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I realize that for some decades now, the pervading ethos of your respective professional cultures has been a combination of "scratch mine and I'll scratch yours" and "honesty consists of not biting the hand that feeds." By these lights, you consider yourselves to be upright, thoughtful, ethically-actuated representatives of the People, and of the Fourth Estate.
Why, after all, should you not? When you are surrounded by those for whom "What's in it for me?" is a reasonable, even a sage and responsible criterion for decision making. When you are indebted to those who accumulated their substance based on the exploitation of human cupidity, and to whom "get while the getting is good" is merely the Modern Gospel of Prosperity. We do not, after all, expect them to operate under consciousness of a higher calling or purpose.
You, however, have chosen to pursue professional fulfillment, and, possibly, wealth and power, in two of the areas that were established by the Founders of our Republic under the strictest expectations of responsibility to a higher purpose. The measure of your performance, Ms/Mr. Managing Editor; Mr./Ms Elected Representative, is not, and should not be "have I looked after my own interests by faithfully serving the interests of those who can fund my next election or my next promotion?" but "have I faithfully executed the public trust required to ensure the continuation of 'government of, by, and for the People, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity'?"
Yes, we have largely ignored that solemn trust, we and you, in the last few decades, as we have elevated the pursuit of happiness (in the form of monetary accumulation and conspicuous consumption,) above all other considerations. We have been content with dross, content to dine on gourmet husks in a gilded sty as our Beloved Oligarchs have accelerated their smash-and-grab raid on the collective wealth of our Republic.
I do believe some of you sought your positions based on that high trust, and while you have been made complicit, by use and time, in the debased ethos that cynically rates "staying bought" as a demonstration of extraordinary moral fiber, you retain vestiges of your original ideals. Perhaps you've had the occasional uneasy dream. You've undoubtedly developed an elaborate rationale compounded of denial and self-deception, to convince yourselves of your continued moral viability.
Well, for you, Mr./Ms Managing Editor; and for you, Ms/Mr. Elected Representative, I have good news, and bad news. And it's the same news:
We have officially passed the Tipping Point. No matter how hard you try to deny it, ignore it, rationalize it as a fringe folly, pretend it will go away tomorrow, it won't. We have reached a critical mass and are picking up momentum. When I say "we," I speak of the ninety-nine percent who are not in a position to increase your salary, Ms Managing Editor, or to fund your next round of campaign commercials, Mr. Elected Representative.
We aren't going away. Believe me on this one. You may be too young to remember the last time this happened in our nation, and certainly are too young to remember the time before, and the time before that. And I know you are too busy (and perhaps too deeply invested in anxious denial) to study any history. But I have studied history --real history, not the popularly-spun pseudo-history on cable teevee-- and I lived through the last time it happened, and I can see what is happening now.
We can no longer be distracted. Indeed, our Beloved Oligarchs have busted their most successful "Distract-O-Matic," by willfully impoverishing so many of us that we can no longer imagine ourselves as being able to buy that shiny new thang or that larger house or send our kids to college or have a comfortable old age. We have finally identified What's Wrong, and it's not the scary brown people over there, or teh Gay! menace, or any other Culture War chimera.
The Culture War is over. The only ones still fighting it are a few of our Beloved Oligarchs' paid helots, and of course, yourselves. But that's redundant.
In any case, it's over.
The Class War has not "begun" --indeed, it's the Forever War, raging down through centuries and millenia of human social progress-- but it has finally, as it were, surfaced to the consciousness of the ninety-nine percent. And we know who's winning, and why, and what it is costing us.
And we have begun to fight back.
We're not going to stop tomorrow, or next week, or next month. No matter how many pretty, shiny, scary, silly, distractions you try to wave in front of us.
You can ignore us, Mr./Ms Managing Editor. But it won't make any difference. We know what's going on anyway. We're not dependent on you for news. We know what's happening in NYC, and why, and how, and we know who's trying to spin it, and how, and why. And yet we keep pouring in, with our homemade signs and our umbrellas and our determination. We are not going to stop.
And it's spreading.
It will continue to spread. And it will do so in unexpected ways, at unexpected times. Because it's genuine, not manufactured, not owned by some celebrity, not a reflection of someone's ego. It is, to borrow a term, "viral." And therefore dangerous, and not easily controlled.
But it is focused. It's focused on the hands that feed YOU, Ms/Mr. Elected Representative. It's focused on the butts in the chairs around YOUR corporate boardroom, Ms/Mr. Managing Editor.
So here is my advice to you, and I genuinely mean this kindly:
Get some face time with your Owners. Tell them it's time for a divorce. Friendly, if possible (of course...) but definite. And, for now at any rate, final. You can no longer carry their water, you can no longer run their errands, you can no longer do their bidding. And if that gets you fired, or if that gets you un-elected, well, so be it. But it is better that you make this difficult decision now, while there is still the last, tiny shred of a chance that you can re-invent yourselves.
Because the juggernaut that is a-building is going to derail our Beloved Oligarchs' gravy train for a generation or more, and fling into outer darkness and the dustbin of history all who cling to the caboose.
So do yourselves a favor. Tell them. Cut yourselves loose. Look for ways to re-ignite whatever passion you might once have had for a nation governed "of, by, and for" THE PEOPLE. Look for ways to climb on the juggernaut and rescue whatever shreds of self-respect and net worth you can salvage from the wrack.
You'll ignore, me of course. But I tried.
I'm the ninety-nine percent. I have no future, unless I wrest it from the claws of our Beloved Oligarchs.
determinedly,
Bright
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