Oct, 25th Apologies!  For some strange reason (sic), I sent out the notice about this post, but forgot to post it!

Corporate newscasters like Dylan are not the only ones who demonstrate a lack of ideological literacy. Their ignorance partly accounts of that of the brave and joyous occupiers of Wall Street, who are sounding more and more like the sixties, having recreated a commune in a New York City park.

An excellent article in the new NYR by Michael Greenberg, makes clear the reason why occupiers insist they’re neither right nor left: it’s because they reject both Democrats and Republicans, for being subservient to the corporatocracy. Notwithstanding this stark reality, in the minds of the protesters, the Dems are in their new iteration are still ‘left’ and the Republicans are ‘right’. Hence to be against both is to be ‘neither left nor right’.

They have yet to realize that the Dems are not ‘left’ according to the definition of left in the rest of the world. If they get access to Ideology 101, they will know the difference between Communism, Socialism and Social Democracy For more than fifty years the latter has brought Europe prosperity and peace – until, with Barack Obama’s election it allowed itself to believe that the Democratic Party was once again a Left party (meaning it would succeed in gradually transforming the corporatocracy that hurts so many citizens, into an American version of social democracy). The commonly held belief by the European and American ‘left’ that the Democratic Party was on its side resulted in the blind faith in the American financial system that led to the massive financial crisis that affected mainly us and them.

The Occupiers need to add to their new form of participatory democracy an on-going sketch of a governing system that will allow us to get from growth at all costs, to sustainable no-growth societies. They could add to their reading ‘Ecologica’ by the French essayist Andre Gorz, information about bitcoin, local currencies and the many experiments in self-governance and survival that are out there.

Is it possible that no one sees what’s happening?  Events of the scope and magnitude that have been building for the last two months cannot be met with one-off strategies and tactics. It has taken one hundred and sixty-three years for the slogan made famous in the Communist Manifesto “workers of the world, unite!” to happen: it is not happening under the direction of ‘vanguards’, as Marx and Engels expected, and under seemingly different banners, the upheavals taking place in the Middle East are all about equity, and will continue. Their variegated origins broke no single solution, however, the solutions, like the motivations, have an over-arching unity.

The protesters rise up from different parts of the political and religious spectrum, but share a determination to end the status quo imposed by the various regimes that rule each country. Some want more ‘freedom‘ i.e., the opportunity to become rich. Others want more security, i.e., the right to survive in dignity.  Similarly, their respective leaders cannot take concerted action, because they constitute different enemies vis a vis their respective peoples.

The kerfufle over who is to fill the United States’ shoes in managing the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi is merely a symptom: led by the United States since the Second World War, the West has systematically rejected all notions of world government, precisely because it implies a common search for equity. (The label has been ‘totalitarianism’.) Now it is too late.  We have no purposeful disaster response capability, thousands of nuclear weapons still exist, and we have no common goals.

Each leader defends his belief system. But perhaps, beneath the surface, lies an unspoken agreement: that the planet will be unable to nourish nine billion people, and those who possess the means must focus on escape.

Whether the tacit decision is that the powerful must unite to start anew on another planet, or that millions must be eliminated, the millions will continue to rise up, even as the chaos unleashed by our mindless abuse of nature continues.

The article by the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Store, appearing in the current (April 7th) issue of the NYR, www.nybooks.com/articles/-archives/2011/-apr/07/-why-we-must-talk/shows how much further along the social-democratic Scandinavians are in their thinking compared to the capitalist holdouts. Alas, dated barely three weeks ago, his exquisitely reasoned case for dialogue with the Muslim world reads like a last hurrah, as six more countries, all with different grievances, follow the Egyptian lead and the most powerful Emperor is suddenly without clothes.

Nobody knows where things will go from here.  If I had to pick those most likely to survive in a world that defies prediction, it would be the increasing number of small communities practicing simpler lifestyles and consensus decision-making.  To remain transfixed by the latest news bulletins is as useless as focusing on the week’s football matches.