Where's the Outrage?

“Years ago, there was a theory on the American left that someone – maybe it was me – termed Worsism: the worse things get, the more likely people will be to rise up and demand their rights. But in America, at least, the worse things get, the harder it becomes to even imagine any kind of resistance.”

That’s Barbara Ehrenreich, writing in the May issue of the Progressive. I post it on the Balcony because I have wondered of late why Americans appear so passive these days. Consider what we tolerate. An illegal and costly foreign invasion/occupation, government intrusion into our private communications, tax policies that favor corporations and shareholders over working people, a healthcare system that leaves millions uninsured, stagnant wages, environmental degradation, outright government corruption, and so on and so on with hardly a whimper of protest.

Why are we not in the streets demanding our rights as human beings? Why are we not out there demanding fairness and equity? Why are we not on the avenue demanding that our president be impeached?

The only folks with any fire in their guts are Latinos, immigrants, who flooded the streets and walked off public school campuses to protest a House bill on immigration. Good for them. Perhaps the rest of us can learn something about organizing from our Latino friends and neighbors.

Why are Americans so passive? Is it because we are distracted by consumer culture, the endless accumulation of goods; by the fact that many in the working class need two jobs to stay there; by mass media that rarely report stories that matter to us. I suppose the answer is a combination of all these factors.

In the Labor movement (what remains of it) we are often reminded that power concedes nothing without a demand. Demand implies action, organization, focus. People often ask me why I donate time and energy to my labor union, and I think the simple answer is that I recognize that power in this country has shifted too far in favor of Capital over Labor, of moneyed interests over human interests, of the powerful over the powerless. Working people deserve better, and our country as a whole can do much better.

But until we show the powerful that we are fed up to the point where we refuse to lay down and take it any more, they will continue to drive us down, and out.