The actors remain motionless, and Godot never comes, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
ESTRAGON: Well, shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Yes, let’s go.
[They do not move.]
Curtain.
So ends both acts of the Samuel Beckett play “Waiting for Godot.” One of the two main characters suggests leaving, the other agrees, followed by the stage direction that both remain motionless until curtain.
This is also the entire role of the Democratic Party. To enthusiastically agree with American support for movements calling for real changes which benefit ordinary people, while making no actual moves to provide no such changes. The actors read the lines, but remain motionless.
Barack Obama made a whole political career out of this. People elected him because he promised hope and change, then for eight years whenever hopeful people demanded changes he’d say “Yes, we all need to get together and have a conversation about that,” express sympathy and give a moving speech, and then nothing would happen. The actors remain motionless, and Godot never comes.
Democratic Party leaders are currently under fire for staging a ridiculous performative display of sympathy for George Floyd by kneeling for eight minutes while wearing Kente cloth, a traditional African textile. The streets of America are filled with protesters demanding a total overhaul of the nation’s entire approach to policing.
The Democratic Party’s response is to put on a children’s play using black culture as a prop, and advance a toothless reform bill whose approach we’ve already established is worthless which will actually increase funding to police departments.
Meanwhile it’s blue states with Democratic governors and cities with Democratic mayors where the bulk of the police brutality, people are objecting to, is occurring. The Democrats are going out of their way to spin police brutality as the result of Trump’s presidency, but facts in evidence say America’s violent and increasingly militarized police force would be a problem if every seat in every office in America were blue.
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I don’t know what will happen with these protests. I don’t know if the demonstrators will get anything like the changes they are pushing for, or if their movement will be stopped in its tracks. What I do know is that if it is stopped, it will be because of Democrats and their allies.
Bloodthirsty Senator Tom Cotton recently took a break from torturing small animals in his basement to write an incendiary op-ed for The New York Times explaining to the American public why using the military to quash these protests is something that they should want. We later learned that The New York Times op-ed team had actually come up with the idea and pitched it to the senator, not the other way around, and that it was the Times itself which came up with the inflammatory headline “Send In the Troops.”
From New York Times town hall: op-ed team pitched the piece TO Tom Cotton. Not the other way around.
— Patrick Coffee (@PatrickCoffee) June 5, 2020
The op-ed understandably received severe public backlash which resulted in a senior staff member’s resignation. But if these protests end it won’t be because tyrants in the Republican Party like Donald Trump and Tom Cotton succeeded in making the case for beating them into silence with the U.S. military. It will be because liberal manipulators succeeded in co-opting and stagnating its momentum.
Watch them. Watch Democrats and their allied media and corporate institutions try to sell the public a bunch of words and a smattering of feeble, impotent legislation to mollify the masses, without ever giving the people the real changes that they actually need.
It remains to be seen if they will succeed in doing this, but they are already working on it. That is their entire purpose. It’s much easier to control a populace with false promises and empty words than with brute force, and the manipulators know it. That is the Democratic Party’s role.
It is true that there’s a difference between Democrats and Republicans, in the same sense that there’s a difference between the jab and the cross in boxing. The jab is often used to keep an opponent at bay and set up the more damaging cross, but they’re both wielded by the same boxer, and they’re both punching you in the face.
Don’t let them disguise that jab as anything other than what it is. Don’t let them keep you at bay with a bunch of impotent performances and word magic. If they have it their way, they’ll keep that jab in your face all night until the knockout punch leaves you staring up at the arena lights like it always does, wondering what the hell happened and why Godot never came.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Follow her work on Facebook, Twitter, or her website. She has a podcast and a book, “Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.”
This article was re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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This is an excellent opportunity to strike, while the iron is hot. Everyone is out of work, out of money, one step away from servitude. A good time to take the situation into your own hands . . . . . march on Washington, by the millions. We have all just seen how a bit of fear works. March, and shut the entire country down because IT ALREADY IS. Dont lose this opportunity to force change. November election?? It means nothing, there will be no real positive change with either party. Ditch them all. What do you think the founding fathers would do?? Let me put it this way, you all have nothing more to lose, do not vote, get rid of them all.
