I'll get back to my continuing story of agonizing making-do, featuring Donnie, Stan, the Von Findrich sisters, Empress Cornhola, and Buttwhack Morgan. But it's time for a circuitous rant about what's fucked about Pittsburgh grass roots politics, if there is such a thing. On principle, hoards of people whining together about disparate hostilities doesn't alter the conduct of Monsanto, the NSA, the military-industrial complex or plump, soft headed legislators with pockets bulging with bribes.
The same hoards have been pretending there is hope for the Occupy Movement. The late Beatle, John Lennon, on a video interview, said that Flower Power, of the hippie generation, didn't work, and people needed to change tact with regard to social reform. Flower Power was deliberately neutralized by all the tactics the Fed has up it's sleeve, such as divide-and-conquer, selective subsidies (these bastards get $, those ones don't, thus they hate each other and do the Fed's job of fucking up the agenda,) commercialization (we have a product or service that will enhance your leftist social status,) and anyone can demonize anyone for any reason, or for no reason, because a major problem with grass roots politics is that people are assholes, irrespective their hopes and machinations, and like much of the middle class, people need to prove they are better than someone, irrespective of any scale by which 'better' can be evaluated. Maybe they sell environmentally friendly cosmetics, or they read books by famous radicals. More nauseating here, Pittsburgh is rife with living legacies of the more radical past, and these kids and grand-kids of American Leftist Fun serve as status symbols for people with no connection to a past more exciting and impassioned than now.
Quick answers are dreadful, but can help: Mass, highly focused, litigation. Enforcement of existing anti-trust laws. Expanding definitions of anti-trust law, with timely change in the way monopolistic competition is fought against. A better case for equality. A resurgence in generousity, without demanding tax exempt status or deduction. Less bullshitty NGOs. And now, for a cartoon....
The same hoards have been pretending there is hope for the Occupy Movement. The late Beatle, John Lennon, on a video interview, said that Flower Power, of the hippie generation, didn't work, and people needed to change tact with regard to social reform. Flower Power was deliberately neutralized by all the tactics the Fed has up it's sleeve, such as divide-and-conquer, selective subsidies (these bastards get $, those ones don't, thus they hate each other and do the Fed's job of fucking up the agenda,) commercialization (we have a product or service that will enhance your leftist social status,) and anyone can demonize anyone for any reason, or for no reason, because a major problem with grass roots politics is that people are assholes, irrespective their hopes and machinations, and like much of the middle class, people need to prove they are better than someone, irrespective of any scale by which 'better' can be evaluated. Maybe they sell environmentally friendly cosmetics, or they read books by famous radicals. More nauseating here, Pittsburgh is rife with living legacies of the more radical past, and these kids and grand-kids of American Leftist Fun serve as status symbols for people with no connection to a past more exciting and impassioned than now.
Quick answers are dreadful, but can help: Mass, highly focused, litigation. Enforcement of existing anti-trust laws. Expanding definitions of anti-trust law, with timely change in the way monopolistic competition is fought against. A better case for equality. A resurgence in generousity, without demanding tax exempt status or deduction. Less bullshitty NGOs. And now, for a cartoon....
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