Recently, the most popular discussion thread on Reddit was “Why don’t people in America protest like they should?“
with 27k views and 5k comments. The commenters gave plenty of reasons for not protesting individually in spite of having every reason to do so. But what’s missing is an overall appreciation for the fact that now all protest within both North America and the Western European Peninsula is altogether futile.
There are some surface reasons. On the Western European Peninsula, the most obvious reason is that it’s the wrong place to protest, since the entire place is now run from Washington and the local leaders are now mere placeholders, compliant and disposable. In turn, protest in Washington is futile because the visible public figures against whom one might protest are not the ones in charge: John Kennedy was none too eager to get into a full-on war in Vietnam and got shot; Bill Clinton was none too eager to bomb Yugoslavia into submission and got Lewinskied. Same goes for the Europeans: Dominique Strauss-Kahn had some independent-minded ideas about the euro and got falsely accused and arrested for molesting a hotel maid; eventually, the case was dropped, but by then his reputation and his career were already ruined.
And who is really in charge? Well, you deserve to be punished just for asking the question! Those who know, know. Those who don’t, don’t need to. It was over 40 years ago that I had the following realization: “America is not a country; America is a country club.” Membership has its privileges. Non-members get to pick up lost golf balls or serve martinis or give massages; they certainly don’t get to tell the club management what to do!
None of the reasons for not protesting given by the Reddit readers went as far as identifying the root cause, and I would like to fill that gap.
ClubOrlov 