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People (some people) always make noise. If you mean does that translate into EFFECTIVE action...then we have a different beast entirely.
Most historical studies of popular revolutions (the few in which things changed as opposed to the countless that were simply put down) shows a few similarities.
1) Severe Economic pain: While we talk about how much things suck in our economy...this isn't the kind of pain that motivates historical shifts. Driving SUVs and Eating Big Macs isn't where populations are who just can't take it anymore. We are pacified by our cable TV, our fast food, and our cheap Gas.
2) Obvious change: This era of fascists understand psychology (in fact it exists for them to use today as opposed to before when it did not). The frog boiling in water is an analogy that most utilize. If you send everyone to internment camps in a week THEN they'll notice and scream bloody murder. But if you slowly convert their small town economy to slave-wages through Walmartification, then they just sink slowly into depression...boiling but not really understanding what's wrong.
3) Charismatic Leader w THE Message: Most social revolutions have some figurehead that defines the message. Someone who has the vision, the power, the exposure to communicate the pain and the way out of pain. This is also the greatest threat...because the kind of power such a person can have is as likely to create more chaos and mysery (think Cambodia or China) as liberation.
Currently I think we usually fail to define the difference between Winning (in a cultural/philosophical sense) and simply getting more votes as Democrats. We can get more votes and still end up in a culture that is essentially Corporatism elevated to Godhood in which case our "WIN" is probably just a few more years of cheap gas and Mac Burgers. To WIN in the sense of a real social change away from where we are headed, however, it's going to take at least 2 of the 3 above...and currently I don't see any of that happening.
We have too much, we suffer too slowly, and we lack a charismatic visionary who can and will carry the message into the popular consciousness.
And even if we had those things, it wouldn't guarantee that any moral interest would win in the end. One despot might just replace another. The social revolution might simply be crushed because it faced a kind of might never before seen. Or even the most compelling message might be ignored because we are now living with the most sophisticated pacification tool in human history.
God is in the TV. How do we wake up enough people to ever respond to that?
This all sounds rather pessimistic, but I don't think it is hopeless...I just write it down so that the discussion can weigh the nature of what we face in the most serious and realistic manner.
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