It was theatre nothing more, nothing less.
Gee I wasn’t aware that the Democrats are a monolithic party without factions with everybody mixed up in the soup of corruption-like they are all bad? Me thinks there be a certain shallowness here.
OK the DNC and especially the DLC are corrupt, what else is new; and frankly the crooked ones are more intent on keeping their jobs than preventing change, that’s just basic politics. They will do anything to keep their cushy jobs and perkes usually preventing change keeps the big donors happy and their jobs. It’s all selfishness, all transactional.
If one is going to write about the corruption do some research, to wit:
What was the role of Obama in the multi candidate drop out and Biden turn around?
Haven’t heard anything about the Clintons- the country’s all American sleaze bag power couple. Can’t believe they aren’t on the phone pulling strings, doing more damage, details, details.
Who is Perez’s handler, can’t believe he is an independent entity; he is not big enough.
Who and what are Biden’s biggest king makers? Forbes, Dec. 7, 2019 can tell you that, it is quite a list.
I can tell you who Obama’s was: Penny Pritzker(Hyatt Hotels) and the Crown Dynasty major shareholder’s of General Dynamics-we all know what they do. Details will tell what economic segment the candidate is beholden to, Biden has tended toward finance.
Most importantly, I didn’t see any mention of the Bernie crowd who are working to move the agenda to one that can actually maybe even win and maybe be a little useful. That might inform the dinosaurs that run things, the same ol’ same ol’ will just feed into Trump’s fake populism-a losing proposition just like 2016.
No mention of the six committees each with a split of Biden people and Bernie supporters who are to prepare recommendations for a platform. For example, the climate panel includes AOC and a cofounder of the Sunrise movement. Scamming AOC would be a big mistake. There are a lot of dedicated people trying to fix things; they are getting slighted and ignored by this. Gimme a break!
So I am presuming that you believe the Democratic party is reformable, and that these committees are more than just “window dressing” that will produce no meaningful change in the long run. Biden is beholden to “finance”, yet AOC is going to get us the Green New Deal because “scamming her would be a big mistake.” Gimme a break. I’ve seen this play before. Those committees exist to figure out how to put enough lipstick on a pig to fool enough voters to get a win in November, and then all their “recommendations” will be out the window. Corporate sponsored warmonger from column B is not the answer, and LEV will keep us on the road to destruction.
Sander’s has said that Biden has actually listened to him personally and can be moved, Hillary never did. Does this mean anything-evaluate? Does Biden realize he can go down in history as a mediocre corporate flunky, who has done some really bad stuff in the past ; or have an epiphany and end his career on a positive note?
What about the numerous progressive candidates for state offices that are making serious inroads in the primaries? Common Dreams has reported extensively on them. The results so far are very positive.
How about equal time for the Republicans? The false equivalency is contradicted by Mitch McConnell who has trashed the Constitution. He refused to hold hearings on Obama’s nomination to the Supremes, so we get Kavanagh. He sits on hundreds of House passed bills while fast tracking Trump’s reactionary and even legally unqualified Federal judge positions.
RBG is clinging to her job in spite of numerous cancer treatments, because she knows the Republicans would replace her with a reactionary reptile.
Of course, the major problem with such analyses is focusing on the individuals or parties; whereas the America political system was set up from the beginning to be stagnant, to frustrate change and preserve the power of the white male mercantilists, many of whom were slave owners, who created it, and their successors. It is very difficult for anyone who works in such a system not to be, as they say in the intelligence world, compromised. It goes beyond individuals back to the basic political structure.
The country’s on fire and Biden sets up “committees “.
Are you getting the big picture yet?
A note to “Holly” – Trump knows where his votes lie, and that’s why he’s not embarrassed to use a limited and repetitive vocabulary. It actually helps to indoctrinate his followers all the more. He doesn’t care what you think because you are not in his demographic.
