Transform the System Dialog

Input

 Tom Ferguson:

The "system" is that arrangement where a class of people, the 1% for short, and their enabler-servants, endeavor to insure and expand privilege, profits and power for that 1%, rewarding those who do this work and marginalizing those who don't or won't and punishing those who oppose or attempt alternative systems.

To transform this system requires opposition, gaining political power to overrule the current overseers. That probably requires cultivation of consciousness "as we go" so that were we to succeed we wouldn't be replacing one system of oppression with another. All this requires incredible organization, dedication and commitment, to both personal and societal transformation.

The reason this transformation is necessary is that the current paradigm is unsustainable, will very likely lead to extinction of our species either the fast way via nuclear holocaust or the slower way via climate change and pollution of air, soil, water along with the related issue of over-population.

My strategy is to do that cultivating of consciousness along with activism which for me is blogging, performing political and self-reflective music, attending demonstrations, speaking out... and being in the world as present as I can be.

COMMENTS

Wade Lee Hudson: Thanks much for your eloquent input, Tom. Who are “their enabler-servants”?

TF: i meant by enabler-servants those who serve the 1% either for profit, like rush limbo, bought senators etc; or ideologues who think somehow that their interests are aligned with the preferences of the 1%, like opposing regulation for example, profitable, short-term, for the 1% but actually harmful to the rest of us.

WLH: Do you blame the 1% for the state of our nation/world?

TF: The 1% have way disproportionate influence on what happens in government, media and other institutions. I don't "blame" them, I simply recognize that disproportionate influence as a serious obstacle to addressing the crisis we face.

WLH: Thanks. Your comment prompted me to amend my answer to read: “No one group controls the System, but elites with great wealth and power exercise disproportionate influence over the government and the economy for their own short-term interests.” The underscored passage is new.

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