Time for Real Resistance to Neoliberalism: Education, Coordination, Cooperation Leadership

Isn't it time to begin real resistance - actions and strategies beyond rallies and marches, beyond petitions for this or that worthy cause and letters to MPs and the editor, beyond conferences and discussion groups, beyond Facebook and Twitter? Isn't it time for all progressives to come together in a coordinated effort to start a real (non-violent) revolution against Neoliberalism? Every single issue with which progressives are concerned from climate change to income inequality can be traced directly to neoliberal policy, which of course is no simple set of practices but a tenaciously pernicious ideology that has penetrated the very fabric of our daily lives and that has been so thoroughly naturalized as a result that most people living inside the bubble fail to see the walls of the bubble. And many who do happen to recognize it, though well-intentioned, seek only reform within the neoliberal systems themselves, not real transformative change. There is a difference between reform and revolution, although reform can certainly serve revolution. While this may seem initially to be primarily an amoral economic issue, it is in reality a fundamentally moral issue that affects peoples everyday lives. More than an economic solution is thus required.

The only outstanding question in my mind is how to bring about a meaningful transformation on such a large and sprawling issue and thus what strategies to choose that yield real practical outcomes -  something beyond feel good satisfaction. How do we begin?  Coordination and cooperation with other progressive groups to generate real political power is the only viable strategy in my opinion - no easy task - though lots of solidarity generating things along the way to that strategic goal can still be implemented.  For that unprecedented communication to happen we need leadership from each progressive group - certainly not an easy achievement since each group has its vested interests. But if enough people in the rank and file of those groups call for such coordination and cooperation,  it just might happen. Identifying groups and constructing an all-embracing communications network is an obvious first step.

The other key factor is educating one's own people on the importance of understanding what neoliberalism is, how it works, and why it's necessary to concentrate efforts on it. One of the main failures of the progressive movement besides its insularity is a lack of focus - too many fires burning in different locales. We need one giant bonfire. You can't get help from your own organization if its members, staff and rank and file,  don't know what you're talking about.

In bringing together several youth progressive groups from across the country, PowerShift has led the way providing, that is, whatever excitement and momentum that has been generated can be sustained meaningfully and turned into real pragmatic strategies. My fear, however, is that PowerShift 2012 will be just like the Take Back Democracy Conference, a similar worthy event - that is, nothing more than another self-satisfying, insular feel good progressive bubble event. Prove me and all the other discouraged progressives out there wrong.

Addendum:

Apparently the Council of Canadians convene a summit of 50 progressive organizations in September - which at first blush looks like a powerful gesture in the right direction. It would be useful to know what actually happened at that summit.

PIPSC, Fat Cats, and Disturbing Dreams

I had the pleasure of attending the PIPSC Fat Cats game on Sunday - an exciting affair that the FCs won in the ninth with a sensational walk off steal at home plate by LaDale Hayes, who also made an extraordinary diving catch earlier in the game. Though American, he also represented the team in the before game ceremonies - which turned out to be fortuitous since he was clearly the player of the game. Still one wonders why one of the Canadian players was not a representative. Maybe Harper sent out a chill message or perhaps the Canadians thought they were being "neutral."

At any rate, I suspect the FCs gained a few more fans from the friends and family of those in attendance, which was substantial. And who knew Gary Corbett was such a rocker?

The mood at the PIPSC-Fat Cats game was festive, but beneath it was a depressive mumbling. This is my reading of that underlying mood, what I personally extrapolated from chit chats with several people, who may or may not have been members of PIPSC - I never asked. And so my comments in no way reflect PIPSC’s or any one member of PIPSC's position on these issues.

1) Managers have not suffered. Indeed, many have received or will receive bonuses for finding “efficiencies” - an extraordinarily perverse neoliberal incentive practice driven by greed.

2)Tony Clement in fact dreams of "efficiencies" at night when he's not counting gazebos - or electric sheep.

3) The PS has been increasingly politicized to the point where it is almost no longer even a nominal neutral non-partisan space but a mere extension of the ruling Regime, though the PS out of necessity has always had to bend to some degree to the party in power - never to this extent.

4) Harper has governed as a “dictator” in spirit if not in fact; and such an authoritarian rule has profoundly undermined the services and programs run by the PS, parliamentary democracy, and fundamental democracy. The current gutting of the PS coupled with the effects of the omnibus bill will only exacerbate this excruciating situation.

5) The Regime is looking for new young hires - at a reduced wage scale of course - the main requirement being a willingness to be moulded by the Regime’s ideology and thus a contributor to the neoliberal agenda.

6) Several PSs are resigning before getting axed simply because they can no longer tolerate working under the oppressive yoke of the Regime.

7) Unless progressive forces across Canada find a way to fuse their political strengths Canada will be lost. By the time the next election rolls around it will be too late since so many policies and laws will be so firmly established they may be impossible to remove - a scenario I’ve argued myself many times. Progressives have to step outside their respective bubbles and reach out to each other and, most of all, to the mainstream, as vague and challenging as that might be. They must abandon their comfortable, secure cocoons and enter the messy space of public discourse somehow.

Some Canadians are snoozing while Harper continues his destructive crusade through democracy, the environment, and the Canadian economy; but not all

As Susan Riley suggests in the Citizen today, most Canadians are snoozing through President Harper's vicious assault on democracy, the environment, and - more noticeably recently - the Canadians economy.  If you've read any of my other posts here about the Harper Regime's extraordinary misspending and misguided attempts to manage the economy - which are the real reasons we have a deficit - you'll know how deeply audacious, arrogant, and hypocritical it was for Harper to chastise  the European community at Davos for not getting its house in order. Of course his address wasn't really about the world economy. It was a political opportunity to prepare us for the spring Canadian budget, which, when released, will probably make us all puke.  Journalists, bring your barf bag to the press conference. Seniors, start making your placards.


Those of us who are acutely awake through this travail of destruction sometime wonder whether all the little subversive and critical things we do are making a difference.  I think they are but not in terms of swaying the fundamentally ignorant Harper base, which would seem to just let all this moral corruption slip by, or even the non-committed or indifferent, who are the majority of snoozers; but of bonding our progressive movement of concern here in Canada and around the world wherever neoliberalism has sunk its greedy, self-serving teeth in, or - to use a phrase of Max Keiser's - where, through banksters and "the markets," neoliberalism has been "strip mining" the economy. There's a never before seen powerful force slowly growing in this  global resistance capable of effecting real transformational change in our socio-economic structures.


And, let me remind you, the occupy movement is not dead:  it's hibernating to be waken in the spring with a ferocious roar. In the meantime, we must keep up our small and large actions here and everywhere because they are incrementally creating an expanding awareness of just how mean, nasty, and corrupt the Harper Regime and its policies really are - nowhere better illustrated than in the example of Keystone XL and now Gateway, in the latter of which, as Nathan Cullen suggests, Harper may have overplayed his hand despite his usual wedge politics. Hang in there.