The time has come for a national strike and groundswell, the time is now...

For those of us on the progressive left (meaning the majority), the time has come to make ourselves heard. The majority of Americans want socialized medicine, a special commission to look into 9/11, a special prosecutor to investigate serious crimes committed by the Bush II administration, relief aid for the growing-ranks of the unemployed, deep and meaningful reforms in the financial sector and how it does business, and general restoration of New Deal controls and protections that have served the public well for over 75 years, like the Glass-Stegall Act. Who got rid of Glass-Stegall, a barrier that kept banks from running amuck? A Republican controlled Congress, blue dog Democrats, and the Clinton administration, that's who. It gave us much of the economic crisis we're inhabiting right now. The time has come to rollback these policies, the time is now to mobilize.

If those on the right really love their country as much as they say they do and wish to join us in a common cause, they need to drop their bizarre obsessions about race, immigration, and other ideological fetishes that are going nowhere fast and will never fix the problems we're facing right now. But don't think that disruption's going to be tolerated. Don't think that you're going to hijack anything, because we're wise to you and your games and your agenda. We can spot you in a moment. You won't be accepted and will be driven out, and quick. The time has come for all of us to realize that the common enemy is concentrated wealth and the abuse of it. The time has come for Americans to quit shopping at Wal-Mart (fine, get the cheap drugs there if you have to). The time has come for the return of the boycott, the general strike, and the shutting down of everything for a few days to send a political message to unaccountable power. We are that accounting, we are the government, and we are the answer to our nation's problems. Politicians cannot and will not do this, at least not without the application of incredible pressure to do so. The time has come, the time is now, and there are no more valid excuses.

Call in sick. Afraid of losing your job? When did that become a new thing? Don't buy anything for a week except the barest-of-necessities. For the love of God, quit using credit cards all the time, use cash. Don't even use checks. Make the banks scream for mercy. Keep writing, phoning, faxing, and haranguing your representatives. Educate yourself on their pasts. Give them hell, give them an earful like they've never had it before. But don't break the law and keep it as civil as possible and adhere to non-violent civil disobedience when the time comes, it's key.

The best part? For many of us, we won't have to do anything--that's actually the point: to stop engaging in negative behaviors that keep empowering the rich through what we eat, what and how we often we drive, work, and what our daily routine is comprised of. Grow a garden. Drive less, a lot less. Quit watching TV so much. Get your news from the Internet and read multiple-sources, including the foreign press. We have everything to gain by asserting ourselves in a civil manner and showing power that we're not kidding around at all.

If Congress and the President keep putting band-aids on shotgun wounds...

Yakov Smirnoff will be able to do national tours again and preface every joke with: "In America... ." What a country!

My response to a friend about our current economic crisis

Ed.--I wrote this letter today to a dear friend down in Florida who came to me through this site. Say what you want about my writing, the content here, and its tone, but being able to connect to someone like this wonderful man has made it all worth it. All the sweat, all the frustrations, all the problems caused by Jeane--it's worth it if you make one friend, make one genuine connection with another human being who cares about others.

I'd also like to take a moment to apologize and correct my statements towards the exceptional journalist, Larisa Alexandrovna. The late Ms. Palfrey conveyed information to myself and others that was a lie and sent us on a trajectory of confrontation with Ms. Alexandrovna. Had I known at the time--and I did have my suspicions--none of the comments that came afterward would have happened. I retract them in-full, here, now, and I consider it a very heavy weight lifted. Best wishes to Larisa. Contrary to certain contentions, hope really is alive, and more than ever, not since January 1981.

...The current economic crisis: I'll write in more detail later, but in-sum, Lindsey Graham is just facing reality, which is amazing for a Republican, but now there's just no choice at all. The economy isn't going to get any better shoveling money into the banks as long as the CEOs in there now are allowed to run it, they blew it, they're corrupt and cannot be reformed except through criminal investigations and their removal one way or another.

America will never be the same, we know this, and a consumer economy as existed before is now extinct, it's just not sinking-in yet. I've gotten into it HARDCORE with former High School classmates and whatnot over this. They're about to suffer psychologically more than they usually do by being business worshipping turds and wack-jobs. The fact that they ascribed godlike power to these twits is going to be their emotional and psychological downfall coupled with their obsolete notions of the "rugged individual," that you--we--are 100% responsible for your own destiny. As you know, that's a double-edged sword that's going to cut them. Remember the stories of all the morons who blamed themselves for the Great Depression, for their own fallen lots? That's coming.

This shit about "the socialists are taking over" is going to die with a few loud gasps and rattles, but the kids don't remember the Cold War, the last brew was my generation, and the government is going to be forced by circumstance to run virtually the entire economy. People are already suffering, but it's a hard call to say how the suffering will be distributed, but for those who are being foreclosed on, it will be the worst, since they have lost their jobs in most cases.

The Obama plan is just a good start, that's it. This will have to be significantly bigger than the New Deal, more like the Marshall Plan, because the entire economy of the developed world is crashing. There will be significant changes as to what constitutes "work" "productivity," and whatnot, that's not going to be the same, but work might just become much more meaningful, it can happen, but we can only get it through demands. That's part of why Obama is backing the right to collective bargaining, he understands that he must get out of the way and let the public do a lot of the "correcting," not just the federal government. The private sector won't have many solutions to offer at all, but there won't be many of them around after all of this.

Expect: General Strikes, food riots, wildcat strikes, and more. This isn't to say there will be violence against the average American by other Americans--there will be some incidents of it--but do expect buildings, individuals, and symbols of established power to be assaulted, that's coming, it's virtually assured. CEOs are now more unpopular than Congress, a real shift. This is the end of this order and the beginning of a new one, a time of incredible opportunities. Have hope, I have more now than I have had in my entire adult life. If you had asked me in 1991, I would have told you we were completely fucked. I no longer feel this way anymore, there is now hope, real hope. It won't be pleasant, it won't be easy, but it will give us a real shot at saving ourselves from ourselves. That's a pretty big deal, eh?

your friend and ally, Matt Janovic