Believe It! Resistance to Corporate Power and Warmongering Is Growing All Around Us
http://www.alternet.org/activism/believe-it-resistance-corporate-power-and-warmongering-growing-all-around-us?akid=10962.1147163.44Q1zr&rd=1&src=newsletter899558&t=21This week we reflect on the second anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and the fifth anniversary of the financial collapse.
There are reasons to celebrate despite continued economic stagnation and growing debt: the culture of resistance in the US is here and it’s having an effect. The corporate power that has so blatantly stomped on our rights and whipped Congress to do its bidding is faltering and losing its grip. There are cracks in the pillars of power, and it’s up to us to pry them open and shine light on the lies and corruption that have been used to steal our future. We see a movement that is building momentum.
We look back over the events of the past two years and we feel cautiously optimistic. We remember wondering as we watched the Arab Spring bloom and the encampments grow in Spain and state capitals like Madison whether people in the US were ready to rise up and demand more than the crumbs we’ve been convinced to accept for decades.
A turning point for us was in December, 2010 at an action in front of the White House to protest war. Many spoke that day about the need to build a culture of resistance in the US. Following that action, as we met with allies over the next few months, there was agreement that we needed to do something different. The traditional tools used to create change weren’t working. One-day protests, usually on a weekend, are ignored. It was time for something new, time to bring an occupation to the national capital.
As we met to organize the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, there was a strong sense of suspense. Some said that Americans weren’t feeling enough pain, that we hadn’t reached the tipping point. We decided that we would only find out if we tried, and so what if it didn’t work the first time. Most mass movements don’t arise spontaneously; they come after years of organizing and multiple failed actions. A key ingredient is persistence.
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I believe. Chris Hedges' world view is about mine, but he sees baby step revolution. Two steps forward, one back. It's time for forward again
It would be the best news i've heard in quite a while, Rise people Take Back our Country!! 
"We are winning. Don't forget."
This was, indeed, one of the slogans of the alternative or anti-globalization movement of those days. Before that, it was a slogan among anarchists and environmentalists I used to protest with in the 90's (they imported it to the anti-globalization scene), and before that, various autonomous movements. Might even go back to May 68: We are winning. Don't forget.
We've been winning for a long time, apparently.
With winning like this, though....
one's mileage does vary...
I have very young grandchildren who are inheriting the socio-economic cost of these monstrous disasters I had once thought could never happen if only we had Women in Congress and in the WH. I mean Women are about nurturing, care for the well being of children and the elderly, the environment, humanity across the globe, the health of the planet.
Helping to elect Feinstein and Boxer for the Senate back in the 90's was a major milestone toward fulfilling that dream...
but then wait..
Turns out DiFi is an authoritarian, bloodthirsty war profiteer.
I generally like Boxer I think she means well most of the time, but rather ineffective a lot of the time.
Don't even get me started on Nancy Dimwit Pelosi.
When Bill Clinton was in the WH, I had at the time wished Hillary was actually POTUS. 
If a woman can't get into higher office without being a Corporate/MIC shill, I'd say we're a long, long ways off from winning.
I guess I need to re-position the goal post yet again.
I'll try to see where we are right now as winning.. 
There's no place else to go but beyond this shithole we're all standing in.
We made it.
We will un-make it.
- K&R
