Thursday, January 05, 2012

You Won't Fool the Children of the Revolution

By Press Action

A well-known, fifty-something antiwar activist recently scolded the “young people” of Occupy Wall Street for turning a deaf ear to their elders. She was offended by how they were charting their own course, daring to ignore the sage advice of seasoned activists.

Let’s assume this activist’s assessment of the younger generation’s involvement in OWS is accurate … which, of course, it is not. My response would be, why the hell should these younger people, who are attempting to put real democracy into action, show any deference to the older generations?

The corporate noose around American society has grown considerably tighter over the past 30 years. Wars are now endless. Ecocide is happening before our eyes. And yet, not-so-young liberal and progressive activists, especially the self-described pacifists, continue to tell us to support the troops. The foot soldiers of the empire, they claim, are as much victims as the millions of people the U.S. military machine is killing in foreign lands. They tell us to work within the system and avoid violence in all circumstances because, if we don’t, that makes us as guilty as the homicidal maniacs that run the system.

The state and its corporate partners aren’t the only ones who’ve perfected propaganda. Liberals and progressives also are master manipulators. They distract the gullible with electoral politics, instead of working to dismantle a system whose tentacles reach into all parts of our lives, seeking to drain us of our passion to save what’s left of the real world.

The younger people of OWS no longer are going to be kept passive by the liberal peace cops. No longer are they going to serve the interests of the ruling elite and their progressive partners.

What’s most impressive about the actions of the younger people of OWS is how they’ve freed themselves from what author Chris Hedges describes as the totalitarian structures grafted onto the state by corporations and their servants in government.

“We were mesmerized by political charades, cheap consumerism and virtual hallucinations as we were ruthlessly stripped of power,” Hedges writes of the older generations.

People are now waking up, including large numbers of younger people. Many of the millennials are choosing to rip off their headphones, throw down their iPods and turn off Jon Stewart. They prefer face-to-face discussion rather than communication by email, Gchat or texting.

They are not distracted by presidential politics. The ruling elite may still be able to pull a fast one on other Americans, especially the annoying progressives who never stop telling us to give “our president” another chance. But these younger people are no longer sleep-walking. They understand the current occupant of the White House will never renounce his history as a mass murdering, authoritarian thug and magically reemerge as an enlightened anti-empire, anti-corporate crusader.

They have no interest in political brands or personality politics. They’ve set their sights much higher. They are kicking over the entire rotten system as we now know it and replacing it with sustainable communities defined by mutual aid and the utmost respect for the natural world. Now that’s a future all generations can believe in.

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