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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Gay Marriage, Racism, Giant Corporate Interest – the Fight Against Injustice



Statistics on gays and lesbians in the US form a very small percentage of the total population. Yet look what they achieve, in spite of the huge and inhuman resistance to them. Treated like animals, spurned by society, laughed at, mocked, hated. Gay politicians fight courageously and are shot for it, like Harvey Milk. That doesn’t stop others from taking up the cause. Brave people. Determined people.

What about African Americans? How hard did they have to fight against crippled minds and psychopathic power?  How many sacrifices did they make, never knowing whether they could succeed or not? How many women and children were raped, never receiving justice, just more of the same? But they didn’t give up.

And now, the right for gays and lesbians to marry is gaining momentum. They will succeed. And although the conservative, intolerant white mentality that supported the KKK and slavery lingers on, sometimes in the most alarming places, despite the racism that underpins all conservative politics in the US, Barack Obama is a twice-elected president.

It only happened because enough people said “it’s enough” while they were demoralized and destitute of spirit; excluded from mainstream society and the benefits that those who are included take for granted. The hardest fight of all. People say it’s easiest to fight when you’ve got nothing to lose. That’s because they’ve never been there. When all you can hold onto is something so minimal it’s invisible to others it’s more precious to you than anything else in the world. To fight knowing you may have to give that up isn’t easy. It crucifies you. But they did it.

How many people, I wonder, have been hurt by the banking crisis? How many lives have been destroyed by the hold giant corporations have on politics? How many people maimed, tortured, killed, because of the power of the military industrial complex?

How many people think banks and bankers should be punished for their crimes and forced to pay where it hurts? I'm sure it's a greater percentage than that of any minority that has fought for its rights and succeeded. Yet Americans seem to remain powerless. Why? Because they don't care enough to actually band together as one and fight and never give up? Because hardliner conservatives continue to be voted into Congress? Because they all use the banks and corporations that are busy destroying them?

It's not just the US, it's western society. Banks and big corporations control the world. But they’re run by people. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. It's time for a world revolution of a completely different sort. No guns, no violence. Just intelligence (as in thinking for ourselves and not letting ourselves be conned by politicians) and persistence. 

Maybe it’s already begun. At the beginning of the fight for gays and lesbians; in the days of slavery and the KKK, it probably looked as though nobody was fighting. But they were. It was just the beginning. It always starts as something internal. That’s where we are with the control that banks and giant corporate interest has over most of us. We're angry, we know it's happening. Pockets of active resistance flare up. We haven't banded together yet but our revolution will gain momentum. Revolutions always do.