UNTIL AND UNLESS

There needs to be a worldwide "Arab Spring" style uprising against corporate power with the worst offenders of the abuse of that power on a top ten list that the population of the world can organize to destroy.

The old "Wobblies" from the early 20th Century had the brilliant idea of organizing all the industrial workers of the world into one big union (it was called The Industrial Workers of the World, "Wobblies" was their nickname) and when they had all the industrial workers in the world finally united in one big union they would call a worldwide strike to force the "owners" to capitulate and give workers the just reward for their labor.

It was a pipe dream in the eyes of many, who were too factionalized to stick together, but as a result were easier to divide and conquer, ala competing unions, racial and ethnic and religious divisions, etc. There was a period in the 1930s when more and more workers were realizing the importance of organizing and unifying to defeat the greedy owners who refused to pay a living wage with benefits and for a while the unionization of the country progressed until a working man could afford to buy a house and own a car and put his kids through college.

That was the 1950s. But then the divide and conquer tactic began to pay off, first with the "silent majority" that Nixon's propagandists used to successfully imply that it wasn't the greedy corporate rulers who were keeping the working class down it was "urban crime" which was a euphemism for "black" people and "The Eastern elite" which was a straw man set up to assuage the anger working folk felt at those who seemed to be running the show (for Nixon it was also a way to take his revenge on the Kennedys) and acting like they were better than.

Then Reagan's propagandists kicked it up a notch with "welfare queens" and "union thugs" and the same old "Eastern elite" now represented as "Washington" so that even when he was president he got to pretend he was not part of any "Washington elite" etc.  He's the one who really began selling off "America" (i.e. the USA) to the highest corporate bidder and then blaming the "welfare queen" who picked up her government checks in a Cadillac, just as much of a lie as his memories of serving in WWII though he spent those years in Hollywood, and much of the press let him get away with it because they too were fighting unions to create greater profits etc.

So here we are, the corporate takeover of "America" (i.e. the USA, though much of the rest of the world as well) almost complete, and the rightwing propagandists not just successful but triumphant despite the reality that a majority of the country agrees more with liberal programs and policies when they are presented without the "trigger" words the right has created to tar any liberal idea with the same brush. Unless there's a massive movement that focuses on the top corporate abusers of power, starting with the oil and gas corporations and Monsanto and other chemical corporations and financial corporations etc. and frightens enough politicians into ending the gerrymandering that allows a minority of Tea Party rightwing Republicans to hold this Congress hostage and block any attempt to help working people diminish the gap of economic inequality that has grown to Victorian Gilded Age dimensions, it will only get worse.

Greed knows no limits. Enough is never enough. The Koch brothers could found their own country and their descendants could rule it for generations and generations on the money they've already accrued and yet it isn't enough. The same for the Walton family and so many others. The Democrats are too timid or too tied to their own self interest, most of them anyway it seems, to call out these corporations and often the families that control and profit from them, but it is necessary that any future progressive organizing movement focus on them and create so much awareness of their misdeeds and contempt for the very people the Republicans pretend to be concerned about (convincingly obviously in too many cases) that only a small minority will still believe the lies.

It's late so this is probably coming off as a slightly wacky rant but it's just frustration with the pace of protest in our country despite all the proof of the rapid road to hell these rightwingers continue to seem to be able to keep us on.