a new economy is growing under the radar of the corporate media
as Washington stalls … join it and celebrate it – Published on ZNet (first on AlterNet), by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, October 14, 2013.
… In fact, change takes time and is not linear; it is not an ever-rising crescendo but in fact comes in stages. Lakey describes this as a “Living Revolution” and sees five stages:
- Cultural preparation,
- Organization-building,
- Confrontation,
- Mass political and economic noncooperation,
- Parallel institutions.
We see aspects of all of these going on at the same time right now. There is no question that the zeitgeist of the culture has changed with the Occupy Movement creating a much clearer understanding of the unfair wealth divide and class conflict between the 1% and the rest of us.
We see a lot of organization-building going on in our efforts at Popular Resistance trying to cover the daily news of an active and expanding movement (sign up here for a daily news digest). New organizations like Strike Debt, Occupy Our Homes, Tar Sands Blockade, Occupy Money Cooperative, Our WalMart, Fast Food Forward, March on Monsanto are developing and older organizations are finding new energy – the list could go on for paragraphs, with groups covering many of the crisis issues faced by the country. Even so, we see a need for more work on organization building, clarifying our vision for the future and developing a strategic framework that allows a nationally networked movement of local, regional and issue-focused groups to work together toward a common goal with independence, creativity and diversity …//
… Pressure and conflict are key steps on the way to making change.
One group that has seen more than its share of conflict is Native Indians. They have faced a brutal ethnic cleansing by European colonizers. They continue their struggle. This week was a national day of action called for by Idle No More to recognize the sovereignty and human rights of Native Indians. Also, this week the Leonard Peltier Tribunal issued its findings calling for the restoration of justice in Indian County. The fight for sovereignty on Indian lands is about very real issues of environmental destruction like the more than week long shale gas blockade in Elsipogtog, which has caused politicians to listen as the blockade continues.
The earth-protecting activities of Native Indians have coincided in a synergistic way with a re-energized Earth Justice movement that is challenging extreme energy extraction. People are taking bold actions like this long-term, multi-week tree sit in Pennsylvania to block the destruction of a forest for hydro-fracking. If you’re an artist, you can participate in the Earth First! art auction. Greenpeace activists who protested off-shore oil drilling are being treated by Russia as Pirates. As a result there have been worldwide protests demanding their release. The Utah Tar Sands Resistance has announced a camp to block oil shale in Utah on October 25 to 27. And, Mountain Resistance has announced its Spring Break from March 9 to the 16 to train people and work to stop mountain top removal, fracking and ensure climate justice in the Appalachian Mountains … //
… There is a rapidly growing new economy that has been developing under the radar of the corporate media. To celebrate and highlight it next week is New Economy Week. People across the country will be focusing attention on economic democracy, sustainable energy, worker and consumer owned cooperatives, credit unions, alternative currencies, farmers markets and consumer supported agricultures and new forms of transportation. This is a desperately needed movement. While the current economic crisis created by the dysfunctional Congress has our attention; in truth, the US economy has been stagnant for a majority of Americans for four decades. The economy does not work for most of us. A new economy is desperately needed.
While this positive economic work is being done, we see strong signals from Congress that immediate resistance is going to become an imperative on several key issues. The drama in the Congress over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling was something planned for months by conservatives. The initial target was Obamacare, but now it seems the focus is broader – cuts to Social Security, Medicare and overall austerity. This will be the fourth time that President Obama has been part of an effort to cut Social Security and Medicare (previous efforts were his Deficit Commission, the Supercommittee and the Grand Bargain negotiations). Each time he and the Congress were stopped because the people mobilized. We can mobilize again to stop these unnecessary cuts. Get ready to fight for basic necessities.
Another big fight that we can win is stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership TPP. This corporate power grab would do nothing for the economy but would reduce the wages of most workers by forcing them to compete with countries that pay wages of $0.35 to $1.50 an hour. The Center on Economic and Policy Research concludes the TPP would only produce a 1/10th of 1 percent annual increase in the GDP, but 90% of Americans would see their wages go down. We’re on Capitol Hill every week for TPP Tuesday working to stop this agreement and making solid progress. Call your representatives and tell them “no to fast track for the TPP.” (The number for Congress is 202-224-3121, for more info, visit FlushTheTPP.org). Stopping the TPP will be a victory of the people against transnational corporate power, but also could end the abusive economic domination of the United States globally.
Whenever we start this weekly report, we begin by listing all the articles related to the movement each week. It is usually about 120 articles because there is so much good work going on. You can see some of the material we could not cover in this article by going to Popular Resistance and if you want to keep up, sign up for our daily news digest – it is a great way to start the day.
As we said at the outset, when we look at what is being done we want to celebrate. People have woken up and are doing great work, and more people are joining the resistance movement every day. We are stopping the machine and creating a better world. It is hard to see when you are in the midst of it, but we will look back at these times as historic moments of change and will have been glad to have been part of them.
(full long text, full with hyper-links).
(This article is produced by PopularResistance.org in conjunction with AlterNet.org. It is based on PopularResistance.org’s weekly newsletter reviewing the activities of the resistance movement. Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are cohosts of Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC. They also codirect
It’s Our Economy.us and are organizers of the PopularResistancew.org).
Links:
We Act Radio 1480 AM on Facebook;
We act Radio – DIRECT ON AIR or http://tunein.com/radio/We-Act-Radio-1480-s22091/;
Clearing the FOG Radio Show on Facebook;
Clearing the FOG Radio.org or http://clearingthefogradio.org/;
Resistance Movement: on Google Web-search, on Google Book-search, on YouTube-search.