There are many elements of change.
This is a tough one for the Oligarchs. Really. I can't imagine their contingency plans, and all their think tanks could have come up with this. They expected the riots of 66 and 68, or perhaps they envisioned a charismatic leader who they could discredit. Or assassinate.
Leaderless. Peaceful. Powerful. Old. Young. Right wing. Left wing. Centrists. Black. Latino. White. Asian. Straight. Gay. Military. Anti-war. Blue collar. White collar.
Most of all? Numerous. Really fucking numerous.
And this, my dears, it the tip of the iceburg.
Determined. Even as the sun sets, and whispers of the police donning their riot gear and approaching. Determined.
And as the wee hours approached, more tear gas, more brutality. Badges hidden by tape, the men abusing us wanting to be anonymous villains in the night.
Many choose to make comparisons to the 60's.
Lets talk about the differences, shall we?
Socio-economic stressors, including but not limited to the imminent and credible threat of seeing an untimely and painful demise, always predicate social unrest.
The 60's was predominately a young persons rebellion. The causes were extreme enough to bring people to action. Racial discrimination was profound, still. The draft, forced conscription, meant credible threat to them personally. As campuses became more integrated, the young started seeing one another as people, and stood up for one another, putting it simplistically. In Vietnam? Whoever was thrust into this foreign land next to you in that foxhole was your brother.
Young people bonded enough over those two issues, to stand should to shoulder and rise up.
But they did have charismatic leaders. Malcom, Martin, Hoffman, Steinem, Kesey, and others, and musicians stoking their hearts with rightful pride and longing for a better world. There were well-organized groups, AIM, the SDS, Black Panthers, DU and more.
There were TARGETS. Targets to be assassinated, targets to be framed, targets to be discredited, targets whom the main stream press could blame.
There was still elemental divisions that could be utilized, young against old, and racial fears to be exploited. In the day of COINTELPRO, any outsider was suspect, for young people are particularly vulnerable to a sympathetic story, and the appearance of friendship.
This new wave of unrest is quite different. Lets compare it to a virus. The 60's had a two-pronged infection of awareness that they could use specific tools to "manage" or eradicate. But the 2011 uprising is like AIDS. They cannot apply a target-specific solution to a non-specific infection, an overall viral uprising that effects every system, every complaint, and every demographic in America.
The stressors that have caused our rising to the streets all have a common base, indeed. Old to young, we are in dire economic straights, even thought the manifestations of our complaints are as varied as our racial, religious, political and personal views are.
They cannot blame hippies. They cannot blame people of color. They cannot blame students. They cannot blame veterans as Un-American traitors. There are no easy targets. They cannot blame the youth, when Grandparents without Health Care are standing shoulder to shoulder with the Middle-aged unemployed and those with new PHD's and no work.
Oh, there are individuals and even groups with valid complaints that still feel isolated or slighted by the movement. There is irony, indeed in the fact that once white-bread middle class has begun to suffer the conditions people of color have endured for centuries, suddenly we give a damn. But I think the streets themselves will fix that.
We are first and foremost citizens that live in the United States whose voices and means of living an unmolested, stable future have been stripped of us.
I am beyond certain that think tanks have studied this possibility; think tanks of brilliant people paid handsomely by the Elite Class to find ways to make sure their status as Captains of Industry and owners of the Political Process is not challenged.
One thing they have not taken into account is that the Citizens of the World, who have also long suffered at our Elite's hands seem to understand our plight, and are rooting for us. They are empathetic to us in ways we rarely have shown them in the past. They understand we are too, victims of our Elites. Better paid pets is what we were, now pets no longer wanted and left off at a curb somewhere to fend for ourselves. But still, never people to them. And probably less equipped to deal, since we once had our shiny food and water bowls.
This is not just a US Occupation, it is a Global one.
We vastly outnumber them.
And we have no "Leader" to be brought down to deflate our vigor. We are all Leaders.
It gives us an extreme advantage.
Occupy Oakland's General Strike last night proved to the Country, if not the World, we can shut down the blood supply of the Vampire Class sucking us dry. The Elites can surely suffer a day with no income better than we can. Were I in the think tank, my suggestion would be to wait us out. But greed is impatient. Greed is vain. Vanity demands some sort of action when it dares to be challenged, and patience is not an application the Elites have ever shown. Quick profits at any expense. Quarterly reports. Sustainability be damned. Environmental rape.
I am positive they want to push back, hard. They just are not sure how to do it.
The only thing the protesters have in common, the one tool that would hit every strata of our diverse community is the power grid. They will probably shut off our access to oil, gas, electricity and communication as a last resort.
(Note: The streetlights "mysteriously" went dark just before the Police Ambush at the Port in Oakland last night)
It is their only broad-spectrum antibiotic they can try to use to bring us into compliance.
What they cannot foresee is if we then will, as an army of millions will surround these facilities, and turn to the crowd and say, "Who knows how to run this thing?"
For certainly the Elites do not.
They have no cure for what we are to them. They will try everything, but they will fail.
Nothing runs in this body humana without the millions of tiny individual-cells that comprise its function. You, me, that guy you never met over there, that woman holding a baby. If they cut off one head, surely two shall grow to takes its place. We are a Hydra of 7 BILLION to their few thousand.
Revolution has gone Viral, my friends. There is no cure they can apply, be it violent or punitive. We hold all the Power.
The Mayans say the World will end in 2012. I don't know much about that.
It may well be so. This World, this 4th World is set to end on December 21, 2012, having endured three other ages.
It will be completed the 13th b'ak'tun.
It is 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in
and it will happen a 'seeing'.
It is the display of B'olon-Yokte'
in a great "investiture".
Well, I'm certainly game for a new World, a seeing and an investiture that replaces the old way of greed and avarice and subjugation to an Elite Class that have played Gods with us for millenia.
All I know for certain?
Is this is gonna be a helluva year.
The only "Cure" for the People is a Global reboot. Restructuring. Elemental Change.
And it is WE that are about to apply it.
Peace,
Diane