St. Augustine Record Letter: Corrupt Power Structures Must Change!

Letter: Old power structure has to change, says protesters

Posted: December 16, 2011 - 12:20am

By Allan Marcil

St. Augustine

Editor: If we have been paying attention, we can’t ignore the current wave of protest and revolution sweeping the world. The Arab Spring, the various versions of Occupy Wall Street and now, with the Russian people taking to the streets protesting their corrupt elections, there is a common root to all of this. The people are rising up against the oligarchy and its plutocrats everywhere, protesting the concentration of wealth and power that has for too long been in the hands of a very few.

The old political systems are stagnant, moribund and corrupted. Capitalism has been perverted into an Ayn Randian objectivist disease where a very few extort obscene fortunes, usually by betting on failure, out of a decaying system where stability is rocked by the endless corporate implosions. Lehman Brothers, AIG, General Motors, and the latest arrival — American Airlines are just a few of the capitalist giants that have recently failed.

Socialism, at least in this country, will never gain traction because the Right has irrevocably demonized it. And socialism world-wide is also crumbling as a viable socio-economic system because of impossible ideals, increasing populations and egregious mismanagement by shortsighted governments. Communism? It only worked when it was imposed by dictatorial totalitarianism. And, then, it collapsed under its own preposterous weight.

Nationally, we are seeing the irreconcilable tensions and dysfunctionality of the two-party system. Not since the 1960s has the world revolted against the power structure to the degree we are currently witnessing. And at their core, these protests share a common voice: the old power structure, politically, economically and socially, has to change. The decrepit systems we’ve been living under no longer work. It is time to re-evaluate how we function as a body politic. It is time to evolve and find common cause. Maybe these protests can catalyze a new way of thinking about how we are all going to live on this planet.