearly. This is not a handout.  This was a decision made to quell opposition that was getting loud as President Obama and the other politicos tried to sweep our legitimate anger under the rug.  Banks got bailed out; we got sold out - to the tune of $17 trillion dollars.  We are not criminals; we are people striving for justice.

Our foreclosure fighters at occupations are beaten and sexually abused, denied medications, fed drugs by police (the DRE program), their belongings tossed into dumpsters (illegal!) - and the bail amounts continue to escalate. 

It is easy to stay wound up and lose focus.  This is not an effort to “get arrested” nor rant about “state power” the entire time.  We need a good, firm CENTER, a mass of support to win even basic justice.  Civil disobedience is a personal choice. 

But a petition drive – backed up by phone calls, oped letters, national actions - can help us drive up the necessary numbers to build a movement to stop foreclosure once and for all.

Write opeds, post comments – even to the teensiest of local papers. Educate, agitate, ORGANIZE.   Offer your email address as a contact point. People will show interest, but they need direction.

We are getting precious little Good Press.  Try to find a media outlet that will explain WHY Occupy Homes exists.  Therefore: When a paper posts articles, post comments.  Say clearly - "This has all been about fraud and we must not blame the victims nor their supporters."

Continue to educate yourself.  Example:  look at how companies are enriching themselves buying up HUGE lots of foreclosed properties, getting city permissions. Know that without our ACTION, nothing is going to change and more misery is the inevitable result.

Notes about the foreclosures and homelessness – TRAUMA and our priorities

Many of us foreclosure activists are homeless.  For me, this time, it was huge overdraft charges on an account for which I had never signed for an overdraft. I’ve been homeless nine months.  But TCF Bank got $100’s in overdraft charges on a $1.88 overdraft because I had direct deposit on my disability check.  They ruined my credit –and after nine months, have never even sent me a bank statement saying how much they CLAIM I still owe. 

I was a  holder of a mortgage in Ontario and lost my house way back in 2006, They wouldn’t pay up when my husband got ill, even though I had insurance.   I had paid $46,000+ in CASH, and didn’t even get eight months of residency.  I lost $25,000 on the sale of the house besides.  I was framed.  Now I have moved more times than I care to remember.  It just never seems to stop.

I am 63, disabled, widowed and orphaned.  This homelessness hurts!  In these nine months, not one of three counties have helped me.  The indignities I suffer would make for an entire book.  Too many places to stay has made me even more traumatized; the doctor(s) say so.  I stay sane by … you guessed it!  … fighting back. 

Articulation of our pain should be taken seriously - particularly the pain of homeless children.  We must speak up for those who are inarticulate, invisible, disabled, too young to speak for themselves.  Advocacy is a talent and a gift when it comes to these issues, particularly right now as right-wingers point fingers at victims.  One more time:  the bulk of the homeless are children.  We are speaking for them.

 Many frontline poverty workers are not helping out in ways that work, although they see the consequences of destroyed urban areas – and increasingly the devastation growing in the suburbs.  Make sure you see that empowerment of ourselves is paramount.  Suffering needs to be listened to and then acted upon.  Don’t further victimize the homeless.  Listen with three ears open.  And _just _stay _active _yourself.

Don’t join the chorus that’s been set in motion:  Victims are NOT to blame

Homeless people are deeply traumatized.  And foreclosure victims’ wounds are close to the surface. They are grieving people.  Each day is a trial.  Try to help them; not judge.  You wouldn’t want to be walking in their shoes.

Yet they are more traumatized as their efforts to empower themselves are met with scorn, derision, brutality, and harassment on the part of City Councils, cops and media. I could give a hundred more links of this part of the "story.".  Cops are not living in foreclosed communities in the cities. City Council members are taking money from banks and corporations to win elections; many are not standing with the tax-paying citizens who are fed up.  Don't allow the coverup!

Meanwhile, the foreclosure relief money continues to sit in accounts, not being used, unless We make something about public policy change.  Public policy should not be made in backrooms, bars and restaurants by bank$ter$ and politicians sharing drinks and lobster.  Our mayor actually locked his door, but continues to meet with those who want to subsidize a nearly $1 billion stadium!  But, doubtless our din gets on his nerves and we continue to say:  We will be back!

We can win this!  We can “like” it.  We can “tweet” it.  We can “share” it. We will win with your own particular, special help involved.  You cannot stop the power of a Great Idea.

I can be reached at USuncutMN@gmail.com.  Tell me how your Action Plan proceeds. 

This is permanently archived at: http://bit.ly/MXjPP1

Our Minnesota petition can be found here:  Please! Sign it!  Use it as a template for your State.  Many blessings as you help prevent more homelessness - and stand w/the afflicted.

DO IT NOW ! Recall Bloomberg!!

Ronald Pires

Mayor Bloomberg's "sensible compromise" is to spend $50 million to deny the movement its symbol in the midst of the financial district. This is an absurd amount of money for the mayor to spend to "clean" a single city block when the social services the city provides are being bled dry as the same man cries poverty to the voters.

