It is so easy to give up and resign ourselves to broken politics, stagnant economies, and no hope for the future. Everywhere you look there are outbreaks of violence, political intimidation, corporate domination, and the disappearance of opportunity. Commonplace things that we used to take for granted are under attack as never before in this country. What can we little people do? Is our decline into feudalism inexorable?
People in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and elsewhere asked the same questions while under the Soviet boot. No one thought things could change until people actually just went out and did it. While Eastern Europe is certainly no paradise, at least they are free of foreign domination in fact. The Soviet Union was crumbling in the 1980s but remained militarily strong. When Solidarity organized and demonstrated, many cringed that the nascent movment would be crushed by Soviet Tanks but it did not happen.
The same thing has been happening in Latin America and now the Middle East. Popular fights for freedom are never easy, but it is happening. If those two areas are under America's version of the Iron Curtain, will we see the collapse of the American state soon? The decade that followed the demise of the Soviet Union certainly was not pretty, and the plight of the Russian people is still pretty grim. Will this be the American fate? When the corporate oligarchy finally crushes the remnents of government authority and any other institution outside the neoliberal "Washington Consensus" agenda, will the American nation collapse into anarchy or worse?
Despite the awful headlines, the even more horrific state of government and elections there is reason to believe freedom will survive the collapse. There is activism and organizing all over the country that does not involve silly old people in colonial garb decorated with tea bags. Real groups fighting real battles for the betterment of society.
Right here in one of the reddest counties of Wisconsin we have some organizations building real community. Doing work to supply goods and services outside of the corporate and wall st. financial mercantilism. The Glacier Hills Credit Union circumscribes bankster greed by pooling members' funds for local loans and skimming the least possible amount from those transactions. The Kettle Moraine Community Time Bank goes around big business' increasing stranglehold on all sorts of services and their markups by directly trading skills and labor among members. The Washington County Community Garden allows urban dwellers to grow some of their own food without need of big agribusiness concerns or their genetically modified seeds. Likewise, the West Bend Farmers Market downtown continues to be an avenue for farmers and customers to do business outside of the corporate middleman. These are just a few examples from my neck of the woods. What kind of things are going on in your area? Is there a way you can get involved or start something of your own?
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