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The Invisible, Growing Leaderless Revolution in America
At first glance, the “leaderless revolution” in Egypt has nothing in common with the recent closing of Allyson’s, a local deli here in our small Oregon town. Until you hear why the bank called the note. “… the balance and payments are due.”
Quoting from a CommonDreams.org article by David Porter on Egypt, “It is the slowly-accumulating momentum of hundreds of thousands of confrontations with local officials and elites… that slowly develop the courage, confidence and essential horizontal networks bubbling below the surface…”
How many Allyson’s stories are accumulating throughout America? How many business owners and employees, home owners and credit card users have had their lives turned upside down by banker’s decisions like this one, so utterly devoid of humanity?
The banker’s quote appeared in a story carried by our local paper and it wasn’t accompanied by any mitigating compassion. Apparently he didn’t feel it was necessary to show any. It’s the golden rule in action: he who has the gold makes the rules. Period. And, it’s happening everywhere.
A San Francisco friend tells me about his eleven months of futile communication with the bank that holds his mortgage. They lost his paperwork three times. All he wanted was to renegotiate the payments. Finally, he’s walking away. But first, he’s stopped making any payments at all. He’ll live in the house until he is forced to leave. When he does leave, the house will sit empty, tied up in red tape, while homeless people crowd the streets nearby.
A Texas couple fights Blue Cross and Blue Shield who have both denied coverage of life saving heart surgery for their newborn baby, on the basis that it is a pre-existing condition. Pre-existing? He was born with it. Reading the official responses from these companies… it’s the same story. They simply don’t want to pay. They are in business to make money, as are the banks. Providing some sort of service is an irritating necessity. The less actually provided, the more successful these businesses are.
Meanwhile, out on the streets where we live, the anger is building towards a breaking point. How many Allyson’s closing down, how many home owners walking away (or being driven out), how many of us losing our savings to pay for health care, how many “confrontations with local officials and elites” will it take to finally get us out on the streets? When will the world start watching a “leaderless revolution” here in America? We don’t have a dictator to oust. For us, it’s a ruling oligarchy immune to influence by voting. It’s bankers, corporations, multi-whatillionaires, an enabling government, those with the gold, the power and no interest in us, beyond milking us everyday like the docile sheep they believe us to be.
The leaderless revolution in Egypt took years to develop. There wasn’t much news about it along the way. Likewise here in the good old USA. So, when it finally erupts, as it inevitably will, it may seem like a surprise. But it won’t be; it is inevitable. The only question is “When?”
But we’re innovators, at least those of us who’ve survived so far with our imaginations intact. We don’t have to wait for thousands to march together, maybe in Times Square. We’ve actually got a lot of power right now. And, ironically, our power resides in the same place it does for those who rule us: money. Imagine the day when we take our money out of those banks and begin lending it to each other? Fifty friends in our small community coming up with $5,000 each could have saved our favorite deli.
Risky? Not as risky as banks and the carnage they wreak in our communities every day. So, am I suggesting local, citizen-operated banks? Sort of. But what I imagine is more neighborly than the word “bank” can possibly ever convey now, it’s meaning forever corrupted by the heartless behavior we’re witnessing. It’s simpler, more like friends just supporting each other. Financially. What a concept. And imagine not charging interest. No interest. No taxes. Just favors between trusting friends.
Maybe some day we will be out on the streets and the world will watch breathlessly as the next American Revolution turns tables. But we can start right now without any fanfare at all, taking baby steps to regain our power, one friendly exchange at a time. We hear the stories of grief every day and it’s our friends who are telling them. How about, instead of just sympathizing and worrying that I might be next - which explains why I’m clinging to that $5,000 I’ve got stashed in the stranger’s bank - I respond in the most practical way possible? I take my hoarded wealth and put it in play. “Here, will this help?”
