Michael Winship of "Bill Moyers Journal" quotes from William Greider's new book "Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of our Country":  "That's No Angry Mob, It's a Movement"

As for President Obama, "I understand his political dilemma. And I sympathize with it. But he's trying to govern by convincing people that we will be able to get the old good times back. And my view is that the good times ain't comin' back.

Greider has been a great investigative reporter for over 40 years at publications like The Washington Post and Rolling Stone.  He wrote the definite book on the Federal Reserve "The Secrets of the Temple".   In other word, he knows what he's talking about.

The good times aren't coming back and that may be a good thing if "good times" mean being almost run over by a Hummer on my way across the parking lot of Mall of Murica to buy another fashion handbag. I admit that when I was quite miserable without knowing it back in the late 1980s, I spent a great deal of time on my day off roaming the aisles of designer discount stores in New Jersey.  I actually finally threw away packages of pantyhose that I still had from those excursions.  My fear of snagged hose was obsessive, now that I look back.
I kept them here in Montana because an old cowboy told me that they made really good long underwear with Wranglers.

Now I spend my day off in a cramped radio studio yapping about politics with friend and foe alike.  Then I go out to dinner and yap at friend and foe alike at the local watering hole.  I enjoy it.  It's a cheap way to spend the day  except when gasoline prices are high since I am an hour away from the studio.  On Friday nights we have a cafe that has open mike night.  Another cheap fun way to spend some free time.  The Episcopal church here has game night where people  bring their favorite board games. 

This is not to dismiss the fact that there are a lot of people who never were able to buy 20 fashion handbags and who still live in terrible poverty.  And it's not to say that I'm going to put on sackcloth and live in a cave.   But a little more equality and a little less excess might be good all the way around.  There are great thinkers out there to move these ideas along.  Greider's book "The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy" finds ways to put people ahead of profits.  "Unjust Deserts" by Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly addresses our common wealth of knowledge and how it should be distributed fairly.   A new article in "The Prospect" explores also the subjects of the creative commons and open source technology that shouldn't be privatized.  This article makes a case for once again subordinating capital to the real economy.  It addresses our over consumption and how the slow food movement and no billboards campaigns are changing "toxic capitalism".   It makes the case that capitalism must get back to where it belongs; not as a master, but as our servant.  The article also starts out with a brief history of the ebbs and flows of capitalism.  A must read. 
There is a chance we might come together to end empire and care for our planet and each other.  Greider suggests how we can start to move towards each other.  It's what I call   changing us from consumers back to citizens; from Joe and Jean Six Pack back to John and June Q. Public. 

"People at large, I don't care whether they're middle class or upper class or working poor or union, non-union, have to find ways to come together themselves, perhaps in very small groups at first, and talk about their own stuff. Their experiences, their ideas their convictions, their aspirations for the country, themselves, their families, and then broaden out a bit, laterally. And have more people in the discussion. They don't have to become a giant organization, but they have to convince themselves that they're citizens...

That's kind of the mystery of democracy. People get power if they believe they're entitled to power."

I'm going to try Greider's advice and try to come together next week at our local school board meeting when it discusses a complaint brought by a student about Bibles being handed out  with the diplomas at the graduation ceremony .  A huge mob of pro Bible people are going to show up "because the foundation of our constitution is majority rule" or so says a flier being distributed all over town urging...um...mob rule.   I have to find a way not to sound tooooo pointy headed liberal when I point out that one of the foundations of our democracy is minority protections.  And that perhaps the Puritans and the Quakers might have come to America because their minority views were not tolerated in Britain.  Then I'm going to pass out the graphic version of our constitution by  Hennessy and McConnell. Boy, if we can make any headway at that school board meeting there may be some real "hope" and "change".
(cross posted at montanamaven.com)