But there is always money for what the rich want, isn't there? And t he rich want the veneer restored that says everything they do to be rich is OK, and Mayor Bloomberg, after all, works for and is one of them. But what will he do when the people come back renewed and prepared to force a different outcome when he sends his goon squads in to silence them?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” -- Karl Marx

Bloomberg Editorial: Occupy Wall Street’s Next Step Is to Set a Reform Agenda

www.bloomberg.com

Let’s get the complicated part out of the way: This subject (Occupy Wall Street) for this editorial section (Bloomberg View, part of Bloomberg LP, majority-owned by Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York) has “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” written all over it.

 

Read it and weep!  So distorted!  SO distorted!

All NYC Residents: RECALL MAYOR BLOOMBERG NOW

 

 http://www.change.org/petitions/all-nyc-residents-recall-mayor-bloomberg-now

Why This Is Important

He is turning NYC into an armed police camp and has repeatedly ordered acts of extreme violence and theft (i.e., coordinated confiscation of personal belongings) against people engaged in peaceful protest. HE BROKE THE LAW IN ORDER TO "SERVE" THIS THIRD TERM AND SHOULD NOT BE IN CONTROL OF THIS CITY IN THE FIRST PLACE. HE MUST BE REMOVED NOW.

 

 

DO IT NOW! Join the 99% at Capitol, 2 pm, Thursday

We Are The 99% event

Capitol Building Rotunda, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (Map)

St. Paul, MN 55155

Thursday, November 17th, 2:00 PM 

Let's keep the momentum going! Please sign up for this gathering right away!      

  http://civic.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=124552


Message from your host, Henry C.: Join Occupy St. Paul & US Uncut in bridging the gap between Supercommittee politicians and the needs of the 99%
http://occupysaintpaul.org/2011/11/14/usuncutmn-bridge-the-gap-march-rally/

DO IT NOW: Kucinich petition re #OWS to mayors

Dear Friends,

At 1:00 AM Tuesday night, after two months of peaceful protest against the people and institutions that wrecked our economy, police officers under direct orders from the Mayor of New York City raided Occupy Wall Street and evicted protestors from Zuccotti Park.

The First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees all of us - including these protestors - the right to peacefully assemble and express our views. But over the past week, similar nighttime raids executed by mayors in Oakland, Portland and Atlanta have cast a dangerous shadow over our liberties.

Today, I am asking you to join me in standing with Occupy protests everywhere and demanding that the Mayors of America respect the First Amendment and the rights of our citizens to assemble and express themselves. Click here to sign the petition and demand that the mayors of America respect the Constitution and the rights of Occupy Wall Street to exist.

Right now, corporations are spending unlimited amounts of money to influence our election system under the guise of free speech. Yet when people like you and me gather in parks across America to protest this broken system, we are deemed a threat by local mayors.

Stand with me, Occupy Wall Street and all Americans who wish to defend our disappearing liberties in demanding that America's mayors respect the Constitution and rights guaranteed to all Americans in the First Amendment. Sign the petition today.

With respect,


Dennis

P.S. We need to get the word out. Please forward this email to your friends and family, and share it on Facebook and Twitter. We need to stand strong for the Constitution tod

I/We stand with Occupy Wall Street and all Americans who wish to defend our disappearing liberties in demanding that the Mayors of America respect the First Amendment and the rights of our citizens to assemble and express themselves.

DOWNLOADS

	download & print petition (PDF)
	download & print leaflet (PDF)

DO IT NOW: URGENT: Defend Occupy Wall Street

EMERGENCY: Occupy Wall Street tweets, "Raid happening NOW at #libertysq MOBILIZE!" Please sign the emergency petition against this outrage -- then call every phone number listed in the email you get afterward. Mayor, Governor, NYPD, everyone... Mayor Bloomberg: Respect First Amendment rights. Don't evict Occupy Wall Street. http://act.boldprogressives.org/sign/petition_defend_ows/?source=tw-2

DO IT NOW: Berkeley brutality- where to call

Please call Berkeley PD non emergency and demand first amendment rights (510) 642‑6760, Mayor 510-981-7100, Police Chief 510-981-5900
Karen Conley I was told that it is the University police that are doing this. Their number is 510 642 0472.

 

 

DO IT NOW DOSSIER: Occupy Wall Street - Day Three: 11 Things You Can Do In Support

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Occupy-Wall-Street--Day-T-by-Chaz-Valenza-110919-698.html

By Chaz Valenza (about the author)

Monday, September 19, 2011:   I knew nothing about Occupy Wall Street, hadn't heard a word about it up until about a week ago.   Did you?

The connection between money and politics is the issue I write about!   This is the issue I read every book and blog I can get my eyes on!   How did I miss this?

Wall Street Occupation General Assembly by Chaz Valenza

My point is none of us knew.  That is unless you were not part a tiny core of people at Annonoymous, Adbusters, Culture Jammers or hung out on the right night in Thompson Square Park in NYC.

