There is a loud group of people from all over political spectrums who are obsessed with what they saw in the past. Socially-oriented groups believed that everyone was friends and fought to make a happy world from which everyone can benefit without fail–as long as they never heard about anything else happening. Business groups believed that everything was better when people were more controlled and nobody had to think about social fabrics because there was enough money to go around–ignoring how most of them would never even qualify to be rich. As someone who studies the past, all I see is that too many people maintained silos to get a clear picture of the real world. Everything was different in the past, so I would advise both extremes to stop pretending nothing has changed and step into the reality that everyone lives in now.
No, protests were not the only thing that brought the government to its knees. Social work on the ground was pivotal, from churches to community centers to boycotts. Obsessing about the attention-seeking is forgetting that building coalitions was extremely difficult, especially between people who were inclined towards distrust based on their silent endurance of constant abuse. People would refuse to show up at meetings, or arrive and start arguing until all the other attendants started leaving. Comfort is a powerful addiction that a lot of people maintain, and everyone managing discomfort is not impressed with the fear of being disliked or rejected. Nothing is going to happen until people recognize that relationship building requires trust and consistency, not showmanship and self righteousness.
Yes, people who have a lot more were accustomed to 1) giving the government more in order to function, 2) keeping employees at a comfortable level so that they would inspire more loyalty, and 3) government benefits to make up the difference. Technology has lied to everyone and said that more can always be found, regardless of the cost; now nobody is interested in working with people who lack temporal and financial boundaries. Control does not encourage people to build families and sustain communities, and gatekeeping every single opportunity is selfish. Nobody can pour from an empty cup, people who believe that nonsense are stupid, and there is no point in continuing to coddle their narcissism. If everyone throws a temper tantrum when their reality is questioned, humanity will not need to wait long before we self destruct.
Tyrants from multiple perspectives need everyone to continue believing that we have to sustain current systems because they function well, when all they really do is validate tyranny. Nobody has had enough time to truly consider anything other than imperialism because all of the moronic technoligarchs have kept everyone too busy and exhausted. In truth, it takes a lot of energy to sustain the delusions of the empire, and in the past, not enough people understood reality at the same time in the same place. Some people understood parts, others understood others, and comfortable people put their fingers in their ears and lied. Well, that time is over, and nobody is going backwards just to maintain the shallow egos of people who like to torture others for their own pleasure, and those too stubborn to acknowledge it.
Chasing A Dying Empire 