August 23, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Trump Las Vegas hotel workers fighting for a contract joined a rally against his campaign for president in 2016. Despite his posturing, Trump has always been on the employers' side... and if he wins this time, the employers are preparing to take even fuller advantage. (Photo: UNITE HERE)
Some of you may remember the line, I think it was from an Alka Seltzer commercial, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” Well I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. What an upside down, inside out, totally whacked out world we live in. But, as instructed, let’s “do something.”
Since you are reading this, the odds are pretty good you may find navigating between Trump versus Harris, and between Vance versus Walz troubled waters. How will you yourself actually vote much less how will you urge others to vote? If we name our electoral option crazy versus reasoned or callous versus caring or suicidal versus joyous, then, yes, there is only one choice. We’ll take sane, caring, and joyous. But what if we name our electoral option crazy versus less crazy, callous versus less callous, suicidal versus less suicidal? I understand that then some will hesitate. Some will feel “none of that is for me.”
If I enter my “we gotta stop Trump persona,” I have to admit the DNC was actually uplifting. It had eyes on a real primary aim, to stop Trump, and it had fight. And to have fight is something new for these folks. It even had considerable humanity. Some of their stories touched nerves. There was plenty of boredom too, yes, not just flimsy substance but even flimsy style. But there was also considerable charisma. And there was even some reasoned, impassioned substance. Higher ground indeed. And did they really close out day three with Neil Young’s Rockin In The Free World? Who invited that?
Was I surprised? Actually, yes, I was, more than once. For example, I was surprised by two war criminals, ex presidents Obama and Clinton. I never thought I’d find them more relevant than, well, so many others. But amidst all the hoopla they both carefully admitted that the other side has views too. They didn’t outright say but to my ears intimated that the other side, many of them, would probably say they too are choosing sane, caring, and joyous. Many of them, too, would say they aree choosing their lesser evil. And those two war criminal ex presidents told us, don’t deny the obvious. There are a shitload of them. This won’t be over until it is over—and maybe not even then. Which is why, and I hope I am not giving them too much credit, I think Obama and Clinton seemed to me to both say it isn’t enough to reach out to undecideds…it is not even enough to win swing counties, and it is not even enough to win the vote and the electoral college. We have to prevent a disenfranchising steal and then, even having won and even having prevented a steal, we need to reach out to Trump’s working class supporters who think we are the thieves and who think we want to crush them and find and nurture real common cause. And you can’t do that without listening. You can’t learn or teach without offering respect.
There is an incredible symmetry that almost no one acknowledges even with all the profoundly critical and undeniable differences between the two opposing forces. So which side are you on? The side that lies? The side that kills? The side that burns the sky until it melts us and that floods the sea until it drowns us? Whoops. That is both sides. Looking at the voters, not at the candidates, each constituency too often sees the other without a shred of respect, understanding, or hearing. That way disaster lurks.
I watched the celebration of colorful, joyous, energetic delegates that was the DNC. I watched through the roving camera to see their reactions as best I could. Call it an anecdotal perception fueled by some cautious conjecture. They felt to me way more progressive than the parade of their officials, and an another step further, I think the Democrat’s voting base is still more progressive. That is potential. I heard the “cop” who laid down riot gear to talk with protestors. And who was there, on stage, to say so. Who invited that? Now there was a surprise. And that is more than potential.
I most certainly want Harris and Walz to win, but I won’t forget much less deny the official ugliness that can’t be ignored. Palestine, and not just Palestine. Militarism. Idiot wind patriotism. Yes, attention to singular crimes that come in personal bunches was undeniably prevalent and to me it felt real. And that is something. It matters. Because absent that there would be nothing. But attention to institutional causes was nearly nil. And that matters too. Because absent that fundamentals will go untouched. I listened and I know you never know for sure what to believe. But it is rarely if ever the best option to dismiss everything, much less to make believe.