What have I got to lose? Well, my $5,000. So how much have I already lost to investments gone bad? To strangers? (As I write this I’m feeling a bit like I do when I wake up from a weird dream.) Why not lose mine to friends right here in my own community? But, of course, as we all know from experience, true no-strings-attached generosity always returns rewards that far exceed the value of what we offered. We do know that, because we already give and receive with each other that way. But now may be the time to start exchanging cash. It’s been the hold out. For obvious reasons. After all, it’s the symbol of what enslaves us, the currency of the middleman.
This is probably a worst-case scenario for our masters, that we make them and their paper power unnecessary. But if they aren’t going to be neighborly, why would we really want to have anything to do with them?
106 Comments so far
Show AllWilkinson sez: "Providing some sort of service is an irritating necessity. The less actually provided, the more successful these businesses are."
***
This is the logical conclusion of privatization. Eliminating the "service" portion of the contract entirely is its ultimate goal.
John Kozy wrote an excellent article in which he said some people/companies are in business to supply a product or service, others supply a product or service to be in business...
He says in North American, it's almost always the latter - and the results and implications are dismal.
You are onto something Will. Kinda like making “heaven on earth” instead of hell. True appreciation. Caring for ourselves and each other. I would also like to see us not sharing it with those who claim power at any cost and put themselves first. Greed and lies.
I guess I figure that withholding what they want may be a true non-violent protest that can be managed across the nation. I think they will move very fast to hit us with all of their new laws to take more away from us, because “they" will fear just this kind of discussion after Egypt.. and Americans catching on too. But a little bit of heaven is worth it.
"You are onto something Will. Kinda like making “heaven on earth” instead of hell."
"Caring for ourselves and each other."
It occurred to me recently that until we masses of regular human beings learn to simply treat one another nicely --consciously begin to work WITH each other instead of competing, our squabbles and irritations distract us from our Common Dream --of living in a wonderful world where people willingly expend energy to be helpful for one another.
Until we get a lot closer to this ideal, we will continue to be distracted by pettiness, from the real opposition --those who feel apart from We, the People, those who are pleased to see us at one another's throats, because it keeps us from banding together to cease our maintaining for them their positions of wealth and power --at our expense.
A Perspective on Egypt’s "Group Leadership!"
“New disciplines seem to be emerging that are very different from our past understanding. The events in Egypt over the past weeks have demonstrated the discipline arising from a shared vision of direction in living. Orderly crowds freely allocated themselves to tasks under the direction of their shared focus and intention. Group leadership emerged as very a different dynamic to individual leadership. A New York Times article offered these observations:
“A dentist from Aswan… traveled 600 miles to be at the antigovernment protest. ‘I was expecting to find the Wafd were the leaders, or the Brotherhood were the leaders,’ he said, speaking of two of Egypt’s best-known opposition movements. But what he found was far better, he said. ‘There are no leaders at all.’ … The only real leaders seem to be the young people who have returned to the barricades, again and again, for days now. …‘We don’t need a leader,’ said one of them, Amira Magdy, 22. ‘This system is beautiful.’ …[and from others] ‘We want the young people to be the ones to form a negotiating committee.’ “ [Kareem Fahim and Mona El-Naggar, 3 Feb.]
In response a commentator asks: “leaderless or leaderful? – a leaderless grassroots movement. Or rather leaderful, where everyone takes a shared leadership, shared responsibility role. And in a spontaneous, unplanned, organic way, no less, but rather through the mass consciousness enabled by Facebook, Twitter, and the like.”
From an old perspective based on more familiar models of authority patterns, the crowds seemed leaderless. Yet order and direction emerged spontaneously from the group as a whole. Perhaps there is something so new emerging that our eyes are not yet attuned to see it. We are told that a mystery is only what the mechanism of perception is not yet able to register. And these disciples of the new discipline are helping us all to tune our perception.
