A New Generation Party? I Can Feel the Trembling of Change…by Robert M. Katzman
This is an exception for me.
I really never write about politics, economics or the whole circus.
I guess I don’t feel smart enough, or think who gives a damn what I think and other self-deprecating emotions. When Rick Munden asked me to write this blog with him, four years ago, I figured he had some political thoughts to express and I’d write poetry and non-fiction stories.Â
 But now is now and I feel like there’s something to say from a guy on the edges, who watches the crowds.  I’m a Jew and Jews tend to get run over in the juggernaut of massive political change.
We are and have been the “Canaries in the Mine” of political & social change. The Canaries never fare well. So, yes, I’m beginning to feel the first sense of fear that the ground is shifting.
So, here is how I, one person from a very old and despised people who have traveled the world for millennia seeking refuge from chaos and murder…see what is happening all at once:  Â
This is an amazingly slow motion crashing together of continents. Maybe nothing will come of it and cold weather will kill it.Â
Or, just possibly, it is something big, very big, which will crush the ignorance and prejudice of the Tea Party mentality in America  and squeeze out the nationwide selfishness that allow the truly wealthy to disregard the crushing misery of the poor. No one ever really recognizes the triggers of social change until after they’ve been pulled.
When the rich begin to experience fear–especially in this country–and there is no safe harbor for them anywhere in the world, all they can do is throw money at the poor and plead with them to stay away. This isn’t a Hooverville in the Great Depression. Too many smart people far too well-connected all over the world.Â
Truly the whole world is watching. I think what’s happening is unsurpressable.
It’s the slow rise of a socio-economic political movement, that transcends all the usual divisions of race, age, gender, education, economics and religion. A New Generation Party. I made up this name, but it is not just an American Party. It seems to me to be trans-national.  No one can control it and that creates fear in the people who feel they can control whatever comes along.  This time, the panic will be on the Right.Â
When the women rise up and refuse to allow themselves to be controlled by other’s religions, refuse to accept being paid as if they are lesser beings and when they become fully half of the United States Congress, instead of being treated as a delicate submissive minority when in fact, they are the majority, America’s priorities will change.  Who could stop them?
God help the man who tries to suppress or harm my three strong-willed daughters. I raised them all to bite back, and bite back hard.   I respect and admire their mother, and they know it.
When Rome fell, so did the rich, but the state of the poor remained the same. Utter darkness. This has to be a better way. I don’t want the terrible past to be a model for a terrible future.
If this movement somehow connects with the North African revolutions, and tiny Israel realizing that Palestine’s time has come, and the poor in America no longer accepting that no insurance and no work and cynical financial manipulation are acceptable social conditions for the powerless underclasses, and the instability in Western Europe that can and has toppled governments there, with the rise of the middle class in China who want to control there own lives, finally, well, “Occupy Wall Street” is too big to stop or control and change is on the horizon.
Why bring up microscopic Israel?
Without America behind it, Israel can’t survive on its own. If America sneezes, Israel dies.  I see the possibility of real peace between such similar peoples. But Israel needs to be wiser and better led. Israel’s six million people would best find an earthly resolution to its difference with both Palestine and the other one billion Arabs surrounding it, and not depend on divine intervention.  Historically, that hasn’t worked out well in the Jews’ favor.   Â
I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’m in the history business. This is not the Sixties, and it’s not “Sex & Drugs & Rock n’ Roll”.
This just may possibly be a tsunami of social change.
The rich will discover to their horror–if it continues–what happens when they can’t buy off the whole world.
Brace yourselves.
Robert M. Katzman
(I usually haven’t added my other life to my signature. Seems like I should this time, and let my two lives join together, for the sake of honesty.   I see the rise and fall of governments past on the walls of my Chicago-area’s store’s old newspapers every single day. To me, change is not some romantic fantasy. It’s history.)                                                                                           Â
About the writer and his other life in Skokie, Illinois:
Twitter: @MagazineMuseum
Bob Katzman’s Magazine Museum: 100,000 periodicals back to 1576!
Wall of Rock: 50 years of cool Rock periodicals on display & for sale
4906 Oakton St. (8000 north and 4900 west) Skokie, Ill 60077
(847)677-9444 Mon-Fri: 10 am to 5 pm / Weekends: 10 am to 2 pm
Katzman’s Publishing Company site: www.FightingWordsPubco.com
Katzman’s online non-fiction stories: www.DifferentSlants.com
Poetry? For me, writing poetry is not an option.
It’s a response to emotion. Like cigarette smoke,
it’s fast-flowing, shapeless and with little time to capture it.
Writing poetry in an imperative. I say what I feel compelled to say.
I sell my five published books via mail order and accept major credit cards.
I don’t use PayPal. I just talk to people on the phone.
Fast, reliable service. Read my stories and see what you think.
I’m also available for hire to read my true Chicago stories to organizations
and answer all questions. I autograph my books when I sell them.
I am currently seeking an agent to do more readings.
Feel free to call me at the number above.