Friday, June 4, 2010

Being Empowered

Ain't no power like the power of the people, 'cause the power of the people don't stop! Say what? Ain't no power like the power of the people 'cause the power of the people don't stop! Power to people. Power to the people. Power to the people. Power to the people.

Right on!

21 comments:

Opaque said...

Amen to this! I have been a big fan of John Lennon.

zorro said...

The people who feel the most empowered these days are the people in the Tea Party. Even though I'm over 30, I say don't trust anyone over 30 (except the two Obamas) . Heres a NY time column explaining this idea. I've thought it true for a while now.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/save-us-millennials/

Judith Ellis said...

YES!

Judith Ellis said...

Zorro - Empowerment is not merely screaming and making noise. Empowerment is uplifting. There is nothing uplifting about a bunch of nearly all elderly and middle-age white men and women, who have tired out as time progressed from merely standing and shouting, using hate speech to make mute points as the Tax Already Tea Party are hypocrites. A large percentage is on some kind of federal government assistance they rail about, not to mention that 97 percent of Americans got tax breaks last year. This is the largest tax break since the 1950s. Thanks for the article. I will read it and probably have something to say about it, as is typical. :-)

JOHN O'LEARY said...

As a HUGE Lennon fan I never cared much for his political sloganeering, but at least his heart was in the right place. The fact that the Nixon administration was so hell bent on keeping Lennon from getting US citizenship shows how much a threat he was to reactionary forces. (Even Elvis joined the anti-Lennon cause.)

Yeah, the Millennials have bypassed a lot of the cultural conditioning the rest of us were exposed to, which is probably a good thing.

zorro said...

I'd bet that people in the Tea Party feel uplifted when they go to rallies. Remember, they believe they are fighting for people like themselves. They even say stuff like 'we are going to take our country back" which sounds like an uplifting notion if you dismiss what the actually mean. Of course what they actually mean is 'we want white people in charge again'.

On the positive side, it appears the ideas the baby boomers were supposed to believe in somehow were absorbed by their kids.

Judith Ellis said...

I didn't know that about the Nixon administration, John. I think it's interesting that you chose the world sloganeering which seems to imply that his intentions were less than pure. Is this you thought?

Judith Ellis said...

Inspiration, Zorro, means nothing in and of itself if it is not projected outwardly and the masses are in impacted positively as in the movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony etc. The KKK found their movement uplifting and inspiring but did it have a positive impact of mankind? I think not. Your point is spot on about who the Tea Party advocates for and no one is blind to this except those who choose to be. In a country like America it is not by accident that the movement is nearly 99 percent white.

zorro said...

All I'm saying is even jerks with terrible causes can feel empowered.

Judith Ellis said...

True that, Zorro. "All we are saying, give peace a chance." :-)

zorro said...

Actually, what I wish people who voted for Obama would do is shut up and salute the guy. Let him do his job. So, that is sort of the opposite of empowerment.
Charlie Crist was interviewed this morning and that is about what he said. He said that Obama has a difficult job to do and if we just argue with each other over everything that takes place, nothing will get done. I don't think I've heard anyone say that.

Judith Ellis said...

Zorro - I largely agree. We most certainly have to speak judiciously, knowing when and how to do so. But the whining by the left, as I wrote in another recent post, is getting on my very last nerve. We can expect the crying foul from the right, but their obstructionism seems to have reached a new level, not to mention their mean-spirited words and nearly seditious speeches.

JOHN O'LEARY said...

Personally, I'm trimming back on my TV news consumption at the moment because I'm tired of of the all carping about Obama's serenity!

My criticism of Lennon (and keep in mind that he's my guy) is that despite being one of the most innovative and iconoclastic songwriters of the 20th century he would become surprisingly lazy - musically & intellectually - when he ventured into the political realm. "Give Peace a Chance" for instance didn't seem to take into account the lack of peace or tolerance for others' points of view that was a cancer in the "peace" movement—which I witnessed first-hand in the 60s. (This might require a book on my part to explain.) Likewise "Power to the People" invites too many questions that can't be answered in a cliche-ridden mantra. (Who DOESN'T think of themselves as "the people"? Even my brother - former bank CEO - sees himself as one of the common folk.) I wouldn't be surprised if some Tea Partiers have adopted this slogan. Fortunately later in life Lennon came to regret a lot of his earlier "pamphleteering." But in answer to your question, Judith, I wouldn't question the purity of Lennon's intentions. (The way I see it, such purity of intention - in artists or leaders - is important and necessary, but insufficient.)

Just to pull these two threads together...I'm confident JWL - if alive today - would support Obama as I once argued on my blog.

zorro said...

Bob Dylan endorsed Obama and it was the first presidential candidate he ever endorsed

Judith Ellis said...

Thank you, John. Let me respond to your comment in this manner so I will be clear:

"Power to the People" invites too many questions that can't be answered in a cliche-ridden mantra. (Who DOESN'T think of themselves as "the people"? Even my brother - former bank CEO - sees himself as one of the common folk.)"