You know how serious sports fans root, root, root for the home team so hard that they start to say we won, we were great, the refs screwed us, or we did this and we did that? How fans to enjoy a peculiar unity start to see patterns and qualities that really aren’t there? I felt this gnawing fear that too many progressives, radicals, and even revolutionaries, would not just root for the home team, and not just find ways to help the home team, but also start to say “we”…forgetting that there is much more to seeking change than whipping up peculiar unity via patriotic nationalism without institutional vision, albeit sprinkled with a lot of heartfelt personal commitment and empathy. I also worried that too many progressives, radicals, and revolutionaries who rightly want to avoid a slip-slide toward phony patriotism would attack voting Harris and Walz and attack supporting Harris and Walz as selling out.
Hell, last night I hoped Bruce Springsteen would get on board. Tired bones singing really loud. I don’t know, maybe even “Badlands” to stretch a respectful branch to the rightly very angry white working class. And then, to pave the way for Harris, I hoped I’d see a Jackson Brown and Taylor Swift duet. Yes, I want the Democrats to win. And yes, I liked most every little thing that betokened a win coming, or that seemed to me conducive to winning. And yes, I was surprised by Harris addressing Palestine at all, albeit not enough. I was less surprised but saddened and outraged at excluding a Palestinian speaker.
And I didn’t feel “we” about any of it. I’d seen a number of Harris’s campaign stop speeches. She either held the delivery back then, or she took a big delivery leap forward last night. But substance? She didn’t say stop the arms shipments. She didn’t say end the genocide now, dammit. Much less did she acknowledge that America hasn’t been democracy’s international protector but it’s international denier and defiler. She didn’t say bring down big arms manufacturers. She didn’t sing Shawn Fain’s song, yet.
But yes, I enjoyed each time she and just about everyone who spoke said big pharma. But no one said big pharma is just capitalism made visible. Big pharma is drug dealing for profit on a scale cocaine and heroin cartels can only dream of. She didn’t say imagine some humans perverted by their corporate roles, perched up on a hill, draped in golden robes, sheltered by bloody mansions of false glory, calling down on us tornadoes, hurricanes, and rising tides. She didn’t say their global warming threatens to end us, to end all humanity, so I aim to end fossil fuels, to end them, dammit.
So what will emerge from the White House as Winter turns to Spring. I’m not sure anyone knows. I sure don’t know. Most likely, if not Trump belching pestilence for all, everywhere, than Harris and Walz offering more and perhaps even better Bidenism—unless we who want way more than Bidenism take some actually righteous advice and “do something.”
And we certainly have a lot to do to turn fascistic confusion into progressive optimism, and to turn progressive optimism into revolutionary passion. We have a lot to do to sometime but hopefully not too far down the road, hear a presidential speech even a little like what we would legitimately cry joyously for.
And even then, even when whoever hears such legitimately joyous words, there will still be a lot more work to do to solidify unlimited militant and caring popular desire into unbreakable institutional structure. But for now, for right now, the next step is to stop Trump. And to then hear and transform much of his support. And to then push on…to move toward a day when instead of America First, “USA, USA” idiot wind patriotism we will celebrate a new fired up but humble President who offers legitimately joyous words perhaps a little like these:
“Fellow citizens of the world, in the name of my country I apologize for our military and fiscal role in international mayhem and injustice from Latin America to Asia and from Europe to Africa. I apologize to Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Guyana, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Congo/Zaire, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.
“From recent genocidal assault on Palestine to past violations of all manner, I apologize to Chile, Greece, East Timor, Nicaragua, Grenada, El Salvador, Libya, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Iran, Venezuela, Somalia, and Syria.
“I apologize for our support of dictators, for our exploitative extractions, for our arms shipments and arms use. I apologize for threats, boycotts, and destruction, for massacring Native Americans, for slavery and racism, for sexism and sexual predation, for Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and more…
“Together we need to reverse our history of exploitation and violence toward others and in its place to enact a new agenda of sharing and respect. We need to study war no more and to instead foster solidarity and mutual aid and to do it with as much energy and effort as we previously put to war-making and profit-seeking. We need an entirely new and compassionate, internationalist mindset.
