Return of the Malaise: Up to Our Asses in Alligators

by:

John Grant

If as the tea leaves suggest in the future we’re going to be more “on our own," it behooves us on the left to rely less on the central government that has abandoned us and to toughen ourselves up in a local context. We need to stick together in our communities to protect our families, friends and resources. That may involve the decision to arm oneself. As a matter of principle, I recently went to my local sheriff’s office and obtained a license to carry a firearm. It obviously involves much more than that.

When things come unglued, survival means more than ideology. In a world being shattered by breathtaking innovations in communication, there is no room for purity of “isms” any more – if there ever was. As Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC recently pointed out, the United States is a mixed economy of capitalism and socialism and all sorts of other -isms mixed in. The struggle is to get the mix right, nationally and locally.

Right now, the -ism mix is leaning way too far to the right with capitalism and militarism run amok. It’s like having way too much salt in the soup. We're out of balance and in need of a good, honest injection of socialism. The point is to re-empower the huge base of the American population and put checks on the rich and super-rich, people like the Koch Brothers who expend billions to bamboozle the lower and middle classes to work against their own interests.