Sunday, October 06, 2002

Life in the Wilderness A friend of mine, a local Unitarian minister, summed up her feelings perfectly after spending a couple of hours marching through Boston on our anti-war demonstration Friday night.   She said she was so mad at Bush.  She had just begun to feel she had more free time, but now felt Bush was being so irresponsible that she was forced into being an activist again.   She’s right.  Last night’s demonstration in Boston felt like a chore.  I was happy to see over a thousand people turn out, it was nice to see some old friends and familiar faces, but the whole march in some ways felt like an exercise in futility.    I think the problem is lack of leadership.  We don’t have anyone to articulate on a wide scale what we are really trying to say.  Thomas Friedman, surprisingly, really put his finger on the problem with a column today asking where are the Democrats.  When newspaper columnists are where you have to look for political leadership, the political culture is really sick.   I do care about ordinary Iraqi’s, I think war with Iraq will bring more harm than good, and I want our country to act in a more moral fashion.  But that’s not the fuel of a mass movement.  Instead, the movement needs to address the things wrong in our life that people really care about.  Things like the gross inequities in our society, our fear of poverty in old age, our fear of illness.  We accept without question a near doubling of the hours of work per family, we accept a system that turns us into manipulated robots, trained to serve the wishes of those who can most effectively produce rewards, as if we were all rats in some giant social maze. Now fear of terrorist attacks is the latest tool being used by our manipulators.    We are in a system that makes sense only when you buy into the basic logic of unlimited resource exploitation and inequity.  Our system makes no sense if you start from a premise of equality for all, and respect for each individual.   My problem with George Bush is much deeper than Iraq. He is the perfect example of corporatism run amok.  Every fiber of his being is dedicated to the idea that corporate interests and the corporate class are entitled to wealth, government favors, power, privilege, and the right to rule.  Any whiff of popular feeling, whether patriotism or a willingness to sacrifice, is simply a tool to be used for more effective manipulation.   We need leadership that will challenge Bush on these basic issues.  Until that leadership emerges, we all will feel that we are still living in the wilderness.   12:01:16 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:30:21 PM.