Great points. Don’t forget, Trump got in because the alternative was Hillary. Most people saw her for what she was when she laughed and celebrated Gaddafi’s murder in front of the camera – that’s when she became unelectable. Biden is unelectable too, because the electorate see him as a dithering old fool. The Democrats are perhaps betting on sneaking in a successor via the vice-presidency without having to bother about due process – but it is going to be a huge miscalculation. Trump only needs the “hell, yea” vote. That is most of working class white America, with maybe an exception for clusters of Italians and Irish who still think the Democrats represent them. Crazy as it might sound, Trump is their best option because he is a loose canon. He won’t simply do the bidding of the GOP. His stance on China for instance, is actually bringing jobs back to America.
This heart of mine, could never see
What everybody knew but me
Just trusting you was my great sin
What can I do, you win again
– Hank Williams
Wall Street, Saudi-Israel alliance win again
But the alternative to Democratic Party candidates is Trump! Is that what this site has become? I agree that Obama did not live up to his promises but long ago I understood that my vote would go to the lesser of two evils. As a history teacher, I also understand that voting third party will elect your enemy. So get real! When you spend all those words on bashing the Democrats, you are encouraging votes for Trump and his brand of fascism.
Please read the article just published “Impartial Journalism Must Be Saved” to understand our position.
When you vote for a “lesser” evil, you condone and become evil. Voting for a peace candidate is the ONLY moral choice. Your line of thinking perpetuates a self-fulfilling prophecy of third party impossibility. So time for you to “get real”. I also think it is imperative to insist on ranked-choice voting to get us out of the two party/one war party trap. BTW, Obama had his own brand of fascism. When we are the “exceptional” nation, all others are unexceptional and their citizens expendable. Your TDS has blinded you to our real problems.
So what we are supposed to do, then, is vote for the very same evil, just enacted with a softer, gentler voice and smoother patina? And by the way, I’m a MA in History…
We change absolutely zero domestically and minus zero abroad in those countries where we gaily – apparently – bomb and missile as if there were no tomorrow (for the recipients [all brownish you’ll note], dead, injured or alive), no matter which colored face of the single party we “lesser evil” choose. Frankly pretending that there is such a thing as “lesser evil” voting when both parties behave in the same way, with different lipstick on is a tad hypocritical because all it boils down to is “we want a smiley, pleasant, charmingly spoken well educated barbarian rather than a grotesque, in your face, thicko one in charge.”
No, ta. I’d rather vote my conscience, my principles which have nowt to do with either of corporate-capitalist-imperialist-MIC adoring-barbarian faces of the same bloody (literally) party.
For a history teacher, you seem to have given up on Democracy because you hate Trump. America WORKED when people voted their conscience, NOT for a lesser of two evils. And if people did this, within 12 years a THIRD PARTY would become strong enough to make the change we want. Democracy works when people vote their conscience, by person or by platform, NOT when everyone has to figure out a strategy who to vote for because you do not have the strength to vote by conscience or the guts to build a new party OVER TIME!
Glen Ford, of the excellent BlackAgendaReport, put it well: Obama was not the lesser of two evils, he was the more effective of the two evils. It seems to work with a lot of people who can’t let go of their “liberal” perspective.
Anything goes, as long as it’s served up on a politically correct platter.
If we do not defeat Trump in November, there will be no democracy to be saved.
What happened to Russiagate? Any administration and Establishment bureaucracy which would risk nuclear war to cover their butts and their Electoral loss, and blame a dangerous but not responsible bogeyman, is the bigger evil by far.
Holly-
There is already no democracy to be saved. That is the entire point. Trump’s buffoonery is the only new element. Obama and Slick Willie had no interest in “democracy”. In fact, Democracy died on Nov. 22nd 1963. We have been entirely under the thumb of sociopathic Oligarchs since I was 7 years old, and even prior to that to a large extent. Time to “get real.” As a historian, please take the time to read “The Devil’s Chessboard” and “JFK and the Unspeakable”.
Alternative?? Do you really think this is democracy?? The only sane alternative is to NOT VOTE at all. Your vote means nothing. So forget about merely kicking this can down the road. Real change means real change. No vote en masse sends the message that there is no faith in the present political system, it as a sham, and must be replaced. Do you realize that your economy is now wrecked?? Do you not realize that you are all just one step away from slavery? It is all of your votes that has put you in this ridiculous place, where neither party has any idea what to do next.
