It is up to us. It is not up to politicians, even Bernie. IT is up to us. we have a lot to do. We even have an extra day in 2016. Long ago I posted a saying from Kropotkin on my office wall at the University: advice offered to the young a century ago by Prince Peter Kropotkin:
“Think about the kind of world you want to live and work in. What do you need to know to build that world? Demand that your teachers teach you that.”
Well things have deteriorated since then. We are in a multifaceted crisis and we have not the luxury of being taught how to make things better. We will only be able to do what our very inadequate minds are going to produce.
We can go on doing what we have been doing and expect the results to change, but that is clearly insane.
One very important example of that insanity is the coming 2016 election. I was very hopeful when Bernie started his movement under the auspices of a bid for the presidency. He was very clear that the goal was not elections as usual but a mobilization of millions of people against the tyrannical oligarchy.
This must happen and time is short. The climate situation alone makes it imperative. We have no choices left. That is why as the electioneering progresses we are losing ground. We are being sucked into the system rather than becoming a force to change it. It happened with Obama and it can well happen again. We lost eight precious years because the system was stronger than Obama. That should have been no surprise and we should have been ready for it but were not.
Some of the most regressive “progressives” are selling the line that the election is all important because of things like the Supreme Court. They hark back to 2000 and what a horrible thing happened because we did not win an election.
I’m sorry but you only have a right to make such claims if you spent every day since 2000 making the world the kind of world you want to live in. I’m sorry, I am mistaken. You did do that. This world today is the result.
So as we face a new year we have options. More of the same or radical change. It is your choice. Tomorrow is the first day and you will exercise your choice. When you go to bed tomorrow night you can think about what you did to change the world. You can do it every day after that. The world we will be in after 366 days will depend on you and no one else.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!