It would help somewhat if, when such a movement actually does arise, people paid a little less attention to the smears put out there by leadership of the government, and the part of the media that fancies itself part of the government, and paid more attention to the actual content of the movement, or perhaps even translated the movement to its own side.
Yes, I'm talking about the Tea Party, and let me not be subtle: If you think the government is corrupt and the people need to rise up and everyone is just in everyone else's pockets, then you believe what those exact same powers and people say about an actual public uprising, maybe you need to reconsider how effective your very-justified cynicism actually is. Perhaps even consider that the cynical idea that there is nothing you can do to change things is actually part of the package you are being fed. Yes, you may not agree with everything about the Tea Party, or even hardly anything other than the fact we could use a serious house cleaning, but maybe less time listening to the siren call of blind partisanism and those who use it to manipulate your opinions and more time spent cleaning up the left side of the house would be a more productive response.
(Hint: You don't actually have to believe the Tea Party is a uniform bunch of racist homophobic ignorant buffoons to disagree with them on some issues. You can simply... disagree. It's really quite easy when you get used to it. Then you can actually consider your own opinions in an environment where you don't have to constantly be testing them against an artificial standard of bugabooism erected by the dominant power structure to confine your thinking in just that way. You can believe in universal health care and the importance of welfare and social justice and still think it's time to clean out some incumbents and spend more wisely, even perhaps less overall, even if taxes still need to be raised. It's not actually contradictory.)
My comment was made outside of a partisan framework. The ideas in my post are not pages I've taken from any gloom-and-doom commentator. I don't like the Tea Party but I don't like their opponents either. If I thought there was a large contingent of good guys out there I would probably be less pessimistic about our nation's future.
I take an objective stance regarding contemporary politics and there are things I respect and things I detest about both major platforms and in general many politicians, though I tend to detest things about politicians much more often than I respect things about them.
I don't subscribe to the primary tenets of either party or any third-party; the largest influences on my politics come from religious sources. Perhaps you shouldn't presume that this opinion was not well-considered.
Sorry, "you" was meant as the generic "you" in that post, not specifically "cookiecaper". And I also tried to make the point that I'm being nonpartisan, too, it is simply that right now I lack the ability to name a name of an organization on the left that is actually trying to clean house rather than further entrench the current power structure. If I could you better believe I would.
But much of what you outline is actually happening to some degree, and events have forced me to admit that my previous cynicism was too much; if the ruling elite do manage to take civilization to hell in a handbasket, I can no longer say that everybody sat passively by and let it happen. "Most people" would still be fair, but there were people who saw it coming and however misguided you may think they were in their efforts, they actually did try to do something to stop it.
(I have to say "civilization" because the same basic disease seems to be everywhere, just not equally concentrated. Claiming that one country or another has more or less is just another distraction technique.)
(My position is that I'm a libertarian, but also a pragmatist. I would love to see a popular leftist movement rise up on the basic platform of "We want to care for people and we believe in a much more powerful and muscular government than this 'jerf' asshole thinks is wise, but it does no good to anybody to offer them unlimited health care and amazing retirement benefits and protected jobs for life and all this other great stuff if the government then goes bankrupt in five years, at which point all those guarantees become void. First we must make sure we can afford the things we want to do, then we can do them." In my opinion if you really believe in liberalism and leftism then the absolute most important thing for you to do right now is join hands with whoever it takes to make government spending sustainable, because without that basic foundation the government will not be able to do anything you want it to do, when it no longer exists. I'll happily argue about how much government is wise after we've made sure it'll still be there in twenty years.)
Yes, I'm talking about the Tea Party, and let me not be subtle: If you think the government is corrupt and the people need to rise up and everyone is just in everyone else's pockets, then you believe what those exact same powers and people say about an actual public uprising, maybe you need to reconsider how effective your very-justified cynicism actually is. Perhaps even consider that the cynical idea that there is nothing you can do to change things is actually part of the package you are being fed. Yes, you may not agree with everything about the Tea Party, or even hardly anything other than the fact we could use a serious house cleaning, but maybe less time listening to the siren call of blind partisanism and those who use it to manipulate your opinions and more time spent cleaning up the left side of the house would be a more productive response.
(Hint: You don't actually have to believe the Tea Party is a uniform bunch of racist homophobic ignorant buffoons to disagree with them on some issues. You can simply... disagree. It's really quite easy when you get used to it. Then you can actually consider your own opinions in an environment where you don't have to constantly be testing them against an artificial standard of bugabooism erected by the dominant power structure to confine your thinking in just that way. You can believe in universal health care and the importance of welfare and social justice and still think it's time to clean out some incumbents and spend more wisely, even perhaps less overall, even if taxes still need to be raised. It's not actually contradictory.)