Today marks what has to be some sort of a landmark as far as the sheer number of individuals and companies joining together in order to protest two bits of legislation that Congress is working on passing this month. I don't need to explain what this legislation entails. All one needs to, very likely do, is use Wiki or go to one of their favorite websites to get an understanding of SOPA and PIPA. To do so here would be unnecessarily redundant. The point is, here we are at the apex of commentary like no other time in history. October 15, 2011 was yet another one of those breathtaking moments where you had yet another incredibly massive gathering of people to protest the current state of the world. Based on city by city estimates worldwide, I would hazard a guess that untold millions gathered that day in solidarity with one another. Today, just a few months later, you are bearing witness to that same massive outpouring of solidarity. It's almost tragic that, in both instances, much of the messaging was geared towards our country, our financial system, and, most especially, our Congress.
Even with this troubled economy, there is no doubt that the United States is indeed a super power still yet we often forget that the actions that we do often affect those living outside of the United States. When we actually consider our own system's involvement with other countries, it is often held within a framework that seems to center on the effects to our own. When we talk about American jobs in China, we focus not on the quality of life and safety for those workers but, instead, we speak with a resentment about how they are "stealing all of our jobs". Foxconn, the manufacturer of parts for Microsoft, Apple and other tech companies, recently had a rooftop protest in the city of Wuhan where 150 protesters lined the rooftop to remind the company of the spate of worker suicides just last year. These workers live in dormitories by the hundreds of thousands with amenities that either they are too overworked to utilize or are so polluted by the sheer number of inhabitants within the factory "city" itself that cannot be used. It's hardly any different from what one might find in a prison in the United States. But no, we instead hold a narrow focus of our country's actions on how they affect us--not the rest of the world and, as a result, we have the nasty tendency of dragging the whole world down with us.
The effects of activities in the United States has no more profound and obvious affect than the Financial Crisis of 2007-8. Our banking industry, through questionable lending and the rating and selling of questionable CDOs, plummeted the entire global economy into the depths of despair. Our world is still feeling those effects. Here was a case where the policies within the United States had an unprecedented effect on the global economy. If we broaden our focus to not just view the effects on ourselves and the global economy, we will find that our own plights are currently be shared with many other people just like you and I all over the world. This is why what had to be the world's largest protest on October 15, 2011 happened in the first place. We are a super power and the effects and usage of that power is not just felt here in the United States. It is felt everywhere.
Climate change, resource depletion, bankruptcies, so-called "austerity cuts" (which honestly are nothing more than asking the already downtrodden and beaten to cut back more), child and slave labor, pollution on a grand scale,continents of plastic bags within all of our major oceans--the list of the grotesque and negative effects of how we use our great power is unimaginably long. Just this last month, Nigeria, probably the most polluted country on earth because of the activities of oil companies, rose up in protest of those companies. In the words of Uncle Ben, "with great power comes great responsibility". We have had great power for so long yet when have we ever really used it responsibly?
Here in the United States, it's been a year of unprecedented. In my own city, 10,000 people marched on October 6th to protest the inordinate power of corporations and the toll that greed has taken upon everything we hold dear. Across the United States in cities small and large, protests erupted. Yet, instead of holding our government policy makers accountable, we regarded it, almost uniformly, with acrimony. Here in the United States, we are breaking records. We are breaking records not just in terms of people gathering together to demand change but we are also breaking records in narrow mindedness and dogmatic belief in systems that are currently failing. We are breaking records in apathy when confronted with a Congress that broke its own record of having the lowest approval rating ever. As human beings, we prize our ability to act rationally and logically--this is what is supposed to set us apart from all other living creatures. Perhaps how we separate ourselves from other species shouldn't be based on either of these but on our level of stupidity. You don't see deer raping the earth in order to go ahead and make Happy Meal toys. I know it's insulting and I'm sorry for that but what other way can we see our own actions?
Today, we have some of the largest, most dreadful issues before us. The choices we make no longer affect just our own locality but can create an adverse effect upon every living creature on this planet. We find ourselves living in a time of the unprecedented and here we are, again today, having an unprecedented protest. A massive outpouring in competitors and individuals worldwide to protest two bills that impact are civil liberties on the internet. It is both amazing and heart wrenching at the same time. On one hand, our very survival is at question and yet, it does not receive the same regard. On the other hand, it shows our human potential. Probably the most frightening fact of today's action is that it may not do anything at all. We have a Congress today that has the lowest approval rating ever and the $94 million in lobbying fees spent may very much win the day. How is it even possible that $94 million still somehow trumps the desires and needs of a world? We already disapprove of our Congress' latest actions and inaction yet we somehow expect that, by uniting for one day, we will somehow change their minds? We have already tried that.
We have a fundamental flaw within our system that our Founders most certainly did not foresee and that is that we have allowed the perversion of our democracy through monied interests to the extent that it trumps democracy, itself. It's interesting to note that the Founders were fearful of the majority of citizenry harming the property holders and depriving them of their properties. That was the context and viewpoint of their fears. I doubt that they could ever imagine, living in a time where there was no such thing as an unlimited life corporation, that the tables would turn so grotesquely so that the minority would instead be depriving the majority of democracy, itself. We expect that our Congressman "do what's right" when we elect them into office and what we hold as right can be highly variable. Yet, at the very least, we expect our Congress to represent our interests. How much confidence our current Congress must have that they will somehow remain unaffected by their constituents' opinion of them to gain such a disapproval rating. It fills me with a curious fascination but a fascination that is akin to the seeming inability to look away from a catastrophic car wreck.
Over 10,000 websites, communities, and perhaps millions of people may not be enough to avert SOPA and PIPA. Even the threat of not voting for them may not be enough because they know that you are going to vote for your Democratic or Republican favorite. They know that you're going to chose to vote for your own view of what constitutes the lesser of two evils instead of voting "not evil" at all. This is why our system is failing. To make it clear, the last thing that I want for my beloved country is massive civil unrest. I do not want the overthrow of our government or harm to come to any wealthy individual or elected official. I love my country and I truly believe that if we use the democratic process given to us appropriately, we can fix everything. If our political parties do not listen to us, then how do we expect to get them to amend the very laws that allow them to profit so considerably? This year, we should have the most unprecedented movement ever held at the voting booth where we vote not for whether someone is democratic or republican. Instead, we vote for actual change through candidates that pledge to remove the undue influence of money within our government and make every assurance that they do it. If we can find a way to unite ourselves in this manner, we can do anything.
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