We Greens have been telling you how this works since the 1980s. Do you believe us yet?
You are try and assisting the creation of a Potemkin Village .
.
Reminds me of a great line – “Offer a million dollars……! “. “But Sir! We don’t HAVE a million dollars.” “I said OFFER it, I didn’t say PAY it, you moron!”
Caitlin calls it!
What a show!
The jab!
Another … and another!
Here comes the fake left cross, folks …
A wild swing and an intentional miss!
Wowie zowie!
This is the run up to the biggest brawl of forever … come November … and the warmup Dem$ are whipping their Bloo Who team into line, as far too many of that team still seem less than wildly enthusiastic, even as the Great O-range Monster of the Red Hats, has flummoxed the Boss Bloo Bests mightily, with constant twittering punches and jibby jabbering jibes.
Now it’s a couple more jabs, to keep the faithful strong and the wavering off balance.
Oh, gosh! It’s the dreaded right double-cross, got to expect that, the heavy hits are taking a toll … the team looks blearily confused, leaning more than a wee bit wobbly left … no, they’ve moved to the center and righted themselves.
More jabs, now … five in a row … six …
The Maybe Baby Bloo team of Doubtfulness is staggering, backing up, they are on the ropes, trying to catch their breath, but, weakened by the unrelenting onslaught, they are … stumbling, now … almost falling …
More and more confused, they are turning their back to the pummeling …
The beat down is merciless … don’t let the kids see this …
The Bloo Party Boss is going in for the knockdown, stalking the little rank and filers …
Wait! Wait!
What is going on?
The Bloo Boss has grappled with the quarry …
It looks like …
It is, it’s a chokehold! …. and the Big Bloo Boss is shouting, “You belong to ME, suckers! I own you! You got no place to go! You OWE me!”
We have never seen it as blatant as this folks, in all the years of watching horse race polly ticks, this thorough work-over, coming after the last big battle, almost four years ago, lost because of rushing outsiders, overwhelming the gate, this current, frenzied exhibition of feints and dodges, of taunting emotional attacks and simulated solidarity, directed at those deplorably not yet “on board” with “Nothing Will Changeyness”, has whipped expectations to the absolute mind-numbing max.
Ding! Ding! Ding!!
Well, there’s the bell …
Ain’t this exciting? All the fits that’s prew to knit!
Tune in, same time, next week, folks, for the next exciting episode of Beat The Crock, brought to you by Kangaroo and the Didgeridoos. (Top tips from Down Under!)
This is Hopsalong Hyperacidity, signing off, with especially heartfelt appreciation to Deeper Do Do and the Spinning Fantasticks.
Remember: What goes around, comes around, and always, right back at ya!
DWB – The reason nowt changes, ‘cos, as tha knaws, both blues and reds are simply different colored faces of the same Janus party, the former a tad more prettified than t’other.
AnneR, true it is, just as ye say.
DW
How amazingly arrogant the elected ones have become—-Trump is all about how we are the war world—- so send in the troops, and the DNC —— send in their clowns!
I suppose tht I shouldn’t be all that surprised. The Founding ones based their idea of democracy on the ancient Greeks-maybe they
should have looked closer, because OMG, the ancient Greeks were pretty corrupt and only the upper level of Greece could vote–although I do think that we should copy one thing from ancient Greece. When Greece went to war, the people who voted for war—all went! What a great idea! We would be having fewer and fewer wars with that. I suppose it all begin sliding down for the American People when the Commons , which used to belonged to all suddenly wasn’t for all. FENCES do not always make good neighbors ! So GOP and DNC—-both parties send us CLOWNS! Get out of your clown cars and start walking with and working for ALL the People!
Oh GM Casey – If *only* those who voted for war or went along for war with the MIC-Deep State agencies had then to turn up, no matter their age and no exceptions for owt, to be handed their uniforms and weapons and sent off to the battlefields…
Eight minutes of doing nothing is a good start!
