WORLD NEWS
By Dallas Darling
12/12/2013
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Occupy failed as Americans once again turned a protest into a big street party -any excuse to get wasted |
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At first worried and apprehensive, corporate criminals were soon laughing publicly at the antics of some protesters |
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Unwashed, loser Occupy hangers-on soon became daily fodder for "mainstream media" propagandists and government shills |
Since the United States is an empire, both Maladaptive Passivity and Bystander Syndrome are performed on a national and global stage. Legislation that is supposed to protect workers and the oppressed, and further human rights, is held hostage. Meanwhile, many are distracted by, and continue to retreat into, vicarious forms of entertainment, like violent video games or the entertaining worlds of sports, movie industries, and media politics. As Chris Hedges pointed out: "The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults. We have been blinded to depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians, clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture...keep us from seeing the truth."(1)
The truth is that the United States is not a democracy. Neither is it a republic. And yet America is still known for its once purposeful mass movements, its civically organized assemblies, and its revolutionary catalysts, all of which influenced national and global outcomes. Maladaptive Passivity can be overcome by challenging cognitive exhaustion, regaining supportive relationships, realizing the values of locally participatory communities, and by forming active organizations for the purpose of decentralizing powerful interests. Taking control of causes and events will mean "shocking" tyrannical institutions and rulers. It will take the forms of civil disobedience, radical boycotts and sabotage, and tax resistance. It will challenge media disparity and upscale emulation.
Right now in Honduras, thousands of people are protesting and shedding their blood over a fraudulent election brought on by an earlier coup in 2009. (Doesn't this sound like the 2000 election where five Supreme Court Justices appointed then GovernorGeorge W. Bush president?) In Japan, massive protests have brought attention to the controversial state secrets bill that has defined free speech and free expression as a form of terrorism. (Can anyone say NSAScandal, AssassinationBoards, and Patriot Act?) Thousands of Ukrainians just marched through Kiev in defiance of a government ban, requesting closer economic ties with the European Union. (Isn't the U.S. on the verge of economic instability?) In Mexico, thousands of protesters are demanding an end to violent drug cartels. (What is the U.S. doing to stop the demand for drugs, let alone drug addiction?)
TullyScott argued in Neeley v. Farr that: "The links in the chains of tyranny are usually forged, singly and silently, and sometimes unconsciously, by those who are destined to wear them." In the United States there might still be time to transform Maladaptive Passivity into Mass Proactivity. (A good start would be to stand in solidarity with fast-food workers and their national strike to improve meager wages.) Otherwise, a cure for this affliction will not arrive until America is visited by either an uncontrollable divine revelation, or an uncontrollable dystopian revolution.
Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)
Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-ZReading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some NationsAbove God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//Dallas darling.