The resistance movement against corruption, impunity, environmental destruction, and police brutality is gearing up for action. Many groups around the country are getting ready to petition our government for redress. A government that thus far has remained unmoved in the face of rampant corruption, and criminality by rich and powerful people who think they are above the law. It's time to put a stop to that!
As different groups do their planning, here's a suggestion I'd like to propose for those who are willing to take to the streets. This idea is based on peaceful, but extremely coordinated tactics...
Ideally, groups in multiple cities would coordinate this action(s) to start on the same day, and then continue sporadically, for the foreseeable future.
The tactic incorporates street-level protests, as well as a public outreach and education component.
Here's the scenario... It's 12:00 P.M. on a weekday, and all of the sudden there is a very fast surge (flash mob) of people at Oakland's Civic Center (or the San Francisco Financial District). For impact, it would be great if everybody agreed to dress all in black.
People come in from all directions; Their numbers seem to swell out of nowhere. All of the sudden, you have several hundreds, or even thousands of people. Everything stops (traffic, etc.).
The Civic Center is full with office workers and city employees, and visitors. Assigned people within the protest group proceed to pass out flyers (I put together this one to the left as an example).
Others spread out posters with very carefully-designed messaging.
No violence, not destruction of property... Just a huge swell of people (very coordinated, and disruptive).
Every individual by him or herself takes care of not violating any particular law. When the authorities show up, everybody dissipates, calmly, and in multiple directions.
An hour later, the flash mob appears at another bustling and busy location and does the same thing; they dissipate again, and two hours later, the group appears at another location; the authorities would be forced to go from one location to the next, but if people are disciplined, there should be no probable cause to arrest anybody.
The tactic is low-risk, and people start twitting, emailing, and calling their friends to join in. Once this starts, it's then kept-up for the foreseeable future. The tactic spreads to multiple cities, and the massive disruptions start looking like spasms of a sick system, stopping the gears of an oppressive a corrupt machine...
There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all.
- Mario Savio
Why would this happen? There is a
powerful and ruthless cabal of entrenched moneyed interests who have corrupted our government institutions. This has resulted in the pillage and looting of our national treasury, the plunging of millions of people into economic disappear, and the loss of constitutional rights.
In the face of rampant criminality by the ruling elite, especially Wall Street, the government has failed to conduct serious and proper investigations of these crimes, allowing certain people to commit crimes with impunity, under the protection of a totally corrupt government.
That means that we now have an unequal legal system: one for the rich and powerful, and one (increasingly draconian and brutal) for the rest of society.
Because of this undeniable and untenable conditions, the people are forced to rise up against these injustices and demand the re-imposition of the rule of law.
Any inconveniences the general public may suffer are the direct result of the total abdication of duty by corrupt politicians on the take across the entire country, who have given up on the concept of public service in exchange of private gain.
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