While they’re all talking about the Sopranos … let’s talk about something that’s actually happening in the actual world. Like the uprisings in Turkey and in Brazil.
First, the way the U.S. press covers the government response to these protests is interesting, to say the least. I suppose they are so overcome by the loss of James Gandolfini that they have forgotten how harshly our own various municipal police forces cracked down on the Occupy Wall Street movement just eighteen months ago or so. The developing world doesn’t have a corner on repression, not by a long shot.
Still, it’s interesting that in both cases, the original impetus for the protest was a decision by the government affecting public services. Both Turkey and Brazil have been touted as relatively successful governments, and yet beneath many success stories there is often another story to tell, that of the poor, the working people, those left behind. You can see them in Brazil, in China, in India, in Turkey, just as you can see them here in the United States. True, the standard of living in Brazil has improved vastly over the last decade. But the people protesting increased transit fares are making us aware of the work that is yet to be done.
This did not come out of nowhere. The core of the movement in Brazil are organizers who have been working for years towards greater social and economic justice. These activists and the landless peasant movement was substantially responsible for the somewhat more progressive shift of national governments, starting with Lula’s election. (See this article in the New York Times.) I’m sure the same can be said of the people standing in the park in Turkey.
America is no different. Occupy Wall Street didn’t come out of thin air either. It was the next chapter of resistance to a society that rewards criminality on the part of the privileged and protects the powerful from accountability. From Ankara to Sao Paulo to New York, mass movements remain the best way to get our leaders to stop, listen, and act.
Feet on the street – that’s what does it, every time.
luv u,
jp
What would I do with all that brain power? Well, for one thing, I would get our next album out a bit quicker. Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick seems to be in perpetual becoming mode. I know you’re sick of it, I’m sick of it, Matt’s had it up to here, the president has started complaining, the ambassador from Madagascar has issued a protest against Big Green – suffice to say, no one is happy. Hey, well … we’re working as fast as we can. It takes a while to bake all those discs, especially without a convection oven like the big, famous groups have. And then hand painting all those covers. Jesus!
Already, I have heard more about the numbers of killed in Syrian than I ever heard about the Iraq catastrophe. Again, no surprise. The government and the press meticulously count the victims of official enemies, but when it comes to the corpses generated by our misguided policies, we don’t do body counts. They still won’t put a realistic number on the lives lost in Iraq, hovering around the casual 30K guess Bush made in 2007 or so. I suppose once we have both legs in the mire of this conflict they will stop counting again. But for now, the statistics are useful – they are trying to push the American people closer to intervention, and it’s evident that the effort isn’t working very well. Less than one in four is in favor of intervention.
Did you listen to this month’s podcast, 
Now, I’m not complaining. Upstate is nothing like Moore, Oklahoma, not by a long shot. But there can be no doubt that the weather here and everywhere else in the country is getting more severe. There is far more energy behind some of these storms than is normal. It takes a few mornings of driving through wreckage to drive home the notion that this may be the new normal. This may be the best we can expect in the years ahead. That is a disastrous prospect.