What is the best hope for the underclass: aspiration or grievance?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/05/big_society

BEFORE Barack Obama's rise to prominence, with his address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, your blogger must admit he was not completely sure what a community organiser was. True, Britain had its own tradition of eloquent, idealistic graduates from posh colleges pitching up in poor neighbourhoods—think of Toynbee Hall in the East End of London, home to a string of young sprigs of the Victorian Establishment keen to make a difference, among them the future founder of the British welfare state, William Beveridge. But the great culture clashes of American community organisation, the debates between confrontational sorts like Saul Alinsky and more emollient colleagues, have always seemed a bit alien.

But in the last few days, the British world of leftish community activists and organisers has been divided by a spat focussed on just such a culture clash, namely: what role does paternalism and middle-class do-goodery have in helping deprived communities? That question might not set many pulses racing, except that it seems to have exposed a sharp difference within the upper echelons of the Labour Party as it struggles to craft a response to the Big Society, David Cameron's much-mocked bid to prod the British into taking more responsibility for their own local communities, rather than waiting for a giant nanny state to do it all for them.

Among other things, the spat seems to pit advisers to Ed Miliband, the left-leaning Labour leader, against his elder brother, the more centrist David Miliband. To simplify, the two camps are divided by this question: should Labour favour anger and grievance over aspiration, deriding the Big Society and indeed all paternalism as a wicked con trick designed to keep deprived neighbourhoods in a state of unthreatening passivity? Or should Labour recognise that the Big Society amounts to a tank on the lawn of the social democratic left, an audacious land-grab by Mr Cameron of territory that should rightfully be owned by Labour centrists and modernisers?

The row was triggered by Maurice Glasman, an academic and political campaigner behind the traditionalist, anti-globalisation Blue Labour movement. Professor Glasman was recently sent to sit in the House of Lords as a life peer by his friend Ed Miliband, the Labour leader. He was giving evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee of the House of Commons, and during his evidence launched into a group, Locality, which has been awarded a big government contract to train community workers.

When all peaceful means of redress are denied us, that's all that's left.

them, you will fail or end up in the psych ward.

in some way, shape or form.

You can't talk your way out of tyranny and injustice to that degree. You have to literally throw it off.

I think many of us are not wondering if, but waiting for the pot to boil over. While we hear people comment on how stupid and sheep-like the masses are behaving in reaction to the across-the-board debacle going on, there is still the matter of push comes to shove.

The PTB is pushing extremely hard and more and more people are falling into the Underclass with little or no hope of rescue or resolve. It remains to be seen just how much pressure and exploitation people inside this rigged system will take before their are numerous responses of various types and intensities. That can have a domino effect.

We can be passive and wait, or at least entertain just what kind of response is required of each of us. We can complain as we watch our wealth and power being sucked-up into the well-protected lairs of the few, or seriously consider just how much is at stake and just how far this class war will plunge us into and inescapable, mass Serfdom. Nice legacy to leave your kids and generations to come, ey?

We are hurtling towards some major changes, despite what the media does to reinforce the Status Quo. It is then a question of how the changes will transpire and what the outcome will be for our lives, liberty and happiness on this planet. That's a rather super-sized order we find ourselves reckoning with. Words can, and will, lead to action. What kind will that be?

bought and paid for by wall street banksters, the oil corporations and all of the billionaires and millionaires who think they are above the rule of law and the constitution. Those who bribe law makers with campaign "donations" (bribes) to do their bidding while ignoring the majority (We the People)and our needs to do the bidding of the powerful, rich and connected to the detriment, pain and suffering of 98% of us.

Get rid of these things and this country would begin to heal from the propaganda and lies that have caused division and fear in our nation. These ills, perpetrated by the likes of the Nazi Koch Klan and their bought and paid for armies of domestic terrorists trying to force their will, their religion and their rule upon the rest of us could begin to heal. Other than the miracle of this "just" happening, and since our votes are no longer really valid due to election fraud (not voter fraud), some form of revolution will most likely be necessary to take back this country from those who are holding us hostage, stealing us blind, and terrorizing us from within.

The rich, bought and paid for Republicons and (some Democrats), corporations, the Republicon owned media propaganda corporations, the courts (including the right leaning Supreme court) all need to be neutralized and stopped in order for this country to turn around for the good of the majority.

I think that means a general strike or some other form of mass protests to stop the hijacked wheels of business and government from continuing their move toward fascism and the destruction of unions, what's left of the middle class, and our freedoms and liberties that are being stripped away from us each day the Republicons, their operatives, their media and some Democrats (mostly enablers), are allowed to rule this country.

If the majority of us don't act to stop the wealthy and powerful minority from further destroying this nation, then this country is doomed to the demise other great nations have suffered at the hands of a minority who's only concerns are for money, power and themselves. If we want to save ourselves, our vote, our social programs, the middle class, the poor, the suffering, the needy, the unions. If we want to see jobs come back to this country, wall street regulated, corporations and the rich paying their fair share of taxes, subsidies stopped for wealthy oil companies, medicare and social security protected, regulations on the media that force them to report truthfully. If you want to save public schools, public property including parks, electric, and water. If we want to regulate the nuclear power industry, be able to own our own homes, get health insurance, keep unemployment benefits, get a fair wage and raise a family.

If we want our government and religion to stay separate, corporations to go back to not being people and equal rights for everyone in this country, then action will have to take the place of talk. I could continue to list the things we need to protect and the things we need to stop, but I think you get my point. Sooner rather than later, we will have to coordinate, get together and act if we want to save our country from the few who are destroying it. If we want no more Bushes, Walkers, Scotts and Kasicks. If we want the freedom from Walmart, GE, Exxon and Kochs buying our government. If we want the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Hannity, et al looked at as pariahs rather than listened to and followed, then sooner, rather than later, we will have to act.

I don't believe at this point, words and speeches can stop this mad march. Like every mad march back wards that has happened in the past, the majority has had to rise up and act in order to stop it.

I believe that one action in the future could cause a spontaneous uprising to occur. If election fraud were to take place and Obama lost the 2012 election because of it, this time, I don't think people would sit still silently and let it happen. I'm not saying that we should wait for something like that to happen, I just think that if something like that were to occur, people would act this time. We have plenty reasons to act right now in this country, but sometimes it takes an event where we just can't take it anymore and then we act.

I wish the change could "just" happen, but since wealthy people in power control most of what happens in this country, mostly without our say, I don't think it will just happen, and since people who buy, steal or are elected to power never give it up easily, I think we'll all have to take action, at some point in the future, in order to make it happen.

If not now, then when? I guess we will all see, because it is obvious to me that absolute power does in fact corrupt absolutely and we are seeing more corruption since Republicons have taken absolute power in many state capitols, than we have seen at anytime in our history. The overreach is happening now, just how far will we let them overreach before we all say, enough?

Lou