I'm No Rick Wilson
Yeah, I know, you haven’t heard from the News in a while. I’d like to blame that on travel, or business distractions, or a new grandchild (God forbid), but the fact is, I’ve just been sitting around wishing Global Climate Change would go ahead and end civilization as we know it instead of waiting for Trump’s oligarch butt-buddies to pick it apart piecemeal. As they will do.
Here’s Rick Wilson’s shitty prediction for the coming world war (“shitty” because he’s a pretty good prognosticator and therefore maybe not wrong):
This morning, a friend of mine chided me in the social media for my seeming “hopelessness,” and derided my “belittling and demeaning” (or vice-versa) attitude towards people who are standing up and agitating against the misbehavior of the current administration. I tried to explain to him – lamely, perhaps – that my beef isn’t against agitators, I’m just not PRO agitators. I’ve been “agitating” since 1964 (my first demonstration, half-a-dozen of us meeting in vocal opposition to the arrival in Denver of the “White Citizen’s Counsel”). I’ve been to a protest or two. I know from agitating.
I respect people who get off their couch to go outside and be heard. For many people, that’s difficult enough, and I admire their grit. I’ve seen them handcuffed, bloodied, wounded, dead. Brave people. Nevertheless, I think we’re past the point when public demonstrations are going to swing much weight. I believe we are up against a foe that is unmoved by civic opposition – witness, against all odds and impervious to public outcry, the crowning of Donald Trump by no less than the United States Supreme Court, and the ensuing subservience of what were once public officials elected to act in our interests.
What, then, to do? Well, I think we need to push them in the courts until – as I think likely, but I’m no Rick Wilson – the “administration” (oligarchy) openly defies the courts and the Supreme Court backs their play. Perhaps they’ll manufacture some Reichstag moment, but I don’t think they’ll bother. I mark the moment when the Supreme Court rules against those Justices’ own continued legitimacy as the death of our democracy. I don’t think it is far off. (But, remember, no Rick Wilson.)
Again, what to do? I’ll tell you who I think was a great model for agitation when it was clear that the powers-that-be were unconcerned about public opinion – The Black Panthers. We should be out setting up our own schools, our own clinics and co-ops and kitchens, our own living spaces. We should be occupying the empty properties in our communities and turning them into shelters. We should provide sanctuary to political and immigrant refugees. We should give classes in active resistance and the use of force. In sum, we should fight back.
It might not work out much better for us than it did for Huey Newton, but at least it would represent a clear break with an illegitimate government. Ironically, I think some of the people in red states might take the lead in this, because they are now in the “find out” portion of the program, and they are starting to get pissed.
Trump and his cronies may be in the process of accomplishing something no one has been able to do for the past two hundred years – convincingly demonstrating to the poor and middle class white people of this country that Black people and other minorities are not the enemy. The Oligarch is the Enemy. We need to push that narrative.
If only. Remember though, after all, I’m no Rick Wilson.