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..."Another World is Possible"? Excuse me if this seems a dolefully indulgent, but we (the political left) were so much more idealistic and determined to bring about change 25 years ago. We now accept an economic system hardly more than a step removed from feudalism as the gospel, complete with invisible protagonists (even though we are collectively capable of so much more), we are much more docile and willing to accept income disparity and injustices in the world. Where my parents were willing to literally fight in the streets for rights in the workplace, we hardly exert more energy than it takes to write a letter to demonstrate our indignation as the Right dismantles everything our forbears sacrificed for. In the mid-80's, I remember throwing punches at scabs trying to pass picket lines (as well as a person creatively using butyric acid to clear out a shop) and though the RayGun years had been waging war on labor, there was still a general attitude among a large part of the population that you simply did not cross a picket. Now people hardly notice and arrogantly walk right by. It makes me sick.
Is it just me or have we simply lost momentum? Or worse yet, abandoned our souls?
Even at 42 years old, while so many of the people I grew up with have fallen into the American trap, I still try hard to hold on to my ideals and my lifestyle reflects them to some degree - I choose to live in a tiny little house instead of a self-indulgent McMansion, I have a small, economical car (though I am sometimes tempted by the marketing victim within me to get something else), I pay monthly dues to the IWW. I still dream about a day when we collectively simplify our lives and abandon the reckless, narcissistic consumerism that is tattooed like a scarlet letter on the face of American culture. I am not afraid of change (I welcome it), and I have confidence in the cooperative underpinning of the human psyche that helped to keep the species alive.
But I sometimes feel like Huxley really nailed it, and it is almost impossible to go back. Consumerism is the de facto religion of this country, and it is deceptive and sexy and contagious. Its paper thin veneer looks from a distance to be the antidote to discontent and so it spreads like a virus until it traps its victims into a inverse-ownership thralldom, where most people own nothing but the debt (and the responsibility for that debt) of their transient possessions. When possessing the latest fad product fails to bring happiness, it's on to the next one and so passes the inconsequential life of the American consumer.
I don't know. Pardon my babbling. I am feeling a little grim these days.
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