Occupy Wall Street is not ASTROTURF organizing, it is not even GRASSROOTS organizing, what you're seeing on this live feed – OCCUPY WALL STREET LIVE STREAM – is what's left after about 3,000 GRASS SEEDS gathered on Bowling Green this past Saturday.  

It's just a core of about 500 people who have camped in Zoccotti Party at Liberty Street and South Broadway, under the shadow of the erection of the Ground Zero Freedom Tower.   Could this fizzle?   Absolutely.   Is it inevitable at this point?   Absolutely NOT!

More people, many more, know about the October Event in Washington D.C.   I say, so what? (Sorry, Rob Kall.)  All that's going to happen in D.C. is already conjoined at the hip to the money that the Democrats must raise from Wall Street.   You may go.   It may feel good but it will have no lasting significance.

What is happening in NYC is embryonic, democratic and authentic.   If it doesn't work this time we, and I will be part of this, will be back.

The enemy is clear, it's money flowing from the banks, the hedge funds, the financiers and the corporations to Washington that is the problem.   Not your congressman, not your senator and not Barack Obama; they are just pawns being played by the money.

These patriots in Liberty Park (on Google Maps now as Zoccotti Park) don't have a dime.   I talked to them.   They came with bedrolls and recycled cardboard.   The most expensive things this protest has are video cameras and millions of dollars worth of police "protection."

These patriot occupiers are fighting for 99% percent of us.   Those who are unemployed, uninsured, under employed and totally insecure in the face of ever increasing social and financial inequities.   They are standing up for those who cannot be there right now.

Believe me when I tell you nobody, but nobody knows this is going on!

Here's the good news --  you can help, right now today -- no matter where you are.   

1) Spread the word -- there's something going on.  People have started a movement, they're occupying Wall Street.  Hundreds of people have been camped out in lower Manhattan for three days!  

2) If you're in New York and can only spare a little time or money: bring American Flags, cardboard, markers, water, etc. down to Liberty Park

3)  In the New York area and have a day, a morning, an afternoon go down there.   The weather appears to be holding.  Take the day off and just go.   I know it sounds hard to believe but you will be heard, literally.   This is a open general assembly effort and you will get your say and be a real participant.

4)  A little ways from NYC -- organize foursomes to go to NYC for the day.   It will cost you the train/bus/car fare.   Take nothing but some food and water and your body.  

5) Too far to get to NYC?  Sign this petition and I will read your name and comments in Liberty Park this week, I promise. Break Up Goldman Sachs Now!

6) Be subversive against the big money interests wherever you are and encourage others to do the same: Don't give the banksters 4% of every purchase you make with a credit or debit card -- Use Cash.   See:UseCashMovement

7) Be subversive: max out your credit card on large ticket items and return them the next day (This one is right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.)

8)  Move your money from a big bank to a credit union.

9)  Picket a local branch of a bank, when the press asks you what the heck you think you're doing tell them it's in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street

10)  Send food to the protesters in Liberty Park through a New York friend or go to the live stream chat for information on local eats that will take your order.   (yes, you'll have to use your credit card, big spender!)

11) Do you know anybody who knows anybody that knows a writer, a celebrity, etc. that will show their face at the protest?   Get to them now.

Bonus Support Idea 12) Spread the word again, and repeat!

See you in Liberty Park.  

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
I support the Occupy Wall Street - We Must End the Inequality and Economic Crisis Now

Do It Now Dossier: Richard Kline: Progressively Losing

This is to my mind, the MOST important discussion true progressives could be having right now.


I suggest thoughtful people read this thoroughly, digest it with the comments and the POST your own observations and thoughts.  Don't let your feelings be a hindrance!  GO FOR IT! - Virginia

Richard Kline: Progressively Losing

By Richard Kline, a Seattle-based polymath and poet

Those anywhere to the liberal side of the Anglo-American political spectrum have been on a long losing streak. As of this summer of 2011, they are wholly in disarray. In my considered view, ‘progressives’ lose because they do not have it as a goal to win. Their principal concern is to criticize the moral failings of others in society, particularly the moral failings of those in power.

At best, progressives seek to convert. In the main, they name and shame—ineffectively. American ‘progressives’ distrust political power, period, are queasy about anyone having it, and suspicious toward anyone who actively seeks it, including other putative progressives. The contest as progressives conceive it is fundamentally a moral one: they believe they are right, and want their opposition to see the light and reform/conform. Thus, they don’t frame what they engage in as a fight but rather as a debate.

There has been another and more radical trend on the left-liberal end of the spectrum previously. That trend derived from radicalized, Continental European, immigrants, it sourced much of labor activism, and is largely extinct in America as of this date. It is the atrophy of this latter muscle in particular which has rendered progressive finger-wagging impotent.

One can’t fully analyze the state of specifically American left-liberals without evaluating the positions of the domestic economic oligarchy, which are primarily conservative, or left-radical activism internationally. What follows is necessarily truncated yet also the heart of the matter. I’ll start first by defining a few terms.

