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“We are living in a land in which corporate power buys as many politicians as it needs, unjust laws shovel money to the rich, and media substitute entertainment for information. Yet Bruce Levine dares to show how we can reclaim our deadened souls, regain integrity and passion, and begin to change a political system we have let numb us into resigned helplessness.” —Rev. Davidson Loehr, author of America, Fascism, and God
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Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite
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8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the U.S. Crushed Youth Resistance
Described in Chelsea Green Publishing
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Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose recent US wars and Wall Street bailouts, yet most remain passive and appear resigned to powerlessness. In Get Up, Stand Up, Bruce Levine offers an original and convincing explanation for this passivity. Many Americans are deeply demoralized by decades of oppressive elitism, and they have lost confidence that genuine democracy is possible. Drawing on phenomena such as learned helplessness, the abuse syndrome, and other psychological principles and techniques for pacifying a population, Levine explains how major US institutions have created fatalism. When such fatalism and defeatism set in, truths about social and economic injustices are not enough to set people free.
However, the situation is not truly hopeless. History tells us that for democratic movements to get off the ground, individuals must recover self-respect, and a people must regain collective confidence that they can succeed at eliminating top-down controls. Get Up, Stand Up describes how we can recover dignity, confidence, and the energy to do battle. That achievement fills in the missing piece that, until now, has undermined so many efforts to energize genuine democracy.
Chelsea Green Publishing <http://www.chelseagreen.com/>: Bringing the politics and practice of sustainable living to the world
Related:
8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the U.S. Crushed Youth Resistance, Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.
Rise Up Times 
Reblogged this on Spartan of Truth.
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