View this link:

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002931.html

While Fox News and the Radical Right—from reactionary petit bourgeoisie to proto-fascist corporations—have staged one of the most world-historically inane series of protests in the guise of a grass-roots movement, and while Obama continues to bend over backwards in order to please the Goldman Sachs financial oligarchy so that they won’t hire the artists formerly known as Blackwater (The CEO is also named Prince!) to snipe regulators from the roof-tops of their corporate offices, Evo Morales just completed a five-day hunger strike in support of electoral reforms in Bolivia. John Caruso at A Tiny Revolution remarks:

Just for a moment, imagine what it would be like to have a president who actually possessed (positive) core, non-negotiable convictions, and for whom going on a hunger strike was well within the range of sacrifices they were willing to make to fight for those convictions. While you’re at it, imagine what it would be like to have a populace that demanded this level of conviction in exchange for their support—and refused to settle for less. And finally, imagine how far short of those goals we could fall and still be light years beyond where we are today.

It’s no surprise that we’re constantly told the most we have a right to expect is tiny incremental steps toward positive change, but what’s tragic is that so many people have not only accepted that but have internalized it as though it’s some sort of immutable law of nature. They never seem to notice that those same restrictions don’t apply to negative changes—like (say) massive restructuring of the entire system of world trade, radical financial deregulation, or the repurposing of a “defensive” military organization as a weapon of U.S. foreign policy, to name just a few. They end up excusing and rationalizing the most craven compromises (and even outright betrayals) with carefully-inculcated arguments about pragmatism and political feasibility and the need to lower their expectations.

As a great philosopher once said: you get what you settle for.

Trying…to…imagine…