“We need to transform our domestic defining institutions of polity and economy, culture and kinship, and our relation to our natural environment to remove hierarchies of wealth and power and to attain a sustainable new historical beginning. We need to aid and learn from all those who have already or who will now take up similar aims, as they deem suitable, worldwide.
“Amidst our planet’s tremendous, sustaining, and enriching diversity, we need to embrace our shared universal humanity. We need to celebrate and apply our shared values of universal human liberation. We nee solidarity and diversity. We need equity and self-management. We need international peace and environmental balance for all our own countries, each in mutual aid with the rest.
“We need to reject greed and profit-seeking. We need to reject self-aggrandizement and power-wielding. We need to embrace our natural home, our planet. We need to replenish it and not despoil it. We need to and we will usher in a new era of empathy, a new time of joyous exploration of our collective capacities.
“As an emissary and servant of the Revolutionary people of the United States and in accord with their wishes and schooled and guided bytheir incredible grassroots endeavors in our workplaces and neighborhoods, I embrace all around the world whoever around the world will walk that walk forward. Together.”
And after that, as tears of joy flow, delegates and citizens prepare to make it happen. That is not impossible. I and you can imagine it. More, There is no need to deny the long run agenda to go all in on the essential first step, now.
Stop Trump. But then turn eyes toward the full prize. Fight for more. Get in it to win it—to win it all.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Related Posts
Trump Las Vegas hotel workers fighting for a contract joined a rally against his campaign for president in 2016. Despite his posturing, Trump has always been on the employers' side... and if he wins this time, the employers are preparing to take even fuller advantage. (Photo: UNITE HERE)
Some of you may remember the line, I think it was from an Alka Seltzer commercial, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” Well I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. What an upside down, inside out, totally whacked out world we live in. But, as instructed, let’s “do something.”
Since you are reading this, the odds are pretty good you may find navigating between Trump versus Harris, and between Vance versus Walz troubled waters. How will you yourself actually vote much less how will you urge others to vote? If we name our electoral option crazy versus reasoned or callous versus caring or suicidal versus joyous, then, yes, there is only one choice. We’ll take sane, caring, and joyous. But what if we name our electoral option crazy versus less crazy, callous versus less callous, suicidal versus less suicidal? I understand that then some will hesitate. Some will feel “none of that is for me.”
If I enter my “we gotta stop Trump persona,” I have to admit the DNC was actually uplifting. It had eyes on a real primary aim, to stop Trump, and it had fight. And to have fight is something new for these folks. It even had considerable humanity. Some of their stories touched nerves. There was plenty of boredom too, yes, not just flimsy substance but even flimsy style. But there was also considerable charisma. And there was even some reasoned, impassioned substance. Higher ground indeed. And did they really close out day three with Neil Young’s Rockin In The Free World? Who invited that?
Was I surprised? Actually, yes, I was, more than once. For example, I was surprised by two war criminals, ex presidents Obama and Clinton. I never thought I’d find them more relevant than, well, so many others. But amidst all the hoopla they both carefully admitted that the other side has views too. They didn’t outright say but to my ears intimated that the other side, many of them, would probably say they too are choosing sane, caring, and joyous. Many of them, too, would say they aree choosing their lesser evil. And those two war criminal ex presidents told us, don’t deny the obvious. There are a shitload of them. This won’t be over until it is over—and maybe not even then. Which is why, and I hope I am not giving them too much credit, I think Obama and Clinton seemed to me to both say it isn’t enough to reach out to undecideds…it is not even enough to win swing counties, and it is not even enough to win the vote and the electoral college. We have to prevent a disenfranchising steal and then, even having won and even having prevented a steal, we need to reach out to Trump’s working class supporters who think we are the thieves and who think we want to crush them and find and nurture real common cause. And you can’t do that without listening. You can’t learn or teach without offering respect.