Past approaches have been learned from the lessons of pain and sorrow. These methods are still being practised but their dynamic is slowing while something new is emerging through human hearts and into human consciousness. Rather than driven by fear we are being drawn by a vision – shared so immediately with our increasing sensitivity to one another and supported by the emerging technologies, always just in step with, and in the vanguard of, human potential unfolding. The Tibetan Master speaks of this new Discipline:
“Have you ever thought, my brother, that just as there is a discipline of pain and of sorrow, there may also be a discipline of joy and of achievement? This is a thought worthy of attention. Men need these days to learn this new truth, and its perception will greatly change human consciousness. That which is bliss is today here or on its way, and the disciples and aspirants of this present time must be taught how to recognise and implement it.” [Discipleship in the New Age II, page 671]
New laws also are emerging from humanity’s unfolding new vision – such as the laws pertaining to the freedom of the One Life we share. We begin to realise that: “…A law is only an expression or manifestation of force, applied under the power of thought by a thinker or group of thinkers.” [Esoteric Psychology II page 193].”
Sydney Goodwill Newsletter/www.sydneygoodwill.org.au
brilliant, thought provoking response... we WILL choose the only correct path forward, and that is with each other, reaching out and contributing that bit of ourselves so longing to be winged and free. I'm ready. Hope America is too. I think we are.
brilliant, thought provoking response... we WILL choose the only correct path forward, and that is with each other, reaching out and contributing that bit of ourselves so longing to be winged and free. I'm ready. Hope America is too. I think we are.
American businesses wants customers....they Don't Want employess. Soon this is going to bite them in the ass. The sooner, the better.
This is a fine article, and it reminds me a bit of when I was in Oregon going to college as an undergraduate and meeting Wayne Morse then fighting for his political life in that 1968 campaign. He almost made it, but regardless, his side eventually prevailed. We can too, but we can't give up to do that.
I'm so glad Mr. Wilkinson wrote this article. I was thinking about something very similar recently. The fact that he's also contemplating it suggests to me that it's a thought that many are having, and that soon it may become a reality. There are two simple facts that have become painfully evident. One is that our country is run by money and corporate interests, aided and abetted by our government. The other, much less discussed or realized, is that we can and must directly help each other. We can't beat them directly, but we can withdraw our support from them and extend it to each other. My thought along Wilkinson's lines was, what if each of 200,000 people contributed a dollar to a fund to be borrowed upon when needed by any one individual? Or many more? If that fund could draw interest (here's where it got tricky for me as a broke non-financial thinker -- how could it draw interest without using the banks?) -- but anyway, interest on $200,000 would add up. In my scenario, too, those borrowing would not be charged interest, or even be required to prove need or pay it back. We would trust that when they got back on their feet, they'd pay it back or contribute what they could. I honestly don't think that's pie-in-the-sky thinking. The reason we're not rioting isn't only because we're wimps. It's also because most ordinary people in this country, at least in my experience, are decent and caring, and when they're having difficulty, rather than becoming beasts, their compassion for others in trouble rises. Ordinary Americans are the antithesis of those ruling the country. The way to defeat them and take our country back is in essence to create our own country right under their noses, by going a different way, helping each other directly, leaving the corporate dictators out of the loop.
This has already been done...the Granges. There was an uprising of farmers in the US in the late 19th century, and they tried to set up their own loan institutions.
And don't forget the brave men and women who stood for organized labor. The Wobblies et al. It was a revoultion! It has since been dismantled by goons from big business and their govt stooges. The repressive security apparattus in the US makes Egypts secret police seem like the keystone cops.
Blow up your TV, talk to your neighbor, tend your garden.
...what if we stopped the practice of interest on loans?
Read Thomas H. Greco's The End Of Money and The Future of Civilization. Where-in he makes a case for the end of civilization and beginning of a neo-feudalistic era unless we find a way to end Money as we know it. He then lays out a practical non-interest bearing alternative money system, and a logical means of implementing it in your community.
Here's his web site: http://www.reinventingmoney.com/index.html
A leaderless revolution is an excellent idea because in the States, many leaders are assassinated. Dr. King was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. John Lennon served as somewhat of an antiwar leader and he was assassinated.