I would loosely divide the left side of the political spectrum in America into liberals, ‘progressives,’ and radicals. The first two have deep roots in the primary sociological communities of the country; the third did not. Progressives and radicals have largely been distinct communities of activism. I’ll discuss both in some detail below. (Actually, the range is not a spectrum but a three- or four-dimensional position space, but that is a separate issue. I happen to particularly dislike the term ‘progressive,’ but I’ll skip my reasons and use it for the sake of clarity.)

Liberals are great believers in ‘the law,’ and happy enough to live and let live until they are in a pinch or have to give up something for the greater good—at which point they scream for a cop or start in on how ‘we’ can’t afford X. Liberalism isn’t primarily a moral position but a practical attachment to personal liberty and property. If one abandons that allowance for others, one is soon threatened as well since power unchecked makes few fine distinctions, so it’s a ‘hang together and don’t rock the boat’ perspective rather than one of commitment. I’m not going to spend verbiage here discussing this community because they go with the flow rather than push any program. As such, they shape little in the way of policy. The principal asset to left activism provided by liberals is their inertia, since the American political tradition is a significantly liberal one, and American governmental institutions are substantially so on paper. Fascism and oligarchy are pushing on a mountain of lard in trying to shift liberal inertia, with limited success. The only way really to move the ‘liberal muddle’ is to set fire to its peripheries. The good news is that liberals don’t want to change what they have, and clutch for ‘the government and experts’ to save them if things go sour. (Although that’s also the bad news . . . .)

Secondly, let’s dispense with several basic misconceptions regarding why progressives are presently so unsuccessful.

“Progressive goals are not popular.” Even with the systematically distorted polling data of the present, this is demonstrably untrue. Inexpensive health care, progressive taxation, educational scholarship funding, curtailment of foreign wars, environmental protection among others never fail to command majority support. It is difficult to think of a major progressive policy which commands less than a plurality. This situation is one reason for the lazy reliance upon electioneering by progressives, they know that their issues are popular, in principle at least. Rather childishly, they just want a show of hands then, as if that is what goes on really in elections.

“The ‘Right’ is too strong.” The oligarchy specifically and the Right in general are far less strong in American society apart from what their noise machines and bankroll flashing would make one think. The great bulk of the judiciary remains independent even if important higher appellate positions are tainted. Domestic policing is, by tradition and design, highly decentralized, with a good deal of local control, making overt police state actions difficult, visible, and highly unpopular (think TSA). While the military is a socially conservative society in itself, it is also an exceptionally depoliticized one, with civilian control an infrangible value. Popular voter commitment to the nominally more conservative political party has never been narrower or more fragile.

The rightist oligarchy does have a stranglehold on the major media, despite which accurate, uncensored, news is widely and readily available to anyone who wants to hear it. The other principle advantage of conservatives is that they are highly organized. Consider how the oligarchy effectively took over the ‘Tea Potter’ lunatic fringe in no time, and still presently stage manages it behind the curtain, or how they are paying some outfit(s) to constantly monitor and surreptitiously disrupt liberal to progressive blog-spaces. The powers of the Right are broad but thin and brittle, like a coat of lacquer on everything. Any organized citizen resistance would shatter that surface grip without great difficulty.

Part of the genius of the Right is that they presently operate through puppets, like Scott Walker or Chris Christie, or even Clarence Thomas, rather than attempt to assume direct power. Individual puppets can be kicked out, but they can always buy/indoctrinate another set of quislings because the supply of wannabes is endless. But that is a weakness, too, in that without such a puppet quisling in the right place at the right time (think Tim Geithner) the Right has no grip on key levers of power. The larger point here is that the mass of institutional governance in the US remains wholly separate from conservative control, and is not notably committed to conservative goals.

“America is a conservative society.” That is demonstrably untrue on any historical analysis. Like the other points here, it is a meme invented and spread by the right wing itself. There are three grains of truth in the contention, however.

More than some West European derived socio-cultures, there is an initial value placed in Christian profession; not faith, profession, and not an enduring one either. I won’t argue this in detail, as it takes a text, but the profession of a higher cause is the personal entry point to belonging in the society distinct from a more discrete paradigm of ethnicity. This makes the society seem from the outside more Christian, and hence ‘conservative,’ than it is in fact. This has for the majority become the ‘civil religion’ of Bellah, but is in effect a secularized form of Christian pilgrimism; one must profess to belong.

Second, there are specific communities in American culture which are deeply conservative, notably most rural whites. Their society is in fact distinct from the culture of the county as a whole, something they understand but that the majority chooses not to. (This concept is argued, if slightly differently, by David Hackett Fischer in Albion’s Seed, an analysis I endorse and would extend.) The point being that their society in America is conservative, but American society as a whole is liberal if one does a sociological analysis.

Third, American society is not radical because it is deeply suspicious of ‘combinations,’ cabals, cliques, or factions who combine to advance their own interests as distinct from the broader public interest. There are deep socio-historical roots for this antipathy to faction, but they are real. One consequence of this, though, is that American society as a whole has generally been hostile to organized labor as a ‘special interest.’ American society also has a bedrock attachment to personal property and personal liberty—essential liberal values, one might add, not conservative ones—which impede any advocacy of leveling or uniformitariansim; i.e. liberty always trumps equality. The flip side here, though, is that Americans are just as suspicious of ‘sections,’ ‘trusts,’ ‘banksters,’ and oligarchs if they see them as an organized, self-interested force. This distrust is not a conservative preference. These are further points I won’t develop, but the in aggregate they make society seem ‘more conservative’ since radical goals are shied away from.

