Let the protests begin

I am stealing Billy Braggs photo of recent protests in London.

What will it take to get complacent Americans off there sofas and into the streets like this? Our government has been at a standstill for at least 2 years, the republicans in the senate can stop any legislation with just the threat of a filibuster, while vast amounts of our country suffers from the worst recession in memory. How can that be? Why no people taking to the streets?

I blame many things. First we are slow and fat and lazy. That's right, the most obese nation in history can not muster the energy to take to the streets. Let's not use excuses, TV does its part to keep people both uninformed and lazy. I mean, how can I protest tax cuts to the very wealthy if Dexter is on? Seriously, American Idol starts in a few weeks, it's snowing outside and there is a sale at Chilis.

In the meantime, we remain at two wars that we will never win. In our collective anger, we threw out the bums who could not get anything accomplished, only to be replaced by the bums who accomplished getting us into this recession in the first place. Not to mention the same bums who wildly supported going to war with a nation that did not attack us on 9-11 and had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks. Weird. Good to have them back in power though, yes?

Still no protests. No anger, heck, my friends do not even mention the uneasiness surrounding us.

My sense is that many people are just hoping to hang on. Sure, house values have dropped almost 50 percent in many areas. People who bought in when prices were their highest now hold mortgages for homes that have lost an incredible amount of their value. Imagine buying a 500 thousand dollar house, taking out a mortgage for 420 thousand and spending your savings to purchase the home of your dreams, only to find out a few months later that the home is now worth half of what you paid for it. Imagine.

Still, why blame the government, or anyone else? You bought the house, you took the risk, you will pay off a mortgage for 30 years and probably never be able to sell without taking a loss, but that is all your fault. You should have predicted the future, dammit.

Yet, no one is marching, screaming or protesting. Except in England, where tuition has been raised enough to get the students pissed off.

Many years ago my feisty oldest daughter and I marched with thousands of other stoned hippies in the streets of Seattle to protest the impending war in Iraq. Millions marched around the world, and when the United States started the bombing, our marches were portrayed as a bunch of stoned hippies being silly. Of course, years after the marches the truth came out, we, the stoned hippies, were right as right can be, and the vast majority of stupid lazy idiots who sat by and watched the bombing on late night TV, could only sit in their comfortable chair and praise the lending rules that allowed them to use home equity to buy big screen TV sets. Fuck the war is what I am sure they mumbled as they crank decent wine and watched the Bombing of innocent Iraqis.

I have told this story a few times in my life and it is time to tell it again. I was looking for a cheap place to live when I first moved to New York City and in heroin land on the Lower East Side I found an apartment for a few hundred a month. It was a mess and there was a Polish immigrant who helped me remove plaster from the brick walls. We were talking one day, he had taken part in the Solidarity protests in Poland and had fought for pay and better working conditions. I mentioned the power of protest and he cynically asked me what protests had ever won me in America. I could not think of a single "win" that we protesting types had actually accomplished. He said the governments allow protests because they get people to burn off the energy and anger, and in the end, the governments do what is best for themselves and the wealthy who support them. He was right then, and he is right now. Even though lower income and middle class people in America are taking a beating, even as we fight wars with no end and budgets that are busted, even as republicans stall any meaningful legislation from becoming necessary laws, we sit on our asses and pretend things will get better.