Sure, go ahead and say “Merry Christmas” all you want. But just remember, until Americans can once again wish each other a “Holly Jolly Christmas,” none of us are truly free. h/t @HMittelmark
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This is a picture of over six thousand people who came together at the same time and place to form one sign. It’s not just an iconic photo, but also a dramatic example of what people can accomplish by working together and organizing.
It’s a great photo, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t help seeing in it a massive squandering of human resources. Think about it: most all of those people have working arms and legs, bodies, and most importantly, minds. Hands that can paint, craft and engineer, legs that can walk, run and climb and minds that can imagine, strategize, compose, create compelling slogans, arguments and graphics. All of this amazing machinery being utilized for little except its physical presence: 1/6000th of a single sign. All that talent, imagination and potential reduced to nothing more than a human pixel.
“There's 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 the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop.” — Mario Savio
That’s a great quote, but I advocate keeping your body out of it and throwing something else into the gears instead - like lumber, discarded plumbing fixtures or old furniture. Use your body, and especially your mind, for something it’s better suited for than gear jamming. Same with protesting by getting arrested. Instead of going to jail, consider not going to jail and dedicate all that free time to something more useful, like just about anything you can think of that isn’t throwing yourself into a bunch of machinery. Remember: the first amendment is just about as broadly defined as a law can be. It allows you to say almost anything anywhere in any way you can think of. Chances are you’re not personally using it up to your fullest potential.
You don’t have to use freeways either. When it comes to political signposting pretty much every inch of public property is yours for the taking. The only reason I use metropolitan freeways are the massive numbers and overwhelming systemic advantages they provide. For example, if instead of the one sign on the beach, those 6,000 people had cars and were spread throughout the country putting up signs that said, “I believe Donald Trump is a Traitor” strategically using freeways to put those words in front of as many eyeballs as possible for say, one week — am I saying that somehow that alone would result in Trump getting removed from office a week later? No, I’m not saying that.
I’m saying that if just 5% of the 6,000 people on that beach did that for one week Trump would be gone by the next.
Holly Jolly Kwanzaa Y’all...
