The revolution is coming...

Wow! What a crazy couple of busy weeks!!  Back in one of my undergrad sociology classes Professor Harvey J. Kaye posed the question, "If the revolution came tomorrow, what side would you be on?"  It is the eternal sociology question - How did Marx screw the pooch so badly with that whole dictatorship of the proletariat?  A posse of intellectuals like Gramsci, Thompson, and others come in to salvage the theory with hegemony, contradictory consciousness, blahbady blahhh.  So that was a pretty long-winded to get to the darn point...  The revolution may just be here; steeped in almost 400 years of race relations, a uniquely American phenomenon.

Photo Credit: Washington Times

From the Orioles COO, John Angelos transcribed from Twitter on USA Today Sports:

Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy, investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.

That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.

The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.

To use a sports analogy - this is truly a home run.  Angelos nailed it.  Meanwhile, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are kicking ass for the working class, and the political powers that be are scrambling to redefine themselves as regular people are beginning to ask some uncomfortable questions about power and income inequality.  During the Great Depression, Roosevelt saved capitalism from implosion and beat back competing philosophies gaining popularity, namely fascism and socialism.  It became a kinder and gentler capitalism complete with labor laws, a semblance of a safety net, and the birth of the concept of entitlements.  Tweaked by Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs of the 1960's, this softer flavor of capitalism has been under attack from the right since its inception.  The writing is on the wall.  Capitalism in the early 21st Century is ready for its next great transformation.  

Closer to home two major campaigns seem to be taking flight, led by regular folks of all different political stripes.  The fight for fifteen dollars an hour and the corporate testing opt-out movement are other telling examples that change is coming.  An estimated 200,000 New York students, some forced to sit and stare, skipped the ELA portion of the standardized testing in grades 3-8 and the math portion is still being tallied.  Decried as a "terrible idea" by the Washington Post, (the general argument that the sky will rain blood if such a horror was unleashed) a national movement inspired by Seattle to increase the minimum wage has sparked peaceful demonstrations and real dialog.   NYC has already crunched the numbers regarding economic impact, showing a positive spin on the increase.  So what side are you going to be on?

"Class society is not a product of nature, considerable human effort and struggle are necessary to create and maintain a system in which some people do the work, for which others derive the benefit."      --FREDERICK STIRTON WEAVER