A number of Black Panther leaders died of gunshot wounds. Perhaps the radicalism of various leaders, which creates fear in their opponents, is related to their lifespans.
A number of liberal leader types died violently but not of gunshot wounds. Senator Paul Wellstone died when his plane went down. John Kennedy Jr., son of the assassinated President, died when his plane went down.
At least one other liberal political leader almost died violently. Ted Kennedy got himself into a compromising setup but he lived.
Congresswoman Gifford was shot and she may or may not ever become a (moderate) leader.
Next, we should note how many popularly elected presidents of other countries have been assassinated by the American jackals. But too many facts bore people so I'll stop.
In any case I went to read about a well-choreographed plan to discredit Wikileaks out of existence. Apparently it's better these days to discredit a movement's messenger than to commit murder. It's still no fun being the movement's leader if the jackals are out to get you. The classic "get" in recent years would have to be the takedown of Elliot Spitzer, who had made lots of rich enemies, through extremely selective federal prosecution.
Also on the list might be Andrew Breitbart's dressing actors up as a pimp and a prostitute and then going into Planned Parenthood to entice them into an unethical comment, or something that could at least be doctored to look unethical. But now we get into another group of leaders killed by gunfire -- doctors who perform abortions. Nobody fires guns at women who just had an abortion; it's the leaders who attract bullets.
? Lets not forget the four students that were shot and killed by National Guard at Kent State University called out by the governor of Ohio. Shot and killed for exercising the right to petition their government-protest about the war in Vietnam.
They had no damn weapons.
It should give us all pause to wonder what lies beneath the surface of this government of leaders. Some invisible violent power behind the scene.
80 died in Waco
2 died Ruby Ridge
Philidelphia Move 11
Black Panthers
Lest we forget.
How many die each day, both here in America and around the world? Dying of curable disease, starvation, dying at the hands of our drones and mercenaries, dying for the profitability of the military industrial complex. Dying on our streets and alleys, alone and forgotten.
It should be obvious to us all that Capitalism has moved beyond a simple economic system, that the ending of regulatory powers of government at every level has resulted in the emergence of a fascist state that ignores the needs of "we the people" and panders instead to the needs of "we the corporation".
This author states that revolution is inevitable here, and I for one hope he is correct. I fear that we might need to suffer more, that many more will die before our consciences force us into action. There are causes going begging, food banks needing volunteers, local community action would seem to be a key indicator of national change and there are far too few giving of their time I am sad to note.
20+ children in Waco.
Teen shot in the back as he ran from the ATF & FBI. His mothers brains blown out of her head as she stood in the doorway of their cabin--unarmed.
These people have to be stopped. Next time, it could be you.
This revolution will continue to grow until the idea of "Corporate Personhood" is slain.
I mentioned this before in another post, but allow me to do so again here: Why don't we take it one step further and set-up a contribution society, i.e. one where each of us contributes his / her inborn talents and acquired skills to society for the betterment of all? No money. No attaching "value" to things. In fact, most of us could just continue in our current careers -- only now we would be in it for service and personal growth. Once we rectify all of the social and environmental damage that we have caused, just imagine how fast we would progress! There's a small group of people in South Africa who are creating a political party around this concept, hoping to implement it town by town: http://contributionism.org/
What do you think?
Agreed!
However, it requires a great extension for most people. The simple concept of a moneyless economy is difficult for most to imagine.
For those of us who can, we need to spread the word of its potential.
Keep it up.
"Democracy is coming to the USA" ---- finally
While the revolution of young Egyptians should be inspirational for all oppressed people, it should be most instructive for American youth.
As JFK said, \"those who make non-violent revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable\" --- and more importantly for those facing the global corporate capitalist Empire hiding as a facade of democracy, \"those who make non-violent social democracy impossible, make violent social democracy inevitable\".
Several Egyptian college educated young people interviewed during their successful revolution against thieving crony capitalist Mubarak said, \"we need to transition to real social democracy\" (although they did not add the truism, 'like all real functional democracies' in the world).