Who’ll Carry the Can?

Anglo-American ‘progressivism’ has its origins in Non-Conformist religious reform communities. These date to Lollard times in England c. 1400, before the US was settled, and always had a significant social reformist element beyond within a professed Christian carapace, as it were. Literacy, education, personal liberty, and economic liberalism are all embedded in this worldview, formed as it was between the contesting pressures of a rapacious, French-speaking aristocracy and a crypto-absolutist monarchy with scant regard for the rule of law, while a venal and irreligious church hierarchy provided no relief. England from c. 1350-1500 was a place of intense factions and irruptions of civil war, leaving a distaste for power-seekers and military rebellion. Few of them were rich; it was a proto-bourgeois and petite bourgeois community, but with religious congregants in the lesser nobility giving them communication with power. The suffered erratic but at times severe religious persecution prior to c. 1600, and political disenfranchisement even after that, which much shaped their negative view of state power. There is much more to this subject, which demands a text no one has yet written. This is a social tradition are both fairly well-defined and quite longstanding.

The first key point is that the tradition of progressive dissent is integrally a religious one. The goal isn’t usually power but ‘truth;’ that those in the right stand up for what is right, and those in the wrong repent. The City on the Hill and all that, but that is the intrinsic value. This is a tradition of ideas, many of them good, many of them implemented—by others, a point to which I’ll return. Coming forward to a recent and then present American context, consider these policies, all of which still hold for most who would define themselves as progressive:

Anti-colonialismAnti-militarismAbolitionUniversal, secular educationEnd to child laborUniversal suffrageFemale legal equalityConsumer protectionsCivil rights

Conservation/environmentalism

Consider as well notable progressives who have held executive or even power positions in national governance. I struggle to name one. Progressives largely worked in voluntary organizations and reform societies outside of the notoriously corrupt political parties of America. (It is interesting and relevant to note that as a society we recapitulate that endemic historical venality once again c. 2011.)

A most relevant point is that these are value-driven policies. Notably absent are economic policies. I wouldn’t say that progressives are disinterested in economic well-being, but employment and money are never what has driven them. A right-living society, self-improvement, and justice: these are progressive goals. Recall again that many of them were already bourgeois; that most of historical notice had significant education; that their organizational backbone was women of such background. These conditions apply as much now as ever. Some progressives, many of them women, were radicalized by their experience of social work among the abused poor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Consider Beatrice Potter Webb or Upton Sinclair. Some progressives will fight if backed into a corner; many won’t even then, as there is a strong value placed on pacifism in this socio-community. Think John Woolman and Dorothy Day.

Reviewing the summary above, it will be evident that progressives are ill-equipped by objective and inclination both to succeed in bare-knuckle political strife. One could say unflatteringly that the goal of ‘progressives’ in activism is to raise their personal karma by standing up for what is right. “Sinners repent,” is the substance of their message, and their best dream would be to have those in the wrong do just that, to embrace progressive issues and implement them. More cynically, one wonders whether progressives would be entirely pleased if all of their reforms were implemented, leaving nothing to inveigh against.

Progressives are at their best educating, advocating, and validating those in need well apart from the fray. There are few cases that readily come to mind where progressives have implemented any contested policy on their own initiative without others of different goals involved. Somebody else has to carry the can for their water to get drawn. Without going into examples, that is my opinion, and a conclusion I’ll return to on a different vector below. What progressives do best is to deny and eventually withdraw community sanction for specific practices, so that those practices are eroded and then banned by governing authorities. Where communities are deeply divided and such practices have tenacious constituencies, progressives have few answers and no success.

The origins of Anglo-American radicalism are far less tidy to summarize. To me, it’s an open question whether a native tradition of radicalism even exists. I’ll posit a view, by itself debatable though to me accurate, that radicalism is a secularized derivative of millenarian religious revolt, but modify that contention in saying that ‘bread and justice’ were ever the drivers of such fervor. Religious ‘fairness and community’ were simply the only means long accessible for poor or oppressed communities to intellectually package their dissent and demands. ‘Poor or oppressed communities’: these are the fuel for radicalism, and one finds them far more in Continental Europe than in England. Serfdom was far more advanced there than it ever was in Medieval Britain or Scandinavia (for complex local reasons). Furthermore, social and economic radicalism often only catalyzed in the presence of communal cum national revolts against subjugation.

Howsoever, it is difficult to argue for a radical activist community in the US before extensive non-Anglo immigration. Radicalism certainly hasn’t been limited to industrial or even urban contexts, but then neither has immigration. American mining drew heavily upon experience European mining communities, many of whom who brought radical ideas with them, for instance. Even if one considers civil rights agitation intrinsically radical, the same conclusion holds, for blacks, Catholics, and Jews were by definition non-indigenous to a Protestant British colonial community. I’ve been all through Foner’s work on the growth of American labor, and read a deal else, and while I wouldn’t say it is his conclusion I’m struck by how late and how separate labor demands were in their inception in American left-liberal activism.