Now if they could manage to do it 24/7 we will do much better!
Very good analysis.
Where were these actors while Colin Kaepernick knelt as a sincere cry for racial justice back in 2016. Where were these phonies as the American flag was used as a diversion to Kaepernick’s desperate plea for the safety of human lives. Where were these fools as the billion dollar football industry shamed professional players for displaying a conscience. Where is Colin Kaepernick now? Shame on these opportunists. Lets hope these member of congress are nowhere near the Capital after the next election.
Good point. It shows the utter hypocrisy of our present kneelers. Maybe they should invite Colin to speak on the floor of the House if they seriously believe Black lives matter. Just like the entire Obama administration, meaningless gestures and Theater has been substituted for action. I wonder if any of them realize how stupid they looked with this performance?
Alternative?? Do you really think this is democracy?? The only sane alternative is to NOT VOTE at all. Your vote means nothing. So forget about merely kicking this can down the road. Real change means real change. No vote en masse sends the message that there is no faith in the present political system, it as a sham, and must be replaced. Do you realize that your economy is now wrecked?? Do you not realize that you are all just one step away from slavery? It is all of your votes that has put you in this ridiculous place, where neither party has any idea what to do next.
…and the solution is to (a) vote them out of office, (b) vote for the repubs, (c) vote for third party, (d) don’t vote, (e) general strike and continuous demonstrations? My answer is both d and e. How about you?
Option c) is enjoyable: you can vote your conscience, and every vote raises the blood pressure, ever so slightly, of the two-party hacks. If the third party vote reaches 20%, steam will come out of their ears.
Nailed it. demodogs love to get out in front of the parade then slowly take control of the message to kill the movement. They apply this to everything they do so to not upset their puppet masters..
Bingo !
The Democratic Party hasn’t done one substantive thing for the masses since Medicare c. 1966.
The destruction of unions and the labor movement is one of the prime reasons we’re in this mess. Strong unions means the Democratic Party would have a wing of populist firebrands with moxie and muscle, voicing objections in Washington, advocating for progressive reforms, pounding the table, attacking Wall Street and big money, and most imporantly — delivering substantive tangible benefits to the people every few years!! The labor movement would have cultivated these public speakers and activist politicians who had boatloads of chutzpah, instead what we’re left with is a slickie boy Wall St hustler like Obama.
Right on!
Pushing the nonexistent “agree” button.
See also my comment in which I recommend reading Thomas Frank’s “Listen, Liberal” for a really great tour of the downfall of the Dem Party, very well documented, and a pleasure to read.
It was not only labor that the “new” Dems under Clinton sucker-punched. They made a practice of demonstrating to Wall Street, the NYT, and other “liberal” entities (ha ha sob) and pundits that they were happy and willing to deny, Judas-like, and actually to attack their traditional constituencies, the source of the their original power and their raison d’etre since the thirties.
Now what one sees coming to the fore is the longer history of the damned Dems, that of cravenness compromise to the Jim Crow South and to other atavistic powers such as the National Security State, the MIC, the prisons-for-profit complex, and other such horrors.
It is like we’re seeing that this leopard-party can’t really changes its spots.
There is no reason and really no justification for giving one’s vote to this Democratic Party.
DH – Oh so true, oh so dreadfully true – just like the so-called “Labour Party” in the UK. The 1980s really did a job on *any* chance for the ordinary poor and working classes, and their interests being truly represented in the halls of power, via the Friedman-ism and Hayak-ism of Thatcher and her sidekick Reagan, in the US and UK and also in any country of the former Third World that sought to carve its own path along the lines of say Cuba (as is said over the pond, “f*** that for a lark”).
Spot on as usual Caitlin!
For chapter and verse, and very witty commentary, on how the Democratic Party became the party that destroyed the (1) the working class, (2) the poor in America and especially their children, and (3) now, the middle class is available, see:
“Listen, Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?”, by Thomas Frank.
Caitlin, I urge you to read it. Also, the notes, which are thorough and informative in themselves.