Now that the global corporate/financial/militarist Empire which controls our former country by hiding behind the facade of its Two-Party 'Vichy' sham of faux-democratic government, has taken firm steps to push aside their smooth-talking front-man, the stage is being set for confrontation or cowardice.
The unsustainable global Empire derives all its faux-profit through negative externality cost dumping on a multi-national AND multi-generational basis (ie. over geography and time), and thus the young in America are like Afghan youth in the sites of a equally silent Predator.
We Americans, caught in the deadly corporatist Empire which now IS America, are the only people who can rise up against this empire before it more stupidly than Mubarak asserts extinction over resignation --- and the time horizon is unpredictably short.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
\"Democracy over Empire\"
Leonard Cohen may finally be right if we have courage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHoOTXEfUNo
For the American Democracy Revolution, after 2/11 nothing will ever be the same.
By far the most interesting Sunday talking-heads 'show' was "This Week", in which the round table with Will, Kagan, et al. discussed and tried to debate the impact of democracy on Egypt --- and by extension, the world.
But since the NYTimes' courage on Friday 2/11 of allowing Kristof and Herbert to throw the twin IEDs of "Avoiding a New Pharaoh" and "When Democracy Weakens" --- "nothing will be the same".
All of Christiane's round table flunkies were caught looking like pre-2/11 idiots trying to discuss how democracy comes about and works, while not acknowledging that "everything has changed" since 2/11 in really talking truth about the US faux-democracy (BTW, a term which Hillary stole from me).
Yes, this week not only has the 31 year rule of Empire puppet, Mubarak, ended, but through the surprising courage of the NYT, the Empire, if not its smooth-talking faux-Emperor here, has no clothes.
Thus, Will and Kagan, and the whole gang of retrogrades were embarrassingly reduced to talking as if 'democracy' were the golden recipe that the US has a monopoly on, while Herbert and Kristof have exposed that the only monopoly this disguised corporatist Empire has is a sweet tasting 'Vichy' pie baked with its most essential ingredient; artificial democracy flavoring!
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Democracy over Empire" party headquarters
It's been CORPORATE CAPITALISM v. DEMOCRACY for too long. Time for We, the People to take back the power structure.
Your posts really resonate with this NJ senior!
Alan
I kind of disagree with you, we will continue to be armchair critic. I like you to read readers' comment in NY Times. Read just the first three comments and see what you think. :-)
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.
nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12herbert.html
barter, trade, cash-only transactions and "pro bono" offering of services where possible.
all at once is probably not going to happen. but little by little.
starve the beast - feed the vision
nice
Fantastic article and I believe that the type of action that could start it rolling would be the same kind of action that started the group "anonymus". There should be a site started or hosted where people can start posting ideas, and sharing experiences so that they can be learned from. This could be the start of a popular revolution that will take back the power from those who control us, "the sheeple".The decentralization of the power is the key. If we can unite our individual powers without creating leaders we will be invincible, just as anonymus is.
Hey, the name of this site is common dreams, right?
To be perfectly and brutally blunt, we commentators seem to be experts at criticizing our leaders and our disfuntional system, but few of us really offer any suggestions on how we can really make any effective change.
What is needed here is action, not just words. Solidarity. Selflessness. The same stuff that has created Wikipedia. Let´s believe in it and make it happen.
Great idea!
--an alternative to what news was once.
Right you are Will.
The Banks will have it all! They must have it all or they will die. $700 billion from the US Treasury in 2008 is not enough. Borrowing billions at 0% interest at the FED's Discount Window and investing it in Treasury Bonds and other interest bearing instruments at pure profit is not enough. Trillions more infused directly into the banks by the Federal Reserve is not enough.
The Banks must have the public employee pension money of workers in New York City. It will not be enough. The Banks must have all the pension money from New Jersey to Florida to California.
The Banks must have the money directed to stave off destitution among elderly Americans. The Banks must have the people's Social Security payments. It will not be enough.
The Banks must have the money directed to working people's health care. The Banks must have American's Medicare and Medicaid benefits. It will not be enough.
