Stopping the most dangerous gusher of all

[William Z. Foster]

How could there be such chaos and confusion, as the weeks roll by?

We have an out-of-control gusher, that is for sure - a gusher of right wing propaganda that is covering everything.

Clearly BP was not prepared for this, and is now scrambling to protect their investors first and foremost.

After decades of corruption, politicization and reduced funding, as well as de-regulation and privatization of various kinds and in all of its guises, the government is not prepared to respond and can no longer protect the public welfare.

The current administration seems to have been caught off guard - they have said as much. They have tried to work with government structure and corporate power, and the relationship between the two, as it is, have tried to appeal to the corporations and the political opposition to compromise and work together. This has failed utterly.

And the people right here seem unable to think clearly about this and are running around repeating various confusing and outright deceptive things that are being repeated by the mass media that are mostly coming from BP in their ongoing public relations effort.

We can establish the "chain of custody" here for the lies and deception, the concepts and ideas that are destroying us from within. Wall Street and the wealthy few > corporations > think tanks > government > media > pundits > all of us > the general public.

Everyone seems to be surprised, caught off guard. What did people think would happen when we allowed corporations to buy the government? What did we think would happen when we allowed corporations to control the news media? What did we think would happen when we triangulated and tried to compromise with the Republicans? What did we think would happen when we retreated to the activism of self-expression, when we sought personal individual lifestyle solutions to tackle monstrous opponents on public issues? What did we think would happen when we all embraced the foundational ideas of libertarianism and "free market" hegemony by Wall Street over every aspect of our lives?

What did people really think would happen? Are they really surprised? And why now are people unable to see just exactly what happens and how we got here? Why are people repeating corporate propaganda, cheering and defending the government when they do the bidding of corporations, attacking critics and dissenters, and trying to distract people from the plain, obvious and horrible truth?

BP cannot, will not, act in the public interest. They are bound to answer to and only to Wall Street. The government cannot do anything about that. Everything has been de-regulated, de-funded, undermined, sabotaged, corrupted, privatized. The Democrats cannot change the government, they have tried to play "me too" with the right wing agenda, they are beholden to the same corporate power, and have embraced the same libertarian ideas.

We cannot effectively pressure the Democrats, because we think that would be "disloyal" and "help Palin," and that somehow our loyalty to party politicians will turn this all around in some mysterious way. The dissenters and critics from the political left cannot persuade any of us here, because they are being attacked, marginalized and ridiculed at every turn and can gain no quiet serious audience. People are being driven by fear to run from them, to shut them out.

The disaster in the Gulf is symptomatic of a much larger problem, a problem that threatens everything, that threatens our very survival.

Here is how we turn it around:

- Start listening to the left wing critics, who have now been proven right about everything.

- That will influence the general group here, and elsewhere as people start actually listening to what people have been saying, re-think their assumptions, stop slavishly parroting the mass media and the politicians, and then carry the message.

- That will strengthen and embolden everyday Democrats everywhere, and bring more people over. People will regain the courage and clarity they now lack, and will start speaking out more, will start standing up, will start organizing, will start fighting back.

- That will move the public, who then can join the movement and we will be able to pressure - threaten - the politicians.

- That will move the politicians to take on the corporate monster. Or, if not, we will push them out of the way and do the job ourselves.

We have an out-of-control gusher, that is for sure - a gusher of right wing talking points and destructive anti-social propaganda that is flowing from the corporations to the media and then to the public and then to the Democratic politicians and then to to us, and then it is used to hammer and hammer and hammer on the left wing critics here and everywhere else. To stop this ongoing spewing of poison, this polluting of our minds and lives by the corporate free market privatization insanity, we need to create powerful pressure at our end and reverse the flow.

The left wing critics here cannot be heard, cannot compete with the corporate mass media propaganda until people are willing to turn a deaf ear to cable and to start listening to the people here who have been right all along. We continue to beat down and try to silence the critics and dissenters at our own very great peril, and we insure a very bad outcome when we do that. The time to stop going down this disastrous path is now, and it is up to us. The turnaround needed is within our power right here. Force that poisonous polluting propaganda back into the hole it came from. Clean it from our thoughts, our actions, and our words. The slime is covering everything now. It is killing everything it touches. We can't breath, we can't live.

We are up against the political right wing in all of its forms, and at it most dangerous and lethal. It has permeated everything - the government, the media, the Democratic party, liberalism, and the minds of too many right here. The political right wing serves the desires of the few, be they "conservative" or "liberal" - the wealthy, the owners, the investors, the imperialists, in a word - the Capitalists. A very few are enriched by this, and the rest of us are at great risk, in great peril, and it is getting worse and worse every day, and the rate at which things are getting worse is accelerating. They will kill all of us rather than let us interfere with their profits. That sounds extreme, but I think on some level everyone here knows this to be the truth. They are not going to "do the right thing." They are not going to compromise. They are not going to stand around and let us "regulate" them. They are not going to be stopped by legislation, let alone the arrest of a few scapegoats, let alone severe scoldings on the floor of Congress. They are not going to be stopped by us making different consumer choices. No fines will slow them down. They will not be stopped by us voting out Republicans.

The answer to the political right wing is the political left wing. Not the kinda sorta left, not the be practical, be realistic, go slow, compromise, take baby steps, "don't get me wrong I agree with you BUT..." pseudo left, but the actual by God left that our grandparents and great-grandparents fought for and that gave us everything we have achieved as working class people, things that were wrested from the wealthy and powerful though great struggle and sacrifice - public education, social programs, decent wages, Social Security and much more.

If we continue to marginalize, isolate, silence, dismiss and ignore the political left, the critics and dissenters - and there is a ferocious effort going on right here, and everywhere else, to do just that every hour of every day - we will continue to slide into hell. Sooner or later, almost everyone will realize this, because no matter what anyone "believes," events will continue to hurtle forward. It is not going to be pretty, and very few of us will escape the consequences. The sooner we let go of the wishful thinking, the fantasies about this, and become determined to band together and fight back, the sooner things will get better. The longer we avoid this, the more pain and suffering there will be and the harder it will be when we eventually have no choice but to fight back.