We're almost there folks. The righteous outrage by an increasingly aware population is about to burst through. Of course, my advice is that we get going now because I believe that there is still a chance for a peaceful revolution, but whether peaceful or otherwise, the revolution is coming, total-information-awareness-proto-fascist police state notwithstanding.
People are scratching their heads, perplexed, and angry about the latest revelations regarding the massive, illegal, and unconstitutional surveillance regime. Some are indignant on principle; others ask why? Why is the government collecting all this data? The apologists answer that it is to protect us against "terrorists?" BTW, does that include Occupy Wall Street protesters defending our democracy?
The defenders of the indefensible take offense at those of us who call this current situation what it is: a rapidly ascending corporatist proto-fascist police state. They hurl insults at us while balancing their torsos on their knees.
But even some of them will soon enough have to chose to leave fear and cowardice behind, and stand up like a man (or woman), against these corporatist parasites.
But they will only do so once they see a massive (peaceful) uprising with tens of thousands of people engaging in the constitutionally-protected right of freedom of assembly to petition the government. The petition of course is very straightforward: Cease and desist from being an increasingly oppressive tool of proto-fascist corporatist cartels.
One thing is clear... This won't happen by choice (of the corrupt ruling class). They will have to be forced to relent. Only an overwhelming show/projection of force and solidarity will do the trick.
Some may argue that we can do that by participating in the electoral system; by electing more and better Democrats. Again, many (but not all) who put that argument forward are doing so from their knees.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.
- Frederick Douglass
It's not enough. Yes, campaign, support the best politicians, engage in locally. But by now it must be understood that that won't be sufficient to remove the choke-hold fascist corporatist cartels have on our government.
We need to also take to the streets, big time. Think Occupy Wall Street but a hundred times bigger, and a hundred times more organized and strategic. Think of OWS 2011 as a dress rehearsal. Lessons were learned... Now is time for OWS 2.0.
Let's get going! The timber is ready. Millions of people have been brutalized by Wall Street criminals. Rampant unemployment and underemployment; massive crimes committed by the ruling elite with total impunity; thousands of laws and regulations meant to strip citizens of benefits and rights being rapidly implemented throughout the entire nation.
Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform—the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions—we are left defenseless against corporate power.
- Chris Hedges
Some, again, from their knees, caution about the dangers of revolution, even if it is a peaceful revolution. They say that people could get hurt, that violence could ensue, that the results could be worst than the status quo.
That's to be expected from those who cowering in fear choose to live on their knees.
People are already dying; people are already being brutalized; tens of thousands are already choosing to put a bullet through their heads not being able to cope with the brutality of the imposition of "austerity" in the name of corporate profits.
The conditions for (peaceful) revolution are ripe.
Pick your plaza, and let's go. In the SF Bay Area, send a tweet when you're over there at the plaza in Union Square in front of Saks and Macy's. In New York, pick your plaza, in Los Angeles also.
It's time!
But remember, no violence or law-breaking of any kind (at least that's my advice). Just take to the streets in solidarity; start there.
About SPARK! - SPARK! is an essay I will write on a regular basis specifically meant to help spark a peaceful uprising against the rising proto-fascist state in the United States. There will never be any calls to violence or law-breaking of any kind in this series. All actions advocated in SPARK! are based on lawful, constitutionally-protected rights.