The Banks must have the funds directed to public education in the States. Schools must be shut down. Teachers must be layed-off, starting with the most senior, the teacher's with the highest salaries and benefits. The idea of universal public education must be discredited so the whole system can be shut down. It will not be enough.
The Banks must have the proceeds of the international drug trade. The Banks must have the funds generated by the payday loan business, the sub-prime auto and home loan businesses, the student loan money generated by the for-profit colleges.
The Banks must have it all! They must have it all or they will die. They will die anyway. The only question is, will we die with them or resist and live?
Wall Street pay rises to a record $135 billion in 2010.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704124504576118421859347048.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
Bloomberg proposes to cut public employee pensions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/nyregion/03pension.html?hp
We are so far from revolution here that Hubble would be unable to detect it.
The last time I strolled thru a shopping center there was half an isle of hair gell, and most cars on the highways and byways carry one person.
philiphoko
I feel the same, what "Revolution"? We keep on talking of the problems, yap, yap, yap, day in and day out, while the Egyptians and Tunisians went out the streets and did what need to be done. All the while you see Obama and Hillary talk about "Democracy". When a call for millions people march to Washington DC I will be there.
The revolution is like when characters get high in the movies. They inhale and announce, "I am not high." But their actions let the audience know that for sure they are.
You have to look for the signs. We are in the middle of an enormous change. It's not the same as the 60s so no marching on the mall. People are slowly opting out of the mainstream system, so there's no point to going to Washington, DC. The revolution is whererever we all are living.
Fancy, we wait for our turn to be slaughter by the fat pigs. I wonder when will be your turn. Rest assure you will, the day will come, just as we gone through. BTW what change, still the same old "Democracy"?
Obama's speeches sound just like Mubarak.
Yes, effective change at this time involves a quiet shifting of priorities among and within our small spheres of influence. It may not look like much at first, but lots of people sharing resources, talents, and connections adds up to lasting change. Since there is no main figurehead, it's impossible to assassinate or derail the movement, and since it's happening quietly (rather than with protesting and angry signs) it goes mostly undetected until it reaches a threshhold level.
So: yes, we can have a quiet (r)evolution. And: we have within us all we need to be the change we wish to see in the world. Even if you don't have a neighbor who can lend you $5,000, as long as you have a roof over your head and something to eat, you can still be an effective agent of change, one way or another. :-)
I was wondering when someone would connect the dots between the Egyptian situation and life here in the USA. Although we are still able to speak our minds (for now), and most of us have food on the table, there are so many affronts, even small ones, that affect us every day. Sometimes it's breathtaking, how many entities are shaking us down, a couple of bucks at a time.
Thanks, Will, for the food for thought. The American business sector has sold out, and I'm totally ready to turn this thing around!
"Although we are still able to speak our minds"
Really?
Not many conversations challenging the reality or depth of our democracy. Few converse openly about the hypocrisy of Obama supporting the Egyptian people. Few recognize or discuss our new feudalism: instead of tilling for the lord, we work for the plutocrats.
Who talks about how stressed we all are simply because we expend so much psychic energy for our jobs, but have so little discretion for family time or personal time? Our quality of life is difficult to vote for in Congressional or Presidential elections.
Amen, sister.
Thats why no one, no one talks about quality of life in America. And who is to blame? We need to shred the politicians with vitriolic payback for the irresponsible and immoral way they have done their jobs.. while robbing the American people of their earned savings for the future and all security and happiness. In !700 they would have been guillotined. They are bastards and scapegoating everyone , while distracting from even more looting. Shame. We need new government.
You’re right. We need a new country, we know it. It is tragic. What country do you recommend we emulate? Where are you residing?
I think Mr. Wilkinson is missing the big picture here. Does he really think the people of Egypt rose up because someone foreclosed on their home, or their business, or some insurance company didn't wanna pay for their treatment (i think they even have state sponsored health care there). Come on sir, they were living in a police state and under martial law for 30 years. People who opposed the regime would be thrown in jail and disappear. And you are comparing that with some "negotiating with the bank to lower your mortgage"? Talk about Americans being out of touch...
exactly, thank you.