The key point is that the tradition of radical activism is integrally an economic one, and secondarily one of social justice. It was pursued by those both poor and ‘out castes,’ who often had communal solidarity as their only asset. It was resisted by force, and thus pursued by those inured to force who understood that power was necessary to victory, and that defeat entailed destitution, imprisonment, and being cut down by live fire from those acting under color of authority with impunity. This was a tradition of demands, many of them quite pragmatic. Few were wholly implemented, but the struggle to gain them forced the door open for narrower reforms, often implemented by the powers that be to de-fuse as much as diffuse radical agitation. Consider these policies, all of which still hold for most who would define themselves as radical:

Call off the cops (and thugs)Eight hour day and work place safetyRight to organizeAnti-discrimination in housing and hiringUnemployment dolePublic pensionsPublic educational scholarshipsTax the richAnti-trust and anti-corporate

Anti-imperialism

While few radicals have made it into public executive positions either, they are numerous in politics, especially at the local level where communal ties can predominate. Radicals have always worked in organized groups—‘societies,’ unions, and parties—which have been a multiplier for their demands.

Critically, these are grievance-driven policies. One could say that the goal of radicals is to force an end to exploitation, particularly economic exploitation since most radicals come from those on the bitter end of such equations. As such, many of them have specific remedies or end states. Notably absent are ‘moral uplift,’ better society objectives other than in the abstract sense. Further, since so much of radicalism is communally based it has often been difficult for radicals to form inter-communal alliances.

Secondarily, since the goals are highly specific to individual groups, factionalism is endemic. Radicals have disproportionately been drawn from the poor, and from minority communities; groups who have had little to lose, and for whom even small gains loom large, especially economic ones. These have been disproportionately non-Anglo American, many of whom brought their radicalism with them from prior experiences in Europe, though occasionally their message has radicalized contemporary indigenés, for example ‘Big Bill’ Haywood or John Reed (or Chris Hedges). Radicals have always had to ‘struggle,’ not least since they have consistently been assaulted by other factions and the state: militancy was their real party card. If this wasn’t necessarily violent, it was confrontational, as in boycotts and occupations (sit-downs). While radical women have always been visible, the backbone of radicals always was minority community men. Think Joe Hill and Sam Gompers.

Many earlier immigrant communities experienced considerable oppression, and not only came to America as an escape but brought radical elements with them. That was true amongst German, Polish, Jewish, and Italian immigrants, and was relevant amongst the small West Indian population as well. Their third and fourth generation descendants are, at best, little involved with radical organizing. Present immigrant communities to the US are substantially from Central America and its surrounds, East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. These communities have not brought radical elements with them: those have tended to stay home or go elsewhere. They have largely come here for the opportunity to better themselves, and shaking the social order is the last thing on their agenda. The exception to that are Muslim immigrants to the US, of diverse background though substantially Arab in origin. Presently, they lack indigenous American allies, and are heavily policed by the state; they are no way placed to take a vanguard position supposing that they were so inclined.

Reviewing the summary above, it will be evident that the supply of aggrieved militants has thinned out. One could say, uncharitably, they their residual objective has been a piece of the pie, and to be left alone to eat it in dignity. “Share the wealth,” is the substance of their message. Once they have any, the tendency is to sing another song. On a darker note, some were later sedentarized by acquiring apparatuses, which easily rancidify into patronage and rent-seeking gatekeepers.

What radicals do best is bunch up and shove, that is organize and agitate. Those now don’t bunch, and have little inclination to shove as opposed to fit in. But for blatant discrimination, present immigrants would be a reliable, conservative voter base not inclined to pursue economic grievances through activism. Without that muscle, labor has no strength. What labor has are mortgages, debt, and a lot to lose, not a matrix congruent with agitation.

From the perspective here, progressive and radical vectors and their policies overlap directly only in a few areas. Moreover, these vectors have tended to be pursued by discrete demographic and ethnic communities, though of course values and polices have been swapped and shared at times and in places. The success of one vector has tended to advance the success of the other Said another way, they have been more powerful in combination than either would be alone. If radicals might have achieved some of their goals without progressive support, though, the reverse is not true. Progressive advocacy particularly lacks any traction at present absent effective radical agitation to make the progressives seem like ‘the reasonable ones.’

A further conclusion from this analysis is that the assault of the right has been focused disproportionately upon the prior policy and institutional gains of the radical vector. From one perspective, one could hypothesize that the broader socio-culture has focused its response upon the ‘most foreign’ or perhaps ‘least native’ contentions. I’m far from sure that I believe that myself. For one thing, the oligarchy and the right are most hostile to economic claims. With the exception of environmental activism, which has huge economic implications, most advocacy for economic justice has lain primarily with the radical rather than progressive community. Radical agitation has been the most militant, provided the most physical muscle, and is historically sourced amongst the poor, all reasons why radical successes should be expected to draw the larger reactionary attack. Then too, economic reforms are easier to attack since they are far less embedded in law than social reforms. And further, one should not assume a reactionary program will stop if and when the institutional bulwark of economic justice and organization is crushed, since there will be little to bar the marginalization or ban of existing progressive successes after such a point.