Yeah, I think this is a stretch to say the very least. We all know that "Power to the People" implies that power should also be given to the powerless and not just the powerful.

"I wouldn't be surprised if some Tea Partiers have adopted this slogan."

We can't argue with how a person's feels but we can most certainly dispute what they say. The TEA Party's premise is that they have been Taxed Enough Already. The reality is that 97 percent of Americans got TAX Breaks last year, the lowest in 50 years. So, there sense of feeling powerless in this regard is baseless, their feeling aside.

"(The way I see it, such purity of intention - in artists or leaders - is important and necessary, but insufficient.)"

I think this statement is a bit far-fetched too as it would include the likes of Marlon Brandon, Fannie Lou Hammer, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Stevie Wonder, Charleston Heston, Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin and Dr. King, himself.

"'Give Peace a Chance' for instance didn't seem to take into account the lack of peace or tolerance for others' points of view that was a cancer in the 'peace' movement"

The message seems simple enough to me. What would be the counter to peace? War, right? For me, the very words infer an acceptance of possibility. I think there is the "All we are saying" bit too, no? I, for one, do not expect all songs or movements to be perfect, nor do I judge the intention of every leader or artist. The question is what are they doing, and what are the accomplishing to what end?

What can't be discredited is the change this movement brought on many fronts including civil rights for African Americans and women, and it undoubtedly assisted in ending the war--all great things.

Judith Ellis said...

Zorro - I LOVED Bob Dylan for years. Who doesn't? By the way, Tom Peters endorsed Obama too. He hadn't publicly ever done so also. Feel free not to respond. :-)

zorro said...

Follow who he endorses and then look at what his actual positions are. He dumped on Obama in march 2009 when the stock market was dropping - he said Obama needed to act more like Reagan - (since that time the market has risen by 70%, but I've seen no comment about that)- he constantly refers to Noonan editorials - like the health care editorial that implied National health care would bring in too much government control with very dark implications. He has proposed a solution to the energy problem of only letting half the Bush tax cuts expire - . Why in the heck did he stick up for Carly Fiorina? And his attitude to off shoring is about as far right as one can get. I think the man is confused as to what his politics actually are.

JOHN O'LEARY said...

Hi Judith,

I only have time at the moment to comment briefly...

"We all know that "Power to the People" implies that power should also be given to the powerless and not just the powerful."

That's probably true, but powerlessness means VERY different things to different people. Most people I run across in everyday life FEEL powerless - Democrats, Republicans, whatever. (Otherwise why don't most people vote?) If you surveyed the population you can be sure the vast majority would say that "the people" should have power. But they think "the people" are folks just like them - regardless of income level. That's why Power to the People is so ambiguous. (Slogans - and imprecise language in general - conceal more than they reveal - which is why political soundbites can be so insidious.)

Re perceptions...rather than discount ones we don't agree with, we need to understand them, and then offer alternative views. (This I believe is Obama's philosophy.) But if public perceptions are not shifted we'll have a Republican congress in 2011 - and a deadlocked government.

Re purity of intention, that's just the beginning of change. Without the ability to turn intention into reality, it's just talk. The names you mentioned are folks who were able to DELIVER.

Of course it's hard to define who or what the peace movement was, but the folks driving it on the campuses in the 60s (like SDS) were all too willing to use violence to accomplish their ends, which only helped get Nixon elected in 1968 (who of course escalated the war). Later there was a confluence of forces and events which, fortunately, turned the larger public against the war. (BTW, I don't equate the anti-war movement with the civil rights movement, but that's another subject. The latter in my opinion was an unqualified success!)

Gotta run...more later!

zorro said...

This might be the real story in the primary elections.
Proposition 14 in California would have a single primary for all - the top two vote getters run in the fall - regardless of party. It might be the eventual end of the two party system. Republicans could no longer win a primary by appealing to the right and the democrats could no longer win by appealing to the left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_14_(2010)

Judith Ellis said...

Zorro - It all means nothing really when Michael Bloomberg can give some $100 million of his own money to win and Meg Whitman who spent some $80 million. If California really wanted to implement change that matters they would begin with campaign finance laws? Well, we know why. The whole idea here seems to not enable the candidates to be better heard so the people can better choose, in fact, this law lessens that. It is so he or she with the most money wins without a primary. In some sense it doesn't really matter because the spending is just out of control, not to mention the Supreme Court's unjust decision.

JOHN O'LEARY said...

Oops, I stayed away longer than intended. Anyway, you got my point.

What is driving me CRAZY these days is that the gravamen of Obama's message last night - re our dependency on oil - was delivered by Jimmy Carter in the 70s - and to a lesser extent by even Nixon & Ford! It was all hooted down by the oil lobby and Ronald (don't-worry-be-happy, there-are-no-limits) Reagan. The entire shape of our foreign policy (especially in the Mideast) would be different now had we heeded the call then.