Roy & Sejpalyou think about the grandeur of the civil rights movement in the
United States, the anti–Vietnam War protests, it makes you wonder
whether real protest is even possible any more. It is. It surely is. I
was in Gothenburg, Sweden, recently, when the largest Nazi march
since World War II took place. The Nazis were outnumbered by
anti-Nazi demonstrators, including the ferocious Antifa, by more
than ten to one. In Kashmir, unarmed villagers face down army bul-
lets. In Bastar, in Central India, the armed struggle by the poorest
people in the world has stopped some of the richest corporations in
their tracks. It is important to salute people’s victories, even if they
don’t always get reported on TV. At least the ones we know about.
Making people feel helpless, powerless, and hopeless is part of the
propaganda.
But what is going on in the world right now is coming from
every direction and has already gone too far. It has to stop. But how?
I don’t have any cure-all advice, really. I think we all need to become
seriously mutinous. I think, at some point, the situation will become
unsustainable for the powers that be. The tipping point will come. An
attack on Iran, for example, might be that moment. It would lead to
unthinkable chaos, and out of it something unpredictable would arise.
The great danger is that, time and time again, the storm of rage that
builds up gets defused and coopted into yet another election campaign.
We fool ourselves into believing that the change we want will come
with fresh elections and a new president or prime minister at the helm
of the same old system. Of course, it is important to bounce the old
bastards out of office and bounce new ones in, but that can’t be the
only bucket into which we pour our passion. Frankly, as long as we
continue to view the planet as an endless “resource,” as long as we
uphold the rights of individuals and corporations to amass infinite
wealth while others go hungry, as long as we continue to believe that