Women's March 2018

I screwed up when I wrote this post earlier.  By mistake, I embedded a clip from last year's Women's March.  I apologize.  That said, I've heard there were at least 250 different Women's Marches over the weekend, with hundreds of thousands of total women marching.  That's lots of pink hats.  And lots of power.  So what is this all about?  It's not just about reproductive rights or our current president talking about grabbing the the pussies of women on a tape years ago.  There's a lot more going on here.  I picked this clip because AM Joy on MSNBC always has a great take on things like this.

Twenty-eight years ago, I picked up a book about economics, and I read it.  The book was called The Great Depression of 1990, by Ravi Batra.  Now I know we didn't have a great depression in 1990.  What we did have was a six year long economic lull, officially called a "double-dip recession" at the time.  I watched most of what Ravi Batra predicted happen, it just didn't happen to the depth and intensity he predicted.

In that book, Batra shared the basic ideas of a social theory by a thinker from India.  That concept is called the Law of Social Cycle by  P.R. Sarkar.  It's a deep and involved theory on how societies evolve and change.  Sarkar said there are four basic mentalities in every society, the Intellectuals, the Acquisitors, the Laborers, and the Warriors.  At any given time, one of these mentalities dominates a society, and that way of thinking shapes all of that society.  The ages that each mentality dominate can last for hundreds of years.  There's no set time period.  But the mentalities dominate in a certain order, the order listed above.  Ravi Batra applied Sarkar;s theory to the United States, and concluded that we have been in the Acquisitor, or businessmen's age, since we were English colonies.

Over time, the business people dominating society become more and more corrupt.  At the end of the Acquisitor Age, the average, working class people, the Laborers, rise up in a series of populist movements.  Things get really chaotic and crazy.  Sound familiar?  The rise of the Laborers leads to the end of the Acquisitor Age.  Unfortunately, the Laborers aren't capable of actually running society for long.  So one of two things happen.  Either the society collapses (not a good outcome), or the Warriors rise to power.  Where the Acquisitors earn their living in the world with success in business and finances (and often corruption), the Warriors earn their way using courage and physical ability.  In earlier societies, soldiers, police, firefighters, professional athletes are all examples of the Warrior mentality.  Action sports athletse, stuntmen, the more dangerous construction jobs,  and entertainment industry roadies are other aspects of the Warrior mentality in today's world.  But it's not their time... not yet.

Now is the time of the people.  Average, everyday, working people.  After reading Batra's book in late 1989/early 1990, and watching most of what he predicted actually happen, I started looking for a populist movement in the U.S.  It was a long wait, but now we're seeing it happen.  The very, very beginning of the Tea Party Movement might have been populist, but it was quickly taken over by evangelicals and Republicans within weeks.  The Occupy Wall Street movement was the first real look at the populist uprising in my opinion.  The reason that took off like wildfire was because many people across the U.S. were ready for something like that to come along.  When it did, it struck a chord.

Then came two HUGE populist movements in the 2016 election cycle.  As we all know, Billionaire Donald Trump tapped into latent anger in working class people who'd lost their manufacturing jobs years before.  He also tapped into the racist, sexist, and just plain xenophobic fears of a lot of people, mostly on the Right side of the political spectrum.  But don't forget, the Bernie Sanders' populist movement garnered just as big, often bigger, live crowds, and tremendous energy on the Left side of the political spectrum.  The 70-something social Democrat tapped into the intellectuals and the rising Millennial generation.  I keep reminding people in here in North Carolina, all those Bernie people are still out there.  We'll hear from them again.  I saw a sign in the women's march photos today that said, "Grab 'em by the midterms."  We'll see what happens this fall's election.  We might see big political changes even before that.

But the populist movement isn't just a political thing.  It's a "we average Americans are tired of being screwed over by those ruling the world" thing.  A year ago, in conjunction with Donald Trump's inauguration, we saw the massive Women's March.  In the crazy year since that movement, we've seen the #metoo Movement and the #timesup Movement both primarily female, rise.  We've also seen a huge number of young people, particularly in the Democratic party, start running for public offices up and down the ballots.  This weekend, we've seen another HUGE series of Women's Marches.  One source said there were at least 250 organized marches around the world, and it appears millions of women marched in them.  All of you women, and everyone else in these different populist movements, are part of the Laborer mentality uprising in the U.S. and much of the world.

There will be other # movements, there will be other groups rising up, and there will ultimately be a complete change in who runs our world.  And THAT really has the powers at be worried.  Personally, I've caught A LOT of shit for simply sharing these ideas.  And I've been sharing this basic idea since a zine I wrote in 1998.

This is big.  It is crazy.  And it will be chaotic.  And yes, the Trump followers AND the Sanders followers, AND the Women's March are all aspects of the larger populist uprising.  It will be chaotic for quite a while to come.  And it could all end really badly if all these aspects of populist movements continue to fight among each other.  This is a time for our highest selves and our highest ideals.  It's a time to find what common ground there is with people who may oppose much of what you believe.  It's a time to let our best selves shine.

Now you know what we're all a part of.  Where will it go from here?  That's up to us.  Let's make something amazing out of the mess we've inherited.