There was great liberal excitement around the students speaking out for gun control following the latest school shootings. It was declared that "millenials were waking up!" and demanding action at long last. Demanding accountability from their elected representatives. Demanding sanity (following John Stewart). Surely this time, tragedy could be a catalyst for real change.
Not. The mercurial Jester Presidente deflected action by madly dancing around the issue long enough for the media to go to the next news cycle. Congress played its role by parsing terms and dissembling the issue into smaller Spectacles. The bodies are buried and the passionate students who marched and waved signs and gave emotional speeches hopefully learned a basic lesson in capitalist democracy. Because liberals wont.
The smart money invests in school security businesses.
"It's sundown for the union" wrote B Dylan some time ago but the Janus decision will be much more than that. It will be the long awaited victory dance for Capital celebrating not just Occupy and Wisconsin and Citizens United but now, at long last, Right to Work. Some on the Left are trying to spin this as the beginning of a new bottom-up union militancy and we may see more localized struggles such as the West Virginia school teachers. But the question is: what will they have learned from history? What language will they embrace now that they have little left to lose? What will the response be from the DSA? Will "progressives" begin to question their long cherished theory of change or will they drag Bill Moyers out of retirement?
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