Still, any progressive or radical revival has to take into account that the assault of reaction has been principally aimed at economic justice and its supporting legal and institutional bases in the US and the UK.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity . . . .”

If it all seems black, consider: Social justice never seemed deader than 1957, but enormous reforms were enacted by 1974. Progressivism was never more prostrate than c. 1900, but a broad reformist agenda was emplaced by 1916.

The downside to those comparisons, though, is that radicalism did much of the agitation to impel reform in both cases, and it is just that engaged radicalism which we most lack now. To go back a further iteration to the 1849s, progressives sans radicals were far less successful until slaver states were stupid enough to revolt. The American socio-political context is more divided and radicalism weaker today than at any time since the 1840s.

As of 2011, I would say that progressivism is broader and better known than at any time in American history, not least because of the validation and presence of past success. We can rely on the oligarchy to push to egregious excess. What we cannot rely upon is public agitation to be the thin end of the wedge.

Can we, then, expect oligarchical corruption and economic losses to push liberals and the haute bourgeois toward a reformist program? I wouldn’t count on that, and in particular, no one should expect that to happen quickly if it occurs at all. Take as an example Dylan Ratigan’s recent rant against elite corruption (to unfairly single out one prominent instance). His solution? “Let’s all get together on a Big Capitalist Spend-a-thon.” Because we’re ‘too divided,’ so we need something like a ‘Moon Program that brought us together.’ Now, I don’t know where Ratigan was in 1962, but that was the height of Civil Rights agitation, concurrent with mass agitation against atomic weapons testing, and also the start of the anti-poverty campaigns. His image of the country pulling together is something seen through the dollar signs on white tinted glasses, frankly.

But there are two deeper points to take from his appeal. First, he, as many, evidently believes that capitalism will really save him and us, it’s just that ‘a few’ have hijacked it. He doesn’t want to change any system, only to get back to some non-existent past in the imagination when it worked, or rather when it worked ‘for people like me . . er, us.’ Many think like this, and it is a huge load of sand in the crankcase on any drive for change. What these folks want never worked for many in this society, but too many believe in retrospect that it did because that belief validates a lot of comfortable lies. That embrace of plasticine phantasies is a dead weight against change.

Second, Ratigan inveighed against ‘factionalism’ even more than against corrupt oligarchs. Like many, he sees himself as in a reasonable center between ‘the left’ and ‘the right,’ and in firm American tradition mentioned above he is suspicious of special interests advocating ‘their position.’ So he wants us to come together around a common position. Now, the political naivety of this is stunning given the overt, anti-social, anti-citizen program of the right through a generation, pushed in private by many whom he doubtless respects in public.

But even accepting the false analysis, what stands out is the extent to which progressives have let themselves become seen as ‘special interests’ advocating ‘for the few.’ Ratigan isn’t alone; many ‘liberals’ and ‘centrists’ and ‘independent voters’ share this view of progressives, explicitly or implicitly. This is where progressives are in the public mind, and not simply through propaganda from the right.

Progressives have successfully become tarred as ‘factional’ in significant part due to their involvement with identity politics, i.e. ‘X rights.’ The Democratic Party has correctly identified this imprimatur as an electoral loser, and for that reason amongst others have abandoned progressivism in the most cowardly way. However, we cannot expect ‘reasonable centrists,’ delusional or not, to embrace the reform program of ‘those X favorers;’ this will not happen. And not necessarily because ‘centrists’ hate ‘those Xers,’ but because the societal disposition is to shun advocates of minority advantage.

One could list numerous conceptual failures amongst liberal and radical activists in this way. I’m going to limit myself to a few, with similarly few remedies to follow. Progressives have a childish fondness for a show of hands, i.e. elections, and a present obsession with the current reactionary ‘hypocrite’ coughed up by the oligarchy and the latter’s media. Both are pointless and self-defeating. Winning elections doesn’t matter; passing laws and regulations, and winning court decisions on their basis is what matters. The former may lead to the latter, but it hasn’t for twenty years at least. And the oligarchy can always recruit another quisling, the supply is endless; their personalities are irrelevant.

Moreover, the ideological ultra-right doesn’t care if they are in the minority: they’re delusionally convinced of their own validity, and will continue in their ways whether they get 10% or 70% of the vote. What matters isn’t what they’re after but simply beating them.

Progressives have become far too obsessed with ‘the agenda of the right’ to the point that they themselves presently have no positive agenda, certainly none that can draw in the uncommitted. Progressive actions are wholly defensive rather than offensive, and this maximizes the oligarchy’s huge advantage in money and organization. In an endless search for ‘equality,’ progressive activists have handcuffed themselves to the contemporary equivalent of campaigning for temperance (banning alcohol so as to ‘force’ uplift). These activisms and other, broader forms of identity politics aren’t something I would call for abandoning. They cannot, however, recruit a wider reform movement, and indeed actively repel those of limited political education because they focus inherently on ‘some, not all.’

