We're in Act 2B

A very wise person was just reading to me about Rose Schneiderman, a prominent labor leader in the US in the 20th century. She coined the phrase "bread and roses" to explain what the workers wanted. My wise friend read out from the Wikipedia entry, "Her platform had called for the construction of nonprofit housing for workers, improved neighborhood schools, publicly owned power utilities and staple food markets, and state-funded health and unemployment insurance for all Americans," and then said, "We're fighting the same battles she was a hundred years ago."

Some of the details have changed, but indeed this period is even more gilded than the Gilded Age, with the wealthy owning a bigger share than ever before and resenting the not-wealthy for owning anything at all. The "commons" of our shared assets as a people keep shrinking: as an example, the chairman of Nestle, one of the largest food companies in the world, is on record as saying that access to clean water is not a right.

I have to remind myself that the struggle for equity, for the greatest good possible for all people, is not a struggle against nothing, and it's not a struggle against what always must be. It's a struggle against well-financed interests who see nothing in common with average folks, much less with the truly poor and oppressed.

And I have to hope that we are in Act 2B.

What I mean is this: the classic movie follows a "three" act structure--really four acts of roughly equal length, but generally labeled 1, 2, 2B, and 3.

• In act 1 we see just enough of the hero's normal life to understand what he or she thinks is normal...and then the hero gets knocked off that stance by some event, intrusion, outrage, or opportunity. 
• In act 2 the hero starts trying to get back into balance by beating the bad guys, rescuing the prince or princess, winning the race, finding the cure, diverting the meteor, or finding true love. This is sometimes called the "fun and games" act, where it looks like the plot will be foiled or the true love will become available, or the bad guys will be conquered.
• Ah, but act 2b is when the bad guys roar back. The gains of act 2 turn into losses, the hero's best friend dies or turns out to be a traitor, the friendly wizard disappears, the starship runs out of fuel. The hero enters the long dark night of the soul when all seems to be lost--is there even any reason to keep trying?
• Why yes, there is! It's act 3, where somehow the broken threads of the story get knotted together into a net that catches the bad guys, scores the winning goal, stops the auto-destruct with just two seconds to go, and brings the hero face-to-face with the one true love. The dark clouds scatter and the hero finds a new balance and a new understanding. Cue the credits.

The super-powerful and super-heartless have roared back from the "setbacks" of the New Deal and financial regulation and are doing everything they can to reduce the commons, restrict possibilities for all but the already-wealthy, and use up everything the earth has to offer in one orgy of converting the wonder that sustains us into dollars. This is grim and heart-rending.

And yet, act 3 is just around the corner. You, I, and all the other heroes of our multi-faceted movie need to make the effort to overcome adversity, confound the bad guys, and get to the happy ending.

How do we make that happen? I'm counting on you to help me figure it out.