There is an incredible symmetry that almost no one acknowledges even with all the profoundly critical and undeniable differences between the two opposing forces. So which side are you on? The side that lies? The side that kills? The side that burns the sky until it melts us and that floods the sea until it drowns us? Whoops. That is both sides. Looking at the voters, not at the candidates, each constituency too often sees the other without a shred of respect, understanding, or hearing. That way disaster lurks.
I watched the celebration of colorful, joyous, energetic delegates that was the DNC. I watched through the roving camera to see their reactions as best I could. Call it an anecdotal perception fueled by some cautious conjecture. They felt to me way more progressive than the parade of their officials, and an another step further, I think the Democrat’s voting base is still more progressive. That is potential. I heard the “cop” who laid down riot gear to talk with protestors. And who was there, on stage, to say so. Who invited that? Now there was a surprise. And that is more than potential.
I most certainly want Harris and Walz to win, but I won’t forget much less deny the official ugliness that can’t be ignored. Palestine, and not just Palestine. Militarism. Idiot wind patriotism. Yes, attention to singular crimes that come in personal bunches was undeniably prevalent and to me it felt real. And that is something. It matters. Because absent that there would be nothing. But attention to institutional causes was nearly nil. And that matters too. Because absent that fundamentals will go untouched. I listened and I know you never know for sure what to believe. But it is rarely if ever the best option to dismiss everything, much less to make believe.
You know how serious sports fans root, root, root for the home team so hard that they start to say we won, we were great, the refs screwed us, or we did this and we did that? How fans to enjoy a peculiar unity start to see patterns and qualities that really aren’t there? I felt this gnawing fear that too many progressives, radicals, and even revolutionaries, would not just root for the home team, and not just find ways to help the home team, but also start to say “we”…forgetting that there is much more to seeking change than whipping up peculiar unity via patriotic nationalism without institutional vision, albeit sprinkled with a lot of heartfelt personal commitment and empathy. I also worried that too many progressives, radicals, and revolutionaries who rightly want to avoid a slip-slide toward phony patriotism would attack voting Harris and Walz and attack supporting Harris and Walz as selling out.
Hell, last night I hoped Bruce Springsteen would get on board. Tired bones singing really loud. I don’t know, maybe even “Badlands” to stretch a respectful branch to the rightly very angry white working class. And then, to pave the way for Harris, I hoped I’d see a Jackson Brown and Taylor Swift duet. Yes, I want the Democrats to win. And yes, I liked most every little thing that betokened a win coming, or that seemed to me conducive to winning. And yes, I was surprised by Harris addressing Palestine at all, albeit not enough. I was less surprised but saddened and outraged at excluding a Palestinian speaker.
And I didn’t feel “we” about any of it. I’d seen a number of Harris’s campaign stop speeches. She either held the delivery back then, or she took a big delivery leap forward last night. But substance? She didn’t say stop the arms shipments. She didn’t say end the genocide now, dammit. Much less did she acknowledge that America hasn’t been democracy’s international protector but it’s international denier and defiler. She didn’t say bring down big arms manufacturers. She didn’t sing Shawn Fain’s song, yet.
But yes, I enjoyed each time she and just about everyone who spoke said big pharma. But no one said big pharma is just capitalism made visible. Big pharma is drug dealing for profit on a scale cocaine and heroin cartels can only dream of. She didn’t say imagine some humans perverted by their corporate roles, perched up on a hill, draped in golden robes, sheltered by bloody mansions of false glory, calling down on us tornadoes, hurricanes, and rising tides. She didn’t say their global warming threatens to end us, to end all humanity, so I aim to end fossil fuels, to end them, dammit.
