progressive conscience

Whoever said politics was about making corrections? I acknowledge that most power worldwide is firmly in the hands of an elite who are happy to control most of the world's wealth and power and use it to acquire even more. Some of those wielding that power masquerade as progressive. Talking a moderate progressive line just before elections, but their actions, most of them quiet and done in back rooms or written into legislation no one reads or understands, are designed to retrench, to prevent substantive change. Even more of the world's political power is in the hands of those who are not elected at all -- corporate leaders who simply buy politicians from either party but all two sides of the same coin, and buy mainstream media, and with them, acquire far more political power than is represented by the ballot box.

So progressives need to acknowledge that, unless they devote most of their time and energy to activities other than electing and lobbying politicians, they will continue to accomplish nothing. Indeed, they will accomplish less than nothing, since in the meantime the corporate and political elite will be busy dismantling, rolling back, bribing their way out of, and circumventing laws and regulations, a much easier process than getting them passed, and enforced, in the first place.

As much as I admire what activists are doing I too also feel it is largely futile. I would guess that the money leveraged for neo-conservative and neo-liberal causes of all kinds, when you add in those of right-wing religions, big corporations looking for concessions and favours, and anti-regulation ideologues, would have to be at least a thousand times greater than what the handful of altruistic progressives could muster.

I noticed the blogosphere is utterly preoccupied with parties getting people who represent their values and interests, which, even if they were wildly successful, which is doubtful given the agnostic political realities of the day, and even if most of those politicians didn't turn out to have a very different and more status quo-preserving agenda from what they campaigned on, would not begin to offset the political power of the unelected.

In order to be progressive we need to find another way to bring about change. The effect of exploring alternative means of expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo has been reduced to the point of impotence by anti-democratic laws, anti-democratic enforcement authorities, and media propaganda.

What we need to do instead is starve the status quo. Starve our own sense of normal. Starve what we are used to and maybe not even liking. That existing black hole -- we all have an insatiable and ever-growing need for consumption and to keep it growing. But it will stop growing and it will die and we too along with it. Why must we be terrified of anything that threatens growth, even at a personal level?

After all this I must say there is nothing new under the sun, and yet this obscurity has never been so pronounced as now. This past weekend was spent in fevered huts and baking sun, it seemed as kingdom come unto this life. Stolen away with friends into the midst of smiles and youthful hopes. This following weekend again I'm thinking I may escape. Escape at any cost to make a difference, if not for anything more than my own conscience. Maybe New York. Yeah, nice. Even just for a little while.