The Cactus Politics

A Call To Activists, Progressives, And Libertarians

You live in a system of power And you are not powerful You live in a system where there is a powerful minority with capacity and choice and agency And you have no capacity and you have no voice and you have no agency Socialism, communism, capitalism, fascism They are only words There is only the powerful and the powerless. And you are powerless Oh you have the capacity to choose, this product or that product And there is no end stream of benign trash for you to choose form You have the choice to work or you have the choice to live in poverty And you also have the choice to die in the gutter What if you’re a woman and you want equal pay That’s not sexism it’s the powerful over the powerless What if you are a member of a minority social group fleeing persecution? That’s not xenophobia that’s the powerful over the powerless You are told that your opinion matters and there is no end of places you can scream At the top of your lungs I want a free society And you will find people that agree with you But you are powerless, that’s why change never comes Why do politicians and media elites fan the flames of fear ever so gently? Why is there always the threat of foreigners and gays and terrorist and China? Hate and suspicion is the method of control Fear is what divides us Foreigners are the reason you can’t find work Not a system that Is becoming more automated and efficient every year And the lack of political will to face a future that requires less physical labour The economy is the issue that’s why we can’t pay you a fair wage The terrorists are out there that’s why you have no right to privacy That’s the message of fear and it’s universal If you have 2 nation states with a minority political class of powerful people Then it is in there interest to be in conflict Because that conflict justifies there power over their own populations Then they can say look at these people, they are different to you They hate you That’s why we need more guns that’s why we need more bombs That’s why we need grater power There is another way – it is possible And it starts with an ending An end to the rhetorical debate about Socialism and capitalism and sexism and homophobia And a beginning to the discussion on who has power And ask yourself – are you one of them. Why do we hate and why are we afraid? That is the defining question of our time

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