So what will emerge from the White House as Winter turns to Spring. I’m not sure anyone knows. I sure don’t know. Most likely, if not Trump belching pestilence for all, everywhere, than Harris and Walz offering more and perhaps even better Bidenism—unless we who want way more than Bidenism take some actually righteous advice and “do something.”
And we certainly have a lot to do to turn fascistic confusion into progressive optimism, and to turn progressive optimism into revolutionary passion. We have a lot to do to sometime but hopefully not too far down the road, hear a presidential speech even a little like what we would legitimately cry joyously for.
And even then, even when whoever hears such legitimately joyous words, there will still be a lot more work to do to solidify unlimited militant and caring popular desire into unbreakable institutional structure. But for now, for right now, the next step is to stop Trump. And to then hear and transform much of his support. And to then push on…to move toward a day when instead of America First, “USA, USA” idiot wind patriotism we will celebrate a new fired up but humble President who offers legitimately joyous words perhaps a little like these:
“Fellow citizens of the world, in the name of my country I apologize for our military and fiscal role in international mayhem and injustice from Latin America to Asia and from Europe to Africa. I apologize to Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Guyana, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Congo/Zaire, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.
“From recent genocidal assault on Palestine to past violations of all manner, I apologize to Chile, Greece, East Timor, Nicaragua, Grenada, El Salvador, Libya, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Iran, Venezuela, Somalia, and Syria.
“I apologize for our support of dictators, for our exploitative extractions, for our arms shipments and arms use. I apologize for threats, boycotts, and destruction, for massacring Native Americans, for slavery and racism, for sexism and sexual predation, for Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and more…
“Together we need to reverse our history of exploitation and violence toward others and in its place to enact a new agenda of sharing and respect. We need to study war no more and to instead foster solidarity and mutual aid and to do it with as much energy and effort as we previously put to war-making and profit-seeking. We need an entirely new and compassionate, internationalist mindset.
“We need to transform our domestic defining institutions of polity and economy, culture and kinship, and our relation to our natural environment to remove hierarchies of wealth and power and to attain a sustainable new historical beginning. We need to aid and learn from all those who have already or who will now take up similar aims, as they deem suitable, worldwide.
“Amidst our planet’s tremendous, sustaining, and enriching diversity, we need to embrace our shared universal humanity. We need to celebrate and apply our shared values of universal human liberation. We nee solidarity and diversity. We need equity and self-management. We need international peace and environmental balance for all our own countries, each in mutual aid with the rest.
“We need to reject greed and profit-seeking. We need to reject self-aggrandizement and power-wielding. We need to embrace our natural home, our planet. We need to replenish it and not despoil it. We need to and we will usher in a new era of empathy, a new time of joyous exploration of our collective capacities.
“As an emissary and servant of the Revolutionary people of the United States and in accord with their wishes and schooled and guided bytheir incredible grassroots endeavors in our workplaces and neighborhoods, I embrace all around the world whoever around the world will walk that walk forward. Together.”
And after that, as tears of joy flow, delegates and citizens prepare to make it happen. That is not impossible. I and you can imagine it. More, There is no need to deny the long run agenda to go all in on the essential first step, now.
Stop Trump. But then turn eyes toward the full prize. Fight for more. Get in it to win it—to win it all.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Related Posts
Next American Revolution #3: 2016 Election Controversies
Michael Albert -- June 04, 2024
Next American Revolution #6: Initial Organizing
Michael Albert -- June 25, 2024
An Oral History of The Next American Revolution #2: First Breaths
Michael Albert -- May 27, 2024
Kamala Harris, Trump’s Voters, and Shawn Fain
Michael Albert -- July 22, 2024
Michael Albert -- June 04, 2024
Next American Revolution #6: Initial Organizing
Michael Albert -- June 25, 2024
An Oral History of The Next American Revolution #2: First Breaths
Michael Albert -- May 27, 2024
Kamala Harris, Trump’s Voters, and Shawn Fain
Michael Albert -- July 22, 2024
Michael Albert
Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork
No comments:
Post a Comment