This writer's living in a fool's paradise if he thinks Americans will have revolt anytime in the next two thousand years.
You may sit it out when it comes, as your comment indicates you are sitting it out now. Those who post despairing of change are working, knowingly or not, for the status quo.
You're confusing perceptiveness with inaction, doubledee. In any event, each nation deserves the government it gets, and Americans certainly deserve theirs.
I am confusing only you with adult status, but no longer. When you befriend such uselessness as readbetween, you lie down with dogs and rise up with fleas.
Finally a comment from you with which I can agree, and expound upon, at long last! Had you actually been reading my posts instead of simply looking for a fight ( are you perhaps the same poster with a second name? His desperation for friends might lead him to such despicable and childish tactics). I have been extolling the need to take to the streets for my entire stay here. I have castigated "armchair activism" as well, now known, I am told, as slacker activism.
In the threads posted about the events in Egypt,Tunisia, Bahrain et al I have expressed the hope that these successes will perhaps inspire Americans to act. As a returning Vietnam vet I joined the anti war demonstrations and from that success,as I believe those endless demonstrations helped end that war, I joined a group dedicated to community service.
We worked for over forty years and had , I believe, a positive affect upon conditions in our area. We got senior centers , day care facilities, preschools, and food banks licensed and built or repaired, we registered thousands of voters throughout the years. We met with supervisors, city and county officials and even two mayors in the course of our journey. I am proud to say that our children now run that organisation. None of us ran away to Mexico or anywhere else.
Ever since being present at the first reading of the Port Huron declaration, while a freshman at Michigan, I have been inspired to activism. I have always known that this nation was the root of much evil in the world as well as being a potential for great good. I feel now as I did those many years ago that the people of America are basically good and decent folks, and, once their consciousness is raised, and it inevitably will be, we will take back this "belly of the beast" and make it a force for good.
You two can continue to lie down with pigs, insult and castigate all you wish, you are simply a bump in the road, and useless to any real reforms.
Of all the posters here to take that road you are the most absurd. You rail against white folks, you ran from the land of your birth and you began the stream of insults here as well.
What I am doing is exposing a phony, and perhaps his alter ego as well.
Grow up, stop lying and post something useful.
This a great post ! One aspect of Will's narrative was the depersonalization of institutions, which I think is enabled in great part by computer technology. In the face of this faceless technology, most of us are rendered helpless. We need some leaders, who are tech savvy, to enable the average folks to utilize whatever technology we have to counter the corporations. In a way this has been started by the way Pres. Obama's campaign used the internet to outsmart Sen. Clinton. The Tea Party uses it to produce instant demonstrations. It seems to me that it could be used to mobilize and unite the many who are now bullied by corporations to level the playing field. For example, grass-roots community organizations could mobilize when someone is screwed by a bank and picket outside the bank.
"grass-roots community organizations could mobilize when someone is screwed by a bank "
Or, post the necessary legal documents required to effectively halt these illegal foreclosures --when banks seldom hold the original paper. Look it up. When courts are tested, they have been finding for the bank-ousted owners. No original paperwork to prove the bank claim, no foreclosure rights.
The old guard does not understand that the nature of change, has changed. This is it, short and sweet. The internet changed everything. The architecture of the net is that of DECENTRALIZATION. Power has shifted from the center to the extremities, you and I. The barriers of separation have been lowered. Today there is communication in all directions. Here's the kicker. Decentralization allows the formation of a common vision in a fluid world. Once the vision is adopted by the majority of U.S. web participants then the vision is actionized. There does not need to be a leader. Leaders are centralized, the net and it's participants are decntralized. and with a common vision can move forward without a centralized leader. Egypt is a shining example. Decentralized discussions leads to the adoption of a common vision and that leads to common actions. That is the nature of change today.