Some of my friends look at me like I might have a contagious disease when I mention out here JOTOLR that I am wholeheartedly not only supporting, but --as best I can--working for OWS.
On the other hand, I've found far more who immediately applaud my efforts. I display an OCCUPY poster wherever I go. It's slipped inside an old Pampered Chef bag which has a clearview slot for the poster that makes it visible as I go about my errands. The poster is the one I posted here the other day that reads, "Why is it easier to believe that 150,000,000 Americans are being lazy rather than 400 Americans are being greedy?" I've gotten all kinds of support for this. Raised fists, "You go, girl!" even short conversations about needing to do something, how unequal and rigged life is, and much much more.
I've made arrangements with several of my favorite online vendors to not use my credit card and instead wait for a check to clear, telling the person on the other end of the phone line it's in support of OWS against the BIG BANKS. "Oh, WOW! How great!" or "Way to go!" And these are the VENDORS!
You know, people....maybe we're all just slow to catch on or maybe we lack courage....but time's up. The problems our country faces are not going to go away by electing still another "great white hope." They aren't going away because we hoped that if we hid in the basement long enough, it would go away by the time we were ready to come out.
There's no hope out there other than for a complete makeover of this country. There's no magic rainbow. People have lost their homes, their jobs, their dignity, their families...their lives. And unless we all get up off the couch and start wearing our courage, start recognizing corporate fascism for what it is, we're going down--no question about it.
Below I have posted this entire diary from Daily Kos. The link is also posted so you can go back and have a read of 255 comments. People are fed up. And the only complaint I have with this beautiful post is that the words "pissed off" could diminutize the extent of our anger.
I am outraged. OUTRAGED! We've been screwed. It's time to get off the couch and take an active role in reclaiming our country. We are not here to change a few minds with regard to "fairness." We are here to change a world that sorely needs us at this critical time. This isn't about taking out a few greedy bankers (although that's part of it.) This is about saving the planet and building a society from the bottom up that reflects our values, our dreams, our concerns for the environment, our concerns for one another....So have a read, and tell me you've become an activist, voting with your body. You can do something. Choose an action. If you want a copy of that poster, let me know and I'll email it to you. Meanwhile, take time to read from the Declaration of Independence.....for real. Just reading those words is so inspiring. It reminds us of what the founders of our country faced. Can we do less? What right do we have to cower in the corners in fear?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/14/1036281/-Alternatives?via=search
Mon Nov 14, 2011 at 07:42 AM PST.
Alternatives
by One Pissed Off LiberalFollow .
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A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.
Robert F. Kennedy
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
When in the course of human events shit breaks down, it is everyone's right and responsibility to fix it. And that is what is happening with the occupation movement. We are no longer pleading with the government to change its ways. We are turning our backs on the past and embracing the future. We are inventing a new way forward for the old ways are broken.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of the American people; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Corporate Plutocracy is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
From the Declaration of Independence, with bold text representing substitutions by this writer.
It's not only our government, and not only our system of commerce and finance, nor the insult and injury inflicted by the Military Industrial Complex - it's the whole shooting match. The problem is our whole superficial mind-numbing soul-sucking culture where we are programmed, manipulated, played like puppets and exploited like beasts of burden and given the same level of care.
It's an empty, hollow road ahead and we don't have to go down it.
We can opt out of this neo-feudalism/corporate-fascism by not cooperating with it. We can re-invent the future. We can jump off this cliff and be reassured that wherever we land, it's got to be better than this shit.
People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.
Matt Taibi, h/t UnaSpencer
It's possible to do it all differently, to live with dignity and integrity and to do the right things because they are the right things to do. We can respect nature and science, mind our planet and look out for the least of these our brothers and sisters. It doesn't have to be all about profiteering and looting, or beating out the other guy, or dropping bombs on people and taking their shit. We can live together with mutual regard and concern. We can share. We can take care of each other. We can help each other. We can live ethical lives in every respect and rescue our planet in the process. We can crawl out from under the shame and denial demanded of us by the present order. We can stop the killing, the looting and the madness. We can choose to love each other over hating and fearing each other. We can live lives that are just, peaceful and good. We can learn to cooperate and to tread lightly on the earth. Not only can we do these things - we must do these things.
An alternative is being formed. It is not an adjunct. It is an alternative.
“This movement is so beyond, 'Hey let's get this candidate elected.' Those days are over... we've all participated... What did we get? Where are we? We're in the worst shape we have been in this country that I have seen in my lifetime."
Michael Moore
All the police and all the weaponry in the world cannot put this genie back in the bottle. We will not be turned around. No longer will we be denied. There will be justice in every corner of the earth.
A new world is coming
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