On the radical side, employer based privileges (i.e. ‘contracts’) will continue to be broad-base losers for left liberals, exactly because they inherently favor ‘some, not all.’ The workplace organizing model was always compromised; in the US, it has failed. Narrow unions are dead, not least because corporations can move jobs, sites, and countries far too readily. Something much in evidence now amongst anti-union working class and petit bourgeois folks who should, in principle, support unions to enhance ‘prevailing standards’ gains is, explicitly, spite that some have good jobs and protections while these others don’t. If rightist propaganda has exploited this, the situation is nonetheless a huge bar to extending a radical reform program even amongst existing union members, to say nothing of those on the outside. Issue- and instance-specific campaigns such as opposition to fracking run into the same problems. If you are directly effected, it’s a crisis; if you live 100 miles away, it’s not your problem (seemingly).

Similarly, “Free my spliff” doesn’t have much currency for non-tokers. The problem is that instance- and job-specific injustices have always been and remain primary, organizational drawing cards. These are what radicalize many individuals, and get them involved with activism to solve them.

To me, the only way out of these dead ends lies in committing to a defined agenda of institutionalized, economic justice because this affects all. Social justice cannot be secured absent economic justice. Any such agenda is going to be anti-corporate, anti-poverty, pro-education (and job re-education), and pro-regulation. It has to be citizen-based outside of existing political parties. This kind of program can be articulated as pro-community rather than pro-faction if the organizing is done. This has to be pursued from a defined agenda, unapologetically, and from a pro-citizen(ship) position regardless of other more discrete goals.

Will Anglo-American progressives articulate any such program and organize around it? I can’t say that I’m optimistic. Yates said it best in the fewest words in a comparable social moment heading on for four generations ago. To extend upon that thought, the contemporaneous Fabian Society had a fine, progressive program. Almost anything they could have aimed for within reason was ultimately put in place too—from 1944-50 when the British Empire was derelict, the state effectively bankrupt, and the ruling class irretrievably discredited by their knee-jerk nationalism and societal niggardlyness. Between the wars, Fabian successors were unable to accomplish anything meaningful on their own.

And yes, we too now can rely upon the oligarchy to fail. They have nothing to offer 90% of the citizenry, economically or socially. They have been serial catastrophists in their grossly speculative market manipulation, and only grasp after ever more gassy phantasms following each failure. Their ‘bombsight hegemony’ pursued abroad gets no peace, no silence, and no net profit. Both on an historical basis and on present scrutiny, we can rely upon the extractive class to drive themselves right into the bridge abutment of ruin.

What we can’t rely upon is for them to impact that moment quickly. From an historical and cyclical perspective, ‘just waiting it out’ might take until 2035, even 2045. Now a generation of squalor and iniquity in the US is nothing to remark on scaled against world-historical standards; it would fit with the rule of things rather than the exceptions. Americans think that they are exceptional, and that that isn’t how they do things. Well, they’ll have to live up to that, because what is certain is that we won’t have reform without struggle. Government-buying oligarchs; sold-out liberals clutching their meal tickets; loose cannon fascist minority; deeply divided society: that’s too many logs to leap on a single, lucky bound, or to be rolled by Some Sainted Prez (of which we’ll have none). If we want change sooner than a generation of rot from now, it will have to be worked for, and worked for not with wagging fingers and dabs of money thrown at issues but with organization.

Progressives will continue to lose as long as they continue to act with strategic irresolution and tactical incompetence. They no longer have a political party to carry their banner: the Democrats have completely shut them out. Waverers and the Great Huddled Middle won’t respect, and so won’t support, natterers who won’t fight.

We are not in a time for converting but one for confronting; not a time for compromise but a time for direct action. Holding actions are a way to lose slowly, an offensive program is needed. Naming and shaming, and electing the Next Great Saviour have both failed, and progressives need to get off those donkeys and articulate a real activist agenda. Spectacle gatherings which the media ignore and where everyone goes home Monday morning are presently ineffective because there is no organized base to make use of them. Money is not the main problem; feet on the ground moving forward are the real problem. A discrete agenda pursued full-time by experienced organizers is the solution. Less talk, and more walk.

Progressives have successfully stamped Big Capital as ‘anti-us’ historically, and they need to return to this. Those active for social reform have to forget about the electoral cycle. They have to forget about what the lunatic Right is doing as much as possible and concentrate on what they themselves are in process of accomplishing. They need a compact reform agenda (yes, bullet points and not more than ten of them). They need a defined activist strategy, no matter how large the difficulties or time horizon appear. They need to build genuinely activist organizations with specific plans to achieve a core set of goals. And they have to reclaim militancy as a word, and deed, of pride. If they do those things, they will make real progress, and moreover they will be ready when the moment comes for breakthrough amongst the wider society.