Wednesday, October 26, 2011

It was 2011


The year was 2011. There was the Arab Spring; Wisconsin resistance to cuts in the public sector, rebellion on the streets of Spain, Britain, Italy and Greece. Occupy Wall Street challenging the greed of corporate investors.  The certainty of an anti-bureaucratic revolution was sweeping across the world.  Taking on the extremely autocratic corporate capitalism of the transnational conglomerates called Wall Street for short.  The omnipresent global financial institutions i.e. International Monetary Fund for example were being directly being defied. The public sector was becoming the democratic domain of the people being served. Public employees Unions was becoming increasingly more militant at the rank and file level. Public school teachers and parents wanted their basic services met democratically and directly and not through some mystical fantasy called a self -regulating market. Food, medical care, housing and education were being seen as basic human rights and not market investments for a profit.  Civil rights, client rights, community advocacy groups demanded that the social services meet the needs of real people and be under democratic supervision and not under the control of a big government afraid of going up against the private sector’s highly agglomerated and consolidated colossal bureaucracies. Actions on the streets were examples of participatory democracy or direct democracy. Also Washington’s foreign policy was being called into question. Asking the US government to give up dreams the of being the only remaining super power and join the community of nations, not the first among equals but an equal within the community of equals. The year 2011 was and is exciting times to be alive.

Michael Joseph Francisconi

96 Fern Lane
Dillon, Montana

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