All the answers to the questions you pose are there. The true rot starts with Bill Clinton and the DLC, which he headed. Or course Hillary was there with him the whole time. Mouthing one set of platitudes for the public (“I feel your pain”) and conspiring with Republicans and other Democrats to push and pass legislation that inexorably destroyed huge swaths of the USA: NAFTA; repeal of Glass-Steagall; welfare “reform”; three-strikes legislation; creation of prisons for profit (Biden was big in this); introduction of almost 100 new crimes with mandatory minimum sentencing; and more.
Then we move on to “hope and change” Obama (with his sidekick, Larry Summers): bailout of banks, not of citizens; health care “reform” written by Repugs; more foreign adventures in Libya, Afghanistan, etc. and more deaths and maimings of American servicepeople; and on and on. And all the while a concerted effort to ignore the white working class and to accuse any white who didn’t like this crappy new deal and loss of livelihood and dignity as a racist. Since I first voted in 1968, as a registered Dem, I have been along for this ride since the beginning and I recall only too clearly my horror—after feeling with Clinton’s win in 1992 that we were finally getting off the awful post-assassination “detour”— at hearing of all of these new destructive, unfair, “Democratic” initiatives in the 1990s and at their actually being passed.
As Frank remarks, voting for Trump was the working class’s richly deserved payback to the Clintons for decades of policies that punished America’s 99% both directly (targeted) and indirectly. As he puts it, with Trump leading the Repugs and, for the first time, talking about the hits the working class had taken under the Dems, bad trade deals, etc., suddenly there *was* “someplace else to go” for previous Dem voters. It should have been no surprise that working-class white and also many blacks and women went there.
But the Dems still insist that they occupy the moral “liberal” high ground, with absolutely no foundation for doing so except for empty identitarianist bromides and silliness such as the kneeling show. Now, the Floyd killing is being used to further deflect attention from the Dems’ catastrophic record regarding the WHOLE American 99%, white and minority, men and women.
Trump makes it easy to blame the whole mess on him. But the Dems, with their decades of betrayal of the American people and kicking their constituents in the gut, brought us Trump.
The complacent Dem self-righteousness jacks up the puke index that much more.
The rot started long before Clinton. In the 1944 election the DNC replaced FDR’s highly popular socialist VP Henry Wallace with Truman. At the convention party leaders closed the voting immediately after Wallace won resoundingly without confirming him. Furious politicking, bribery, and delegate lockouts over the next several days finally resulted in a Truman win and his immediate confirmation as the VP candidate.
FDR’s rapidly deteriorating health made it clear that the VP would be the next president. The DNC, firmly in the hands of corporate industrialists, insured that the VP was compliant with their program. Truman was a failed businessman, not particularly intelligent, and the perfect puppet. You can thank him and the DNC for the Cold War.
Bravo!
Keep watching, thinking and writing.
Truth succeeds.
I agree on what the Democrat Party is and does.
However, I’d shift the focus to the money behind it.
The forces resisting change are what FDR called the moneyed interests. They’ve got the money, and their whole priority is to keep it.
They realized that they could buy up the only “alternative” to themselves, and prevent there from being anybody at all willing to be a real alternative. They do. That is for example what Biden has always been, the Senator from money based in the corporate and banking HQ’s of Delaware. Hence is sponsorship of the anti-consumer laws such as his bankruptcy bill.
The Democratic Party is the only place that could be a political home for reformers. It once was. It might be again. But first, money would need to be disempowered.
Caitlin, the real magic show is the diversion that COVID-19 and now the State murder of George Floyd has caused. There is nothing in the news of the US’s ‘Endless’, also murderous, Wars; and, the silent absence of any discussion of Human Caused Climate Change caused primarily by the enrichment of fossil fuel barons and the industrial meat industry. Wearing masks in public will not protect one from nuclear fall out, bullets or Climate Change!
Indeed.
But it’s the money-rotted political system that brings the result.
And given a Supreme Court ruling that money is free speech and a Congress that’s never has had any will to change the role of money or lobbies in politics, I’m afraid you are stuck with what you have.
There is another well-known Twentieth Century play, “No Exit.”